I just received "Stiffed" (also by Susan Faludi) in the mail today, so before getting started on that, I thought I'd take a look at "Backlash" again, & remember how it had felt to read it.

It's been quite a few years since I first came to "Backlash", & back then, I remember that it had made a strong impression on me. It turns out that it was a lasting impression, since, reading parts of the book again now, I see that there are points that have stuck with me & formed parts of arguments I myself use sometimes in conversations! The book is not dated, in my opinion, even though it was written in the 80s. Also, the book may be specifically addressing US society, but the basic arguments apply to European countries, as well.

The basic premise of the book you probably know, so I'll just briefly say that it has to do with the backlash that has risen against feminism & its achievements. You could state it like this: Feminism takes 1 step forward & then gets forced to take 1 step back. After reading "Backlash" the first time around, I remember thinking how clear & logical (& true to my experience here in Greece) is Susan Faludi's argument. Lots of people (mostly men, but women too) are threatened by womens' advancements. So they chose the easy way out: they deride feminism, laugh at "lesbian / ugly / man-hating" etc etc feminists & fail to see that feminism is nothing more than the wish for equality between the sexes: not sameness. But equality.

Susan Faludi painstakingly finds evidence that supports her basic argument, & presents loads & loads of research & interviews to prove her point. There are 2 things that I found a little disappointing: one is the harshness of some of her characterizations: I understand what she's trying to do, she's trying to make some of the "backlash movers & shakers" come alive, with vivid writing & many examples. But sometimes her descriptions are purely cruel, & over the top. People are not one-dimensional as she sometimes shows them to be. Second thing I (kind of) didn't like was the extreme length of the book. It did get tiring at times, & did overdo some of the arguments by repeating & repeating them. But maybe her goal was achieved, since these basic arguments have stayed with me for so many years!!

All in all, a landmark book in women studies / feminism, & an interesting book even today, in 2002, quite a few years after its first appearance in bookstores. ( )

I read this book for a Women's Studies course in college and it shocked the hell out of me. Faludi reveals the ways fashion and the media are brainwashing women to believe beauty myths and body image requirements....the sad part is all right in front of our face by we don't see it until it is placed in a concise book such as this.

It's long, but don't be intimidated, because it's really, really good. Faludi details the '80s backlash against the feminist strides made in the '70s, tracing it through pop culture, journalism, government programs and more. Eminently readable, more than a little scary, and even though it's discussing the '80s, it's very relevant today. (Think about all the girl-friendly stuff going on in '90s pop culture. Then think about the Bush Administration.) Highly recommended. Great if you're already interested in feminism and gender issues, but very readable to people who are new to the subject as well. ( )

This is a very informative and interesting book on the backlash to the feminist movement. The author published this in 1991 but I think a great deal of what she talks about is similar today. She focuses on the 80s primarily and a lot of it suprised me. I didn't realize how pervasive the backlash was and how the media willingly took part in it. The book does get a little tedious to read just because of the enormous amount of research the author did and the amount of studies she cites/uses. But I like the amount of research because it backs up her arguments extremely well.

I highly recommend this for anyone who considers themselves a feminist. If you don't consider yourself a feminist, then you'll most likely hate this book and disagree with everything in it. ( )

A seminal book on culture, women, feminism, and backlashes against women. ( )

A look at some non-obvious ways that the media and representation of females was being used to undermine them, post early-feminish.

Certainly some interesting arguments and points made in this book.

The majority of this is focused on the media, until the last part. ( )

I must admit that this was a difficult book for me, as a woman, to read. Written in the early 1990s, the book details the backlash against feminism in particular and women in general that characterized the 1980s. With chapters covering politics, reproductive rights, employment, fashion, academia and Hollywood, it exhaustively catalogs women's condition in late twentieth century America. Not a book to be read all at once (it's too unsettling), this is nonetheless a book that should be read. And quite probably, it should be a book read by men. Deeply thought provoking, I recommend this book to anyone interested in cultural studies or gender issues. ( )

This presents a great overview for understanding feminism in the 80's and is a good foundation before begining to study "3rd wave" feminism. An understanding of the 80's backlash is a must for anyone interested in feminist history. ( )

Required reading. For everyone.

Susan Faludi's book was one of the first books on feminism that I ever read and the impact of the writing was incredibly formative and informative to me.

I hadn't read it in perhaps twelve years or so before I picked it up for re-reading again and it was not quite an easy read as I'd recalled it. Which is more due to its particular significance in time.

As a thorough documentation of anti-feminism in the 1980's and early 90's it is tour de force writing, albeit with the natural focus for an American journalist being on the U.S., with some commentary on the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

The earliest chapters in the book dealing with media misinformation, distortion and outright fakery of "trends", the details of how, historically, feminism has always faced tremendous conservative backlashes and the popular culture sections dealing with film, t.v. fashion and the plastic surgery/cosmetics industry, are all just as relevant now as they were fifteen years ago. We may think of ourselves as media-aware and far less prone to be taken in by hidden agendas and marketing but neither the agenda makers nor marketeers keep their methods in stasis and a reappraisal of that is always worth keeping in mind.

Take the chapter on television. Here Susan Faludi writes of many popular series of the 1980's which went through certain revisions because of pressure from network execs or advertisers to make their programmes less "stridently feminist" in their view. It is worth re-reading this in particular to make you see that the same problems with independent women being portrayed realistically remains.

From Part 3 of the book it deals with the political scene of the United States during 1980-1990 period. As a history this works to a degree; it certainly shows the ability of many neocon groups to gain political power for their agendas. I find it of particular interest to see how the religious right-wing have developed from tackling feminism as an "evil" to their current political deployment since 2001. However, being such a product of its time, many of the influential and popularist figures mentioned have long since dropped off the radar to be replaced by others with a similar view.

This most visibly occurs with the section of interviews entitled 'The Backlash Brains Trust: From Neocons to Neofems'. Although I am not aware of any of the list of interviewees being high-profile, media spokespersons as of 2007 I have to assume (without checking) that a few are still active. It can also be one of the few places in the book where Faludi, as a journalist, cannot help but speculate in a way that could be seen as having pre-judged her interview material.

In my personal view at least two of the interviewees could hardly be classed as worthy of sympathy as they blunder and bluster in such a manner as to show their own personal grudges and bitterness that motivates them. Still, there is a level of interpretation which appears. There is an evenhandedness, if you will, in taking to task the recantations of such feminist icons as Betty Friedan, Germaine Greer and Susan Brownmiller but it lacks any personal interviews and it seems remiss to make hypothetical statements on their intentions without having better knowledge of why these influential figures thought that they were betrayed or misled by their own political and gender beliefs.

The final section, Part 4, is what had the most long-term impact on me. It deals with the ordinary working women, who might not have had the slightest interest in thinking of or calling themselves a feminist, who were most definitely affected by the political clampdown on rights over their working conditions, their health and their bodies. If people think that Third World working and restrictive living conditions only ever exist in the Third World it is more than a salutory reminder. ( )

This is an extremely good book, well-researched and well-written. The author is a Pulitzer-winning journalist, and I have to say that it shows.

My only regret was that it was written in 1991 and therefore it does not talk about more recent times... but what it says up to then is definitely worth reading. (Most of the content is about the 1980s and slightly less on the 1970s.)

The book was written about America and it still focuses mostly on the United States, though this edition was made more inclusive of the rest of the English-speaking world with research about the UK especially (well integrated in the text).

Part 1, "Myths and Flashbacks", should be required reading by anybody who wants to read/listen to the news media. (The author is a journalist, remember: this is not an indiscriminate attack on the media, but rather a clear and well-documented case history about how the media pick and choose their stories and statistics -- and sometimes distort them.)

Part 2 is firmly media studies -- popular culture, especially TV and Hollywood, rather than news as in Part 1. Fascinating in its own right.

Part 3 is about politics in the public, mainstream sense, and about some of the most prominent people in the backlash. The character studies are never ad hominem and always, if not sympathetic, at least as objective as possible. I found some of these stories truly fascinating.

Part 4, "The effects on women's minds, jobs and bodies", gets down to the everyday practical effects of the backlash. The last section, following the stories of several women trying to get into blue-collar crafts jobs in the '70s and '80s, was the most harrowing part of the book to me (surprisingly enough, given that it is rather far from my own personal experience). A moderately upbeat Epilogue was a very good idea on the author's part after this section.

Even after 15 years, this is a book well worth reading. And I believe that the way it is written will make it a good read even for people who disagree with the author (who is never in any way shrill or rethorical in her writing.) ( )

I read this 10 years ago, after it first came out and enjoyed it but didn't completely agree with its premise. Well written. ( )

If you can wade through the statistics, it's a good reflection of women's status in the 1980's; the perspective has changed since then. ( )