"Backlash"

(The Undeclared War Against American Women)
-by Susan Faludi
1991
A book about the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s...but also larger in scope, as it places that backlash in the context of the historical struggle for female freedom. Faludi demonstrates that the march toward equality never runs in a straight line, and for each era of great strides (the mid-nineteenth century, the early 1900s, the 40s, or the 70s), there follows a darkly anti-feminist period. She shows how a backlash can infiltrate society, from media to government to medicine to commerce, in ways that seem coordinated, but aren't - more often than not, the people who serve a backlash's ends aren't even aware of their role. But those ends are always the same, to push women back into "accepted" roles. The stock 80s backlash chain of causation? Feminism leads to professionalism leads to neurosis and psychosis - that women who try to "have it all" end up in manless, childless despair (clinicians of the late 19th century similarly linked feminism to neurasthenia and hysteria). To serve a backlash's ends, actual statistics are either manipulated or (more often) ignored. Most fascinating is how issues that have no obvious connection to feminism, are often about little else. Abortion, for instance. The pro-life/pro-choice conflagration that arose in the 80s was about much more than the sentient status of a fetus. Just as with birth control, it went to the heart of any woman's independence - her sexual self-determination. Despite all the brouhaha, Roe v. Wade didn't change national abortion statistics, it just made the reality safer and easier (that is, until the torching or bombing of seventy-seven clinics between 1977 and 1989). Yet despite all the posturing and terrorism, in 2013 supporters of Roe v. Wade outnumber opponents by two to one - just as always. Still not convinced that moral "outrages" which feel so personal, are the result of society telling us what to think? In the historical context, Roe v. Wade wasn't revolutionary, it was just a return to status quo. Abortions have been practiced in one form or another since colonial times, and that right was never questioned until the end of the 19th century. It had always been legal in every state, and public opinion on it largely neutral. It wasn't until the women's rights movement that it acquired any kind of moral taint. This is just one fascinating example of how a backlash permeates a society - but Faludi ends the book by pointing out that women's power is already in their hands, as evidenced by the plurality of women in our population, and the fact that women exercise their right to vote more often than men. As soon as this power is embraced, women can put their issues at the core of any election, and not lose a single one (which is part of why backlashes occur - those in power often realize the possible ramifications of empowered women long before the women themselves). BACKLASH is an amazing book, overflowing with research and statistics. A must-read for any thinker.