Mrs. America season 1 episode 4 review: Mother of the movement

In episode four of Mrs. America, Betty Friedan and Phyllis Schlafly face off in a heated debate, but the winner and losers are ultimately unclear.

Continuing with a frustrating review of the progress and eventual setbacks of the women’s liberation movement, “Betty” begins another year after “Shirley” with the passing of Roe v. Wade and the ERA having been ratified in 30 out of 38 states.

And as the episode title suggests, we primarily follow Betty Friedan, the mother of the movement, and her beleaguered frustrations as she sits back and watches the younger Gloria Steinem take the spotlight.

“Betty” also blesses us with another bit of excellent casting — the great and good Miriam Shor as Natalie Gittelson, Betty’s best friend and notable feminist in her own right. Natalie rightly reminds Betty that Gloria wouldn’t exist without her, and even if they tell her to be quiet, she doesn’t have to listen.

This leads us to an uncomfortable barbecue at the Women’s Caucus Convention that we’ve all been through, I think. Poor Betty is the outcast of the group. In some ways, this is fair. She was a noted homophobe who didn’t always have the best political track record.

However, despite the controversial woman behind it, The Feminine Mystique was an incredibly powerful and impactful book that sold nearly 3 million copies between 1963 and 1966. It is true that Betty walked so Gloria (and many others) could run.

Betty is also right to be concerned about Phyllis Schlafly. While Gloria and Bella think that ignoring her is the best way to go, Betty is afraid that she’s getting too powerful and that the ERA is in danger. However, she’s soon overpowered as they all “vote” to do nothing.

But Betty is nothing if not outspoken, and a bit of a political nutjob as she’s done some sort of “research” finding financial ties between the Schlaflys and the John Birch Society (and maybe even the Klan). This leads to the central event of the episode: a debate between Betty and Phyllis in Illinois.

It’s been ten years since The Feminine Mystique was published and Betty was at the height of her career. Mrs. America illustrates for us beautifully how her life has changed since then as she looks through her closet and finds a dress she wore on a Dick Cavett-esque talk show to promote the book.

In the flashback, Betty stuns with a hilarious orgasm joke, winning over the crowd. In short, she’s a star. It also serves as a helpful primer for viewers who may not fully understand who Betty Friedan was or what The Feminine Mystique did.

In a flash, it’s over. We’re back in the present where Betty is very much out of the limelight, living in a pretty sad apartment, and mostly alone.

We see a bit of the old Betty return when it’s time to debate Phyllis. The two women meet in the bathroom beforehand as they powder their noses and it’s abundantly clear they are opposite sides of the same kind of coin (at least, as Mrs. America would have it).

The two women fire off some crazy comments, and then it’s time for the debate where Betty already has a big advantage in the room, as it’s a college campus. For a while, she’s winning the debate handily, even though she’s not debating and is more or less yelling on top of Phyllis.

But then Phyllis, helped by some pre-debate training from her husband, finally pivots from logical attacks to personal ones, alleging that the ERA will break up the family unit just like all the unhappy feminists want.

Betty loses it and calls her a witch, saying she wants to burn her at the stake. Naturally, she loses the debate in that moment, and the final moments of the episode follow her spiral as she realizes she did exactly what Gloria and company feared.

The subplot of the episode revolves around the drama inside Ms. Magazine. When Margaret (previously introduced briefly in “Gloria”) tries to pitch a story about tokenism in the workplace, the millions of white women immediately shoot it down in a panic of defensiveness about racism. Ugh.

And Gloria is too distracted by a nasty cartoon of her in a men’s magazine to realize what’s happening in her progressive newsroom.

Thankfully, Margaret has a safe space to go: Flo Kennedy’s (the ever-fabulous and underappreciated Niecy Nash) house party full of awesome Black women where she can freely be herself. This includes hanging out with her partner and child.

When some of the other women there talk about the problem with the gay community in their politics, Flo immediately squashes it and tells them to leave saying there will be no “lavender menace” ish in her home.

All of this nonsense leads to Margaret and Flo deciding there needs to be an official organization for them, leading to the creation of the National Black Feminist Organization.

I’m very glad to see Mrs. America continue to broaden its scope and tell the story of women in the movement who aren’t only white and straight. Women of color have been the backbone of civil rights and progress only to have white stories dominate the narrative. It’s important to tell Margaret and Flo’s stories alongside Gloria and Betty’s.

After all, without Indigenous women, the suffragists never would have existed. And Gloria wouldn’t have without Betty, either.

After prodding from Natalie, Gloria finally acknowledges this in the closing of the episode, telling Betty she was right about Phyllis, and thanking her for The Feminine Mystique. I have no idea if this conversation actually happened, but I certainly hope it did.

The first few episodes of Mrs. America are currently streaming on Hulu.