Word: faludi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...central backlash mechanisms Faludi focuses on is the "feedback loop" between media coverage and popular culture. Her book provides a disturbing look at how the American media perpetuates misleading or inaccurate information just because it fits the preconceived notions of reporters and editors...
...Faludi takes a closer look at the Harvard-Yale study and at how it came to national attention. A Stamford Advocate reporter writing a Valentine's Day story on modern romance called the Yale sociology department and happened to talk to one of the authors of the uncompleted study. The story ran in the Advocate, was picked up by the Associated Press and soon appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country...
...addition to dispelling this and similar myths of 1980s womanhood, Faludi traces the backlash's manifestations in popular culture, from movies to fashion. She provides fascinating behind-the-scenes looks at everything from how Victoria's Secrets top management plan merchandise--based on their own fantasies--to how Hollywood executives turned Fatal Attraction from a pro-feminist film into one where men would yell "Kill the bitch!" in theaters nationwide...
...weakness of Backlash is that Faludi's efforts to disprove charges of women's unhappiness make the reader think that such ideas have no basis in reality--as if no working women are stressed, no children are abused by daycare providers, etc. Still, Faludi performs an important service--no one should accept flawed statistics and inaccurate theories as the boundaries of their lives...
Though 544 pages long, Backlash is anything but a dry treatise. Faludi's tour of 1980s America takes the reader from a Guess jeans photo shoot to the dinner table of a leading anti-abortion activist, providing a fascinating look at the making of U.S. society and culture. Anyone interested in how women are doing today--and especially anyone who thinks they are doing just fine--should read this book...