Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

THE BACKLASH MYTH 239become the majority in what was previously a male-dominated profession."39The New York Times article summarized the research as follows:A fresh body of research—mostly by a new generation of femaleeconomists who've mined a mountain of unexplored data—showscompellingly that women were big economic winners in the 1980sexpansion and that their gains are likely to keep coming in the1990s regardless of who is in the White House. . . . Conventionalwisdom—enshrined in the best-selling book Backlash: The UndeclaredWar Against American Women, among other places—has itthat women made no progress in the past decade. In fact, womenwere stuck earning around 60 cents to the men's dollar from 1960through 1980, but started catching up fast as the economy expandedduring the 1980s. 40The Times reports that the proportion women earn of each dollar ofmen's wages rose to a record 72 cents by 1990. But the Times points outthat even this figure is misleadingly pessimistic, because it includes olderwomen who are only marginally in the work force, such as "the motherwho graduated from high school, left the work force at twenty and returnedto a minimum wage at a local store." Younger women, says theTimes, "now earn 80 cents for every dollar earned by men of the sameage, up from 69 cents in 1980."It might be supposed that it was not so much that women did well butthat men did poorly in the recent recession. However, Baruch Collegeeconomics professor June O'Neill, director of the Center for Study ofBusiness and Government, showed that even in areas where men didwell, women did better: "At the upper end, where men did very well,women went through the roof." According to Francine Blau, a Universityof Illinois economist cited in the Times story, the eighties were years inwhich "everything started to come together for women."None of these facts has made the slightest impression on the backlashmongerers. For years, feminist activists have been wearing buttons claimingwomen earn "59 cents to a man's dollar." Some journalists havequestioned this figure: Faludi calls them "spokesmen" for the backlash. 41According to Faludi, "By 1988, women with a college diploma could stillwear the famous 59-cent buttons. They were still making 59 cents to theirmale counterpart's dollar. In fact, the pay gap for them was now a bitworse than five years earlier." 42