Backlash [ペーパーバック]

I just received "Stiffed" (also by Susan Faludi) in the mail today, so before getting started on that, I thought I'd take a look at "Backlash" again, & remember how it had felt to read it.

It's been quite a few years since I first came to "Backlash", & back then, I remember that it had made a strong impression on me. It turns out that it was a lasting impression, since, reading parts of the book again now, I see that there are points that have stuck with me & formed parts of arguments I myself use sometimes in conversations! The book is not dated, in my opinion, even though it was written in the 80s. Also, the book may be specifically addressing US society, but the basic arguments apply to European countries, as well.

The basic premise of the book you probably know, so I'll just briefly say that it has to do with the backlash that has risen against feminism & its achievements. You could state it like this: Feminism takes 1 step forward & then gets forced to take 1 step back. After reading "Backlash" the first time around, I remember thinking how clear & logical (& true to my experience here in Greece) is Susan Faludi's argument. Lots of people (mostly men, but women too) are threatened by womens' advancements. So they chose the easy way out: they deride feminism, laugh at "lesbian / ugly / man-hating" etc etc feminists & fail to see that feminism is nothing more than the wish for equality between the sexes: not sameness. But equality.

Susan Faludi painstakingly finds evidence that supports her basic argument, & presents loads & loads of research & interviews to prove her point. There are 2 things that I found a little disappointing: one is the harshness of some of her characterizations: I understand what she's trying to do, she's trying to make some of the "backlash movers & shakers" come alive, with vivid writing & many examples. But sometimes her descriptions are purely cruel, & over the top. People are not one-dimensional as she sometimes shows them to be. Second thing I (kind of) didn't like was the extreme length of the book. It did get tiring at times, & did overdo some of the arguments by repeating & repeating them. But maybe her goal was achieved, since these basic arguments have stayed with me for so many years!!

All in all, a landmark book in women studies / feminism, & an interesting book even today, in 2002, quite a few years after its first appearance in bookstores.

I am a male reader who, prior to having read this book, believed that gender was one front on which a great deal of social progress had been made. Reading Faludi's book made me realize how wrong I was. I was amazed at how often I found myself thinking to myself, "Wow, I had never thought of that. That makes sense." I would recommend this book to anyone as a primer of the state of gender equality (or inequality)in America.

... and a very large one back. It wasn't supposed to happen this way, of course. Those of us involved in the social revolutions of the `60's thought "history" would move in a very straight line forward, all the injustices would be remedied, and marijuana would be legalized in Iowa, no later than 1976 (per an article in Scanlan's Magazine [now long defunct] in 1971). The last election underlined that "we" did better on civil rights than some of the other "causes," though Iowa did just legalize same-sex marriages. We sure didn't learn anything from Vietnam, repeating it all over again in Southwest Asia. And Ms. Faludi documents in excruciating, and painful to read details that large step back, and the forces that made it so, the "backlash." No question that she is angry; there is a lot to be angry about. She is occasionally vitriolic, and yes, perhaps some stats are "cherry-picked" to support her arguments, and occasionally she even verves a little too clause to Andrea Dworkin for my comfort.

It is the layer upon layer of real anecdotes that is a major strength of this book. Consider: "Joel Steinberg's attorney claimed that the notorious batterer and child beater had been destroyed by `hysterical feminists.' And even errant Colonel Oliver North blamed his legal troubles in the Iran-Contra affair on "an arrogant army of ultramilitant feminists." One of the intellectual architects of the backlash is a philosophy professor, Michael Levin, and in his book, said: "...I would no more pander to the reader by straining to praise rape crisis centers than I would strain to praise the punctuality of trains under Mussolini were I discussing fascism." Faludi commands a solid historical perspective throughout the book, noting that in 1948, when the United Nations issued a statement supporting equal rights for women, the United States government was the only one of 22 American nations that wouldn't sign it. (So much for that machismo culture south of the border!) And on page 202, she notes that "...the late Victorian beauty press had warned women that their quest for higher education and employment was causing `a general lapse of attractiveness' and `spoiling complexions.'" Plus ca change... the Kinsey Institute reported that American women have more negative feeling about their body than in other culture surveyed.

I decided to read the "nerves that were hit," all 17 (to date) 1-star reviews, and not a single one chooses a single quote, and any stated fact, and says that Faludi was wrong. No, by in large, they prefer to review through innuendo.

Faludi divides her polemic (and cri de Coeur!) into four major parts. I found the middle two, concerning the backlash in the popular culture, and the one of the origins of the backlash the most fascinating. I still remember how the "statistic" that a "a 35-year old, college educated unmarried woman" had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than of getting married." Widely repeated, wildly incorrect, and rarely challenged, particularly the motives of those that spread such anecdotes,(who are promoting two "backlashes" at once). Faludi, rightly in my opinion, reserves her real vitriol for those movers and shakers, like the Heritage Foundation.

She wrote this book almost 20 years ago, and unfortunately it remains overwhelmingly valid today. I'd love to have her update on how the popular presses' "concern" for the fate of women in the Muslim world continues to serve as an immense distraction for the question of why we cannot pass the Equal Rights Amendment in this country. Perhaps I'll find out when I read her "The Terror Dream." "Backlash" remains an excellent, painful read.