Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women

Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women’s Rights

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“Opting-out,” “security moms,” “desperate housewives,” “the new\nbaby fever”-the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American\nwomen are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that\nSusan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of\nrevelations. Now, the book that reignited the feminist movement is\nback in a fifteenth anniversary edition, with a new preface by the\nauthor that brings backlash consciousness up to date.

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When it was first published,_Backlash_made headlines for\npuncturing such favorite media myths as the “infertility epidemic”\nand the “man shortage,” myths that defied statistical realities.\nThese willfully fictitious media campaigns added up to an\nantifeminist backlash. Whatever progress feminism has recently\nmade, Faludi’s words today seem prophetic. The media still love\nstories about stay-at-home moms and the “dangers” of women’s career\nambitions; the glass ceiling is still low; women are still punished\nfor wanting to succeed; basic reproductive rights are still hanging\nby a thread. The backlash clearly exists.

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With passion and precision, Faludi shows in her new preface how\nthe creators of commercial culture distort feminist concepts to\nsell products while selling women downstream, how the feminist\nethic of economic independence is twisted into the consumer ethic\nof buying power, and how the feminist quest for self-determination\nis warped into a self-centered quest for\nself-improvement._Backlash_is a classic of feminism, an alarm\nbell for women of every generation, reminding us of the dangers\nthat we still face.

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From the Trade Paperback edition.

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