Word: faludi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...infertility studies, for example, Faludi is right to point out how the results of a small survey were exaggerated. But there are indeed health risks that confront older mothers. Faludi writes that contrary to popular belief, "women under 35 now give birth to children with Down syndrome at a higher rate than women over 35." This is not true. There are more babies born with Down syndrome to women under 35, but that is because there are more babies born to women under 35. The risk of Down and other genetic abnormalities increases with age, according to Gertrud Berkowitz...
Likewise in her condemnation of the marriage study, Faludi is right that there is no man shortage for young women. But according to Barbara Lovenheim, who pored over census data for her book Beating the Marriage Odds, the ratio begins to reverse after 35: between the ages of 40 and 44, there are 75 single men for every 100 unmarried women...
...Faludi demonstrates that the studies on the impact of divorce greatly exaggerate the fall in the average woman's living standard in the year after she leaves her husband. But she adds that five years after divorce, most women's standard of living has actually improved. She relegates to a footnote the fact that this is because most have remarried...
...wage gap, which Faludi says has barely improved since 1955, actually narrowed more quickly in the 1980s than it did in the previous three decades, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That the average woman now earns 71 cents for every dollar a man earns is still inexcusable, but by downplaying women's recent progress, Faludi risks undermining the message that economic inequity is still a real problem...
Although her handling of these facts makes Faludi an easy target of backlash, it should not be an excuse to dismiss her entire argument. "It's perfectly legitimate to point out errors in any book that has a factoid in every sentence. I'm bound to make mistakes," Faludi says. "But to dismiss the whole argument is not right. We should be more focused on how we overcome the backlash." As Ann Jones, an author and professor at Mount Holyoke, argues, "The big picture is there, and the big picture is accurate...