300 Years & Counting 1H KILLS - On The Issues Magazine

CHOICE BOOKSTHE DART THAT STUNGSusan Faludi is a journalist for theWall Street Journal, who wasawarded a 1991 Pulitzer Prize forwork on how corporate policies andleveraged buyout at the Safeway grocerychain destroyed families andcareers. She currently resides in SanFrancisco.When asked about her decision towrite Backlash: The Undeclared WarAgainst American Women, Faludi said:"I was stung by one of the mostcelebrated darts of the backlashagainst women — the 1986 Harvard-Yale marriage study which reportedthat single, college-educated womenover 30 have onlya 20 percent changeof getting married, while the over 35have only a five percent chance. I wasa 26-year-old yuppie when theNev/sv/eek story about the studycame out — a prime target."Why the use of the term backlash?"Backlash expresses most preciselythe dynamic involved. Because it is areactive force, much of backlash is inresponse to feminism. Historically,BACKLASH: The Undeclared WarAgainst American Women by SusanFaludi (Crown Publishers, NY; $24hardcover)Like a CAT scan probing the Americancultural brain, Susan Faludi examinesthe systemic undercutting of women inthe 1980s. Her thesis of a systematicantifeminist campaign uncovers a relatedbacklash propelled by fear of the"increased possibility that they mightwin it." From Hollywood to the AmericanPsychological Association, fromWashington to scholarly journals, fromMadison Avenue to our own homes, thepropaganda resounds: