Word: faludi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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More broadly, Faludi's feminist critics view her book as flawed and condescending because it treats women as victims, passively accepting what the culture imposes on them. Chicago Tribune columnist Joan Beck argued that "for all her feminist tenets, Faludi sells women short. The millions of women who are rethinking their full-time commitment to a job and are finding their primary satisfactions in family are, in her view, silly sheep being pushed back into the kitchen and the bedroom by men who want them to stay subordinate...
Conservative critics charge that Faludi falsely conjures up a junta of antifeminists who conspired to force women to buy lacy underwear, watch reactionary movies, quit their jobs, mind the kids and do the laundry. "She chooses to invent a malevolent conspiracy instead of railing against God and the facts of nature," says author George Gilder, who describes himself as "America's No. 1 antifeminist." On the contrary, Gilder argues, the media and politicians are all in the ideological thrall of the feminists, "because feminism and sexual liberation are the religion of the intellectual class in America." The reason more women...
...Faludi, in fact, takes pains to make her targets more subtle. "The backlash is not a conspiracy, with a council dispatching agents from some central control room, nor are the people who serve its ends often aware of their role," she explains. "Some even consider themselves feminists...
...rejection of the label may, as Faludi argues, demonstrate the insidious effects of the backlash. But it may also reflect the failures of the movement. Paula Kamen, 24, author of Feminist Fatale, is a fan of Faludi's. But she urges that "in this age, the women's movement has to look in the mirror." Like some other critics, Kamen thinks that Backlash lets the women's movement off too easily. "It isn't all media conspiracy...
Contrary to Faludi's backlash thesis, the signs that women are having second thoughts are not purely an invention of the media. In 1985, given the choice between having a job or staying home to care for the family, 51% of women preferred to work, according to the Roper Organization; by 1991 that number fell to 43%, and 53% said they would rather stay home. It is certainly possible to see this self-questioning not as a sign of weakness but as a sign of strength. "It's not a sense of defeat. But it's saying, 'I have many...