Backlash : : the Undeclared war Against American Women

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Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Faludi, Susan, 305.42 Fa
On Shelf At: Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Faludi, Susan	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	305.42 Fa	4-week checkout	Due 04-30-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Gender Studies / Faludi, Susan	4-week checkout	Due 04-29-2024

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Backlash--a label given to anyone who disagrees submitted by Quoniam on December 21, 2008, 12:28pm In addition to attributing every incident in which women are harmed to discrimination, Faludi makes use of overblown statistics, ad hominem attacks, and out of context quotes to paint a bleaker picture of reality for American women.
Like many radicals, Faludi believes that anybody who disagrees with any of her stances is bigoted and therefore not worth listening to. In one chapter, she details the daily life of men's rights leader Warren Farrell, attacking him without addressing any of his actual arguments.
Around the end, Faludi makes a whole section illustrating how much women's reproductive rights have been hampered during the so-called 'backlash' while completely ignoring the fact that men have no reproductive rights whatsoever. It seems that, much like today's feminists, as well as the second wave, Faludi cares more about making men the enemy than trying to find ways to help women in those few areas where they are indeed disadvantaged.
On top of it all, this book is poorly-written. I wish I could give it zero stars.

A Well-Researched, Surprising History of American Women submitted by unknown on August 31, 2019, 12:35am If you've ever heard the statistic that a 40-year-old single woman is "more likely to be killed by a terrorist" than ever marry, this book might be of significant interest to you. This terrifying factoid comes from pre-9/11 demographic research conducted by Harvard and Yale Universities and was also published in Newsweek's 1986 cover story, "The Marriage Crunch." Jeanne Morman, a demographer at the U.S. Census Bureau, found that this research was unsupported by the facts and that many of these single, educated women were simply marrying a bit later than the norm at the time. She attempted to contact the researchers to no avail and eventually got a correction published in Newsweek, but by then it was too late. The national media had already amplified the story and these "facts," while incorrect, had been repeated ad nauseam and accepted as gospel in popular culture. Interestingly, Newsweek published a followup article "Marriage by the Numbers" in 2006 in which they claimed that trends have changed and talked to some of the single women interviewed in the original article but completely ignored the argument that their statistics were wrong in the first place.

This was the case that inspired Faludi to write Backlash. Her overarching thesis is that while American women and the feminist movement have made significant strides, there has also been a powerful backlash against women's progress. She dissects how this backlash has played out in the home, the workplace, and popular culture. I found her analysis of anecdotal "trend journalism" and the case against American Cyanamid Corp particularly interesting. The latter is shocking to read, especially for anyone born after that time.

I read this book over 20 years after it was published but sadly felt that many of the issues discussed therein are still very prevalent today. It will not cover every issue for every reader (it is not extremely intersectional), but I found it to be a worthwhile, eye-opening read. I would recommend the other reviewer read Susan Faludi's followup book "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man." Personally I didn't find it as interesting, but it is also well-researched and shows how American gender roles have impacted men over the course of the 20th century.