Rating: 
Summary: Women Don't Need Men
Review: For all you fathers out there who have had to fight with the tenacity of a pit bull for a modicum of visitation rights with your own kids, it may seem difficult to understand how feminists could be so livid - and so full of hate. I speak not only for myself, but for male friends, co-workers, and family members who have lost their homes, a good percent of their income, and have been told by their ex-spouses, girlfriends, and the court just how little time they may spend with their own children. It seems men are just a gang of aggressive tyrants. Of course, they are certainly convenient when it comes to fathering children and paying the bills, aren't they! I find the book to be a declared war against men. I wish a feminist could experience what it feels like to be a disenfranchised father, with the unspoken cultural belief that you're not a man if you show your hurt. Men are taught to hide their feelings and keep quiet about such things. I think it's time we start to speak out.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing work
Review: Former Wall Street Journal writer Faludi's treatise on how Ronald Reagan is personally responsible for the backlash against women. Faludi somehow never seems to explain that Reagan appointed more females than his predecessors, or how female-owned business startups far outnumbered those of men during his term, or how one senile old man could personally influence thousands of male bosses. I found the book anecdotal, not journalistic.
Rating:
Summary: Worthwhile effort
Review: I did find this book readable and interesting. Faludi is not anti-male; she does point out the negative impact on men that anti-feminist attacks create, and she acknowledges that it has been hard for men to adjust to societal changes. She clearly identifies the barriers that exist to full equality for women. I especially liked the way she addressed the fact that many women who strive for equality still want to distance themselves from feminism and the women's movement. This is an important issue; women are forgetting the struggles we have gone through to make progress. I particularly liked the way she exposed the lack of statistics around some of the supposed "trends" about women's lives, as well as the way she exposes that some of the most ardent critics of feminism and women's work have marriages that actually model what the feminist movement is striving for. Yet, these people fail to see the contradiction between their own actions and their stated beliefs/attitudes. What I disliked about the book, aside from it's length, was that Faludi does the same things she faults her critics for: relying on individual vignettes and ancedotal evidence rather than hard statistics to make her point. These stories certainly made the book more readable, but the technique seemed jarring, given the author's repeated calls for hard statistics.
Rating: 
Summary: wonderful!
Review: I grew up in the 80's, when girls and women were constantly being
told by cosmo that there weren't enough men. So when I read this book, I was shocked and angry. It turns out that during the 80's, in the 25-34 age range, there were 118 single men for every 100 women. In fact, given that women tend to marry men two
years or more older, there is always a shortage of women below the age of 35. Several articles I have read recently indicate that since the number of kids born dropped off in the 90's and beyond, that for men in the 35-45 range looking for women about 5 years younger, they outnumber those women 2:1. This information, and this book, really changed my life. I stopped listening to the bull that the media perpetuates every day to scare women. The rule of thumb for me now is, if it sounds too bad to be true, it probably is. Thank you, Susan Faludi!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Who Stole Feminism?
Review: No one says it better than Christina Hoff Sommers:
"The New Feminists are a powerful source of mischief because their leaders are not good at seeing things as they are. Resenter feminists like Faludi, [Marilyn] French [Carolyn] Heilbrun and [Catharine] Mackinnon speak of backlash, siege and an undeclared war against women. But the condition they describe is mythic with no foundation in the facts of contemporary American life. Real-life men have no war offices, no situation rooms, no battle plans against women. There is no radical militant wing of a masculinist movement. To the extent one can speak at all of a gender war, it is the New Feminists themselves who are waging it."
-- "Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women" 1994, Pg 45 Simon & Schuster
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Summary: And so what have we learned???
Review: So, Ms. Faludi, what exactly is the definition of "backlash"??? I would gather, according to your book, that backlash would be anything that does not promote your personal agenda, whatever that agenda may be, and whether that agenda is an honorable one, or not. The amount of statistics you use is most impressive. Should I believe your statistics, or those of your opponents? I guess you would have me believe it depends on what side one is on. "Aliens" is, according to the author, part of the backlash, because Lt Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver), motivated by those terrible "maternal instincts" saves a little girl from a horrible alien monster. "Fatal Attraction" is also part of the backlash for two reasons (at least):
1) Alex (Glenn Close) gets herself into a sexual relationship with Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) for the unacceptable purpose of procreating.
2) Beth Gallagher (Anne Archer) is the one who finally kills Alex for the un-modern, un-feminist reason of defending her family. Ms. Faludi, you need to learn that there is a considerable difference between conjecture and proof; between a denial and a refutation. You insist on so many rights, as though a person is supposed to merely assume that those rights are warranted simply because you want them, and anybody who disagrees with you is part of the "backlash" against women. I like books that invite a person to think and to reason; I do not like books that merely fan ones own flames of discontent. It is a book like this that discredits the genuine inequalities and atrocities that exist in society today, and instead tries to push a definition of what exactly a woman should be.
Rating: 
Summary: fascinating read on women in American Culture
Review: Susan Faludi's Backlash is as important today as it was when it appeared over 10 years ago. Primarily a historical argument, sprinkled with more recent data from the 80s, Backlash argues that for each cultural advance that woman undergo there is a corresponding backlash which serves to undermine recent advancements. Faludi's evidence, although now a bit dated, is compelling, and goes beyond the typical feminist patter about beauty myths to expose serious issues. One of the most interesting aspects of her book was her analysis of anti-feminist women, both religiously motivated and secular. These women hardly practice what they preach. While waxing poetic about the joys known only to women who stay out of the workplace to depend on a male provider and raise children, prominent lobbyists such as Connie Marsher and Beverly La Haye have taken on fighting feminism to the point where they leave the child-rearing to husbands and nannies. Robin Norwood's pop psychology in the form of Woman Who Love Too Much only removes any sense of control from women's lives. Although written as a response to the Reagan Era neo-conservatism, many of Faludi's backlash trends can be seen as re-emerging under the Bush regime. With same sex marriages and abortion issues now back in the fore, an updated version of this feminist classic would be most welcome.
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Summary: Absurd by-product of Anita Hill brouhaha
Review: This became an enormous hit right after the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas brouhaha (remember that?). It's thesis -- that the media is anti-feminist -- was utterly disproven by the insanely large amount of hype the book received in that same media. At the time, I looked up 40 reviews on Nexis and 37 were positive. A curiosity from a strange era now long gone.
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Summary: YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!
Review: This compelling book systematically lays out the case for a post-80s backlash against feminism (firstly setting the scene in a wider historical context). This backlash is all the more insidious because (as in the past) it is not uprfront in its attacks, disguising its intentions by pretending to have women's interests at heart. It manipulates the media and uses many forms of subtle propaganda to get its message across: that feminism has failed, the women are better off when they are "free" to remain in the home, the career woman are burnt out and can't get husbands... and many other such widespread myths. Such theories are proved to be not only misguided or biased but actually statistically untrue. Faludi is using FACTS, not just rhetoric. Opinions are not just stated, they are backed up with example after example, interviews and meticulous research. Of course Susan Faludi has an agenda... but so does any journalist, writer or documentary maker when they take a subject, it is not possible (nor desirable) to write without idealogy. Everyone should read this book because we all need to understand how very much in the power of the media we are! Do we really imagine that the media is an independent entity? It's not, it's controlled by a handful of powerful individuals who pick and choose what they want to tell us, according to their own interests. This is not raving conspiracy theory, it's reality. Every citizen of a democracy has a responsibility to try to find out the truth of things, not just accept what they're spoonfed. Of particular note are the comments on various films ("Fatal Attraction", "Three Men and a Baby"). We so often view movies as just entertainment, the fact is that they are as political and potentially didactic as any talk back radio host! We should always be questioning what a piece of "entertainment" is trying to tell us and why. I watch a lot of films and sometimes feel that a lot of my knowledge of life comes subconciously from this source... This is scary when I remember that films are merely one person's opinion, they are not reality and generally have little to do with the real world! But even more important to me, is the message of this "Backlash" that feminism is (still) under attack. Feminism has become something of a dirty word. Some women are unwilling to admit to such a label saying "I agree with it in principal, but..." Women (and men) need to wake up and realise that feminists come in all sorts of guises and that feminism is at base simply the belief that women should have equal rights to men! The most important myth that this book dispels is that feminism is over, or outlived its usefulness. There are some (Right-wing largely) who would argue that feminism has been a dismal failure for both men and women and society in general (leading to divorce, disharmony, gang warfare, earthquakes, whatever). There are others (some times even so-called feminists) who would say quite complacently that feminism had its day (back in the seventies presumably) and now we women can live as we like and it's all worked out well. Particualarly when you look at the struggle for women's rights in an historical perspective (as in this book) it is easy to see how ridiculous both these attitudes are. Feminism has not 'failed' because it is not completed! It has not yet achieved it's goals. And after all it's scarcely a hundred years since the struggle was begun. Would you say that the civil rights movement is finished? Of course not because the evidence is all around you. As it is with Feminism. Read this book if you are a thinking individual with an open mind! It was published some time ago now, but it's message is no less relavent now...
Rating:
Summary: If you thought feminism was dead...
Review: This is the book to read, second only to Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique in terms of relevance and timelessness to the women's movement. Faludi writes in a wonderful style that does not alientae the reader as many other political texts tend to do (the authors Mary Daly and Camille Paglia coem to mind). This book is a fast read (despite its heft) and I found myself unable to sleep at night, it was that hard to put down. Faludi provides a very balanced, well researched study of the the backlash of the 1980's against women. Scoff if you want, but read this book before you do. (Then you are free to scoff all you want.) On top of the great writing, Faludi interjects this book with enough humor and offhanded comments that make this book hard to dislike. (And I love it.) Even if you're not a believer in the women's movement, this book should be read nonetheless if you really want to know what women are fighting for. This book is unforgettable, and 8.5 years after I read it, I still recommend it with teh same fervor I did then.
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