English 456: C20 Criticism and Theory Susan Faludi's Backlash:
The Undeclared War Al Drake | Cyber Cafe | Thurs. 4-6 By way of historical background, I offer some summary of and thoughts on Susan Faludi's Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women (1991). Faludi details the "backlashes" that result from even the slightest advances on women's part. She identifies four such reactions: 1) The first came when the mid-C19 movement (she mentions Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton), ran into what I described in an earlier post as the "Teddy's Rough Riders/F. Jackson Turner Era"—America wanted to forge an empire around 1900. 2) The second came around the 1920's after women had again begun to demand and to make improvements: an Equal Rights Amendment was proposed, and a whole lot of national organizations were formed--labor, journalism, etc. The 19th. Amendment (suffrage for women, basically) passed, but then the War Dept., explains Faludi, began accusing leaders like Charlotte P. Gilman and Emma Goldman of being communists in the wake of the Soviet revolution. Then of course came the Depression of 1929, which didn't help matters. 3) The third backlash occurred after women had made gains as workers in W.W.II America. But when the war ended and the male GI's came home demanding jobs, guess who was politely asked to pack up and go home? Yup, Rosie the Riveter. Although, significantly, women remained in the workforce (often as clerical employees), the Eisenhower Era's promotion of the "Feminine Mystique" showed that the chill had set in against feminism. 4) The fourth backlash, says Faludi, came after the gains of the 1970's--reproductive rights and entry into the formerly "male" professions. Faludi takes aim at the Reagan Years as the focus of this fourth backlash, which she says was aimed mainly at the professional and reproductive gains women had just made. Final point: it's worth considering that Faludi doesn't write solely about overt attacks on American women's material status. A big part of the backlash cycle, she suggests, consists in antifeminists' ability to convince many women--especially of the new, allegedly "post feminist" generation--that A CONSENSUS HAS BEEN REACHED ON FEMINISM. The consensus would go something like this: 1) Feminism is unnecessary, since "we" know that "everybody's equal now" and/or 2) Feminism is unwise, since any gains made by its strident, UNNATURAL advocates come only with a terribly high price tag--the incessant ticking of the "biological clock," "depression," "unfulfillment," etc. Faludi's 1991 accomplishment, I think, is to place in context ("historicize") what some take as the consensus view that post-feminism is now the way to go. While recognizing the genuineness of these views on many women's part, she resists--correctly, I believe--treating them as indicators of universal facts or inalienable accomplishments. Treating them as such, she would say, only reinforces what has become a cyclical pattern in women's history: modest advance/step backward . . . . I think that's a valuable point since it allows the "fourth-wavers" (or third-wavers, in some accounts) posited by the consensus manufacturers to examine themselves with a bit of distance.
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