Skillfully Probing the Attack on Women’s Rights

Opting-out, security moms, desperate housewives, the new baby fever—the trend stories of 2006 leave no doubt that American women are still being barraged by the same backlash messages that Susan Faludi brilliantly exposed in her 1991 bestselling book of revelations.

When it was first published, Backlash made headlines for puncturing such favorite media myths as the infertility epidemic and the man shortage, myths that defied statistical realities. These willfully fictitious media campaigns added up to an antifeminist backlash.

With passion and precision, Faludi shows how the creators of commercial culture distort feminist concepts to sell products while selling women downstream, how the feminist ethic of economic independence is twisted into the consumer ethic of buying power, and how the feminist quest for self-determination is warped into a self-centered quest for self-improvement.

Backlash is a classic of feminism, an alarm bell for women of every generation, reminding us of the dangers that we still face.