Mrs  America: What's Fact and Fiction in
Channel: Trending
Date: 2020-04-16

Mrs. America, the new FX miniseries from creator Dahvi Waller, tells the story of the women’s liberation movement through the compelling and contentious women who shaped it. The nine-episode historical drama, whose first three episodes are now streaming on Hulu, focuses primarily on the political struggle surrounding the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and the unexpected backlash led by Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative “sweetheart of the silent majority.”

The miniseries follows leaders on both sides of the debate, with Schlafly fighting against the amendment and National Women’s Political Caucus co-founders Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, and Jill Ruckelshaus fighting for it. Weaving together multiple storylines, both personal and political, the show offers a nuanced portrait of the battles over the women’s rights movement in the early 1970s. However, as a disclaimer that introduces each episode notes: “Some characters in the program are fictional and some scenes and dialogue are invented for creative and storyline purposes.” So what’s real, and what’s invented? We consulted the history books to break down the series’s first three episodes.