A Wash U professor wrote a very good article about how honoring Phyllis Schlafly & Chris Mathews is indicative of a larger issue: Is the University selling it’s soul – a research-oriented, intellectual, scientific award winning soul – to look cool?
Also, of note, according to an alumnus who was a student rep to the Board of Trustees, the suggestion to honor Gloria Steinem was quickly shot down. Apparently, honoring individuals “from all aspects of the political spectrum” doesn’t include both sides of the feminist “debate.”
As I began writing this post – using only Schlafly’s last name in the title, a burning, desparate question occurred to me: Is Schlafly’s beer, the best local beer in STL, owned by Shlafly’s family and does Phyllis have any say?
The answer is yes – sort of. According the Schlafly’s website, Phyllis is the aunt of the owner, Tom Schlafly, and was married to Tom’s father’s brother. However, she is not involved in the business. Furthermore, it’s unclear as to whether Tom even works there: “Tom is a lawyer who tells the people in his law office that he practices law full time; and he tells people in the brewery that he works on the brewery full time. No one in either place is really sure what he does.” Funny.
To make things a little better, they give you some sense of their feelings about women:
- Why don’t you guys have Schlafly girls?
- We do, they’re just too classy to dress like tramps and flaunt themselves as sex symbols (anyhow, our beer is so good, we don’t need gimmicks to promote it).
So next time I’m in the Lou, I know I can sip on a Schlafly guilt free.