#susan faludi

[haggishlyhagging]

The more women are paid, the less eager they are to marry. A 1982 study of three thousand singles found that women earning high incomes are almost twice as likely to want to remain unwed as women earning low incomes. "What is going to happen to marriage and childbearing in a society where women really have equality?" Princeton demographer Charles Westoff wondered in the Wall Street Journal in 1986. "The more economically independent women are, the less attractive marriage becomes."

Men in the '80s, on the other hand, were a little more anxious to marry than the press accounts let on. Single men far outnumbered women in dating services, matchmaking clubs, and the personals columns, all of which enjoyed explosive growth in the decade. In the mid-80s, video dating services were complaining of a three-to-one male-to-female sex ratio in their membership rolls. In fact, it had become common practice for dating services to admit single women at heavily reduced rates, even free memberships, in hopes of remedying the imbalance.

Personal ads were similarly lopsided. In an analysis of 1,200 ads in 1988, sociologist Theresa Montini found that most were placed by thirty-five-year-old heterosexual men and the vast majority "wanted a long-term relationship." Dating service directors reported that the majority of men they counseled were seeking spouses, not dates. When Great Expectations, the nation's largest dating service, surveyed its members in 1988, it found that 93 percent of the men wanted, within one year, to have either "a commitment with one person" or marriage. Only 7 percent of the men said they were seeking "lots of dates with different people." Asked to describe "what concerns you the day after you had sex with a new partner," only 9 percent of the men checked "Was I good?" while 42 percent said they were wondering whether it could lead to a "committed relationship."

These men had good cause to pursue nuptials; if there's one pattern that psychological studies have established, it's that the institution of marriage has an overwhelmingly salutary effect on men's mental health. "Being married," the prominent government demographer Paul Glick once estimated, "is about twice as advantageous to men as to women in terms of continued survival." Or, as family sociologist Jessie Bernard wrote in 1972:

“There are few findings more consistent, less equivocal, [and] more convincing, than the sometimes spectacular and always impressive superiority on almost every index—demographic, psychological, or social—of married over never-married men. Despite all the jokes about marriage in which men indulge, all the complaints they lodge against it, it is one of the greatest boons of their sex.”

Bernard's observation still applies. As Ronald C. Kessler, who tracks changes in men's mental health at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, says: "All this business about how hard it is to be a single woman doesn't make much sense when you look at what's really going on. It's single men who have the worst of it. When men marry, their mental health massively increases."

The mental health data, chronicled in dozens of studies that have looked at marital differences in the last forty years, are consistent and overwhelming: The suicide rate of single men is twice as high as that of married men. Single men suffer from nearly twice as many severe neurotic symptoms and are far more susceptible to nervous breakdowns, depression, even nightmares. And despite the all-American image of the carefree single cowboy, in reality bachelors are far more likely to be morose, passive, and phobic than married men.

When contrasted with single women, unwed men fared no better in mental health studies. Single men suffer from twice as many mental health impairments as single women; they are more depressed, more passive, more likely to experience nervous breakdowns and all the designated symptoms of psychological distress—from fainting to insomnia. In one study, one third of the single men scored high for severe neurotic symptoms; only 4 percent of the single women did.

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[freneticphoneticfanatic]

Hearing other women talk vaguely about how things “used to be bad for women” saddens me. Things were really bad for women in [INSERT TIME PERIOD HERE]. (Not now though.) There’s always a sense of distance and indifference. An impersonality, an underlying sigh of relief, “Not that bad, could be worse.” I think this is a result of disconnection from each other and our histories. And I don’t think it’s totally our faults.

In my experience going to school in the USAmerican Midwest, I was taught the barest bones of women’s history. It was totally impersonal, cold, not engaging for me at all. We pretty much solely focused on legislature, and that did not thrill me. (Did you know Jane Addams had intimate relationships with women?) But then I started doing “independent study” (reading lesbian feminist writing) once I graduated high school and it was like my brain was exploding. I’m reading The Dialectic of Sex and I still feel that way. I just can’t get enough.

As a result of reading what I’ve read, I feel a stronger connection with women who are different from me because it turns out we have a lot in common. I feel less inclined to say things like “Women had it bad back in the day, but things are better now,” because I know not that much has actually changed, and the concrete changes that have been made are new and fragile. (Women in America only had a constitutional right to abortion for fifty years.)

I think if more women read books like Backlash by Susan Faludi, Loving to Survive by Dee LR Graham, and A Passion for Friends by Janice Raymond, we will have a wider perspective and a better shared understanding of our situation and position in our societies. I also think a lot of women would feel less crazy and alone upon reading women’s accounts of our own lives, what we synthesize from our experiences and observations, and how we can do things differently. That’s the effect feminist work had (and continues to have) on me.

You likely won’t find these books at a bookstore—at least that’s the case where I live—but you can find them online. I use ThriftBooks and Better World Books, and I’ve never received a damaged or illegible copy of a single book I’ve ever ordered, even though they’re super cheap, usually under $10 for a book. (They sometimes have highlighter marks or notes written in the margins, but I like seeing what the previous owner had to say, and I like to write in them too.) Finding and reading these books is well worth the effort. Talking about them and sharing them with other women is well worth the effort, too. I’d like to encourage every woman to get in touch with her intellectual legacy.

[patemi-pk]

Currently reading Susan Faludi's Backlash. To put it mildly, I'm not appreciating Xadhoom's storyarc more.

I'm 100% aware that the way it looks informed by the backlash isn't intentional, but some tropes are definitely problematic.

(I'm tempted to write an article on it)

[leo-fie]

When reading Susan Faludi's Backlash, which you all should do, there was a rerelease a few years ago and it's important to note how nothing has changed since the original release in 1991, ...

Anyway, when reading the hollywood and tv section of this book, there are multiple mentions of a tv executive by the name of Shapiro. That's not too rare of a name and there's a lot of Shapiros in the US, but I can't help but wonder if that Shapiro is Ben Shapiro mother. Ben Shapiro, the founder of the Daily Wire, terrible debater, worse journalist, wrong opinion haver, harbinger of the current fascist movement in the US and inspiration for multiple mass shooters. We know he wanted to be a screenwriter, we know his mother was a tv executive.

Just a thought.

And it will never not be funny that between all the far right assholes who wanted to work in the arts, Ben kinda failed the hardest since he couldn't even make it with nepotism.

[borgqueens]

I’m reading “Backlash” by Susan Faludi right now and as someone who was just a little kid at the time, I had no idea how dystopian things were getting for women in the late 80s and early 90s. The Handmaid’s Tale was literally this close to becoming reality, jfc.

[mutabledisaster]

finally finished reading backlash. time to start working on my ticket to hell so i can PERSONALLY ensure ronald reagan is sufficiently suffering

[orlaite]

Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991)

[hyenagurl]

Hi, your TME post was some time ago but I have the opportunity to talk about how narcissistic they can be. What privilege they are talking about in the first place? It pisses me off and makes me sad for the girls who believes these kind of stuff and ends gaslighted. This is not the first time I have seen someone like them have their account exclusive to shit on biological females. They are literally incels but with extra steps.

honestly, even they dont have an answer. it operates the same as mens rights activism: aggrieved entitlement towards what they think women, or in this case, AFAB nonbinary people and trans men have access to that they dont, or some sort of oppression they experience that is supposed to be something AFABs dont. ive seen these terms thrown around a lot but i never see any real examples, and thats because its a reactionary movement. its not a real school of thought with actual principles, this is just a very angry reaction to womens rights; that is, this is just another, albeit more cleverly disguised reincarnation of antifeminism, once again mutated to adapt to whatever flavour of feminism is popular right now, ie, liberal-feminist gender ideology. ie, just men whining, as they have since the conception of feminism in the late 60s.

[haggishlyhagging]

In Idaho in 1990, one of the nation's most restrictive abortion bills was vetoed by Cecil Andrus, the state's "pro-life" governor—after pro-choice women declared a boycott of Idaho potatoes. Some feminist leaders argued against such forceful tactics. "Let the governor make his decision based on the seriousness of this issue and the Constitution, not potatoes," National Abortion Rights Action League's executive director Kate Michelman advised. But it was the boycott that clinched it. "Anytime someone threatens one of our major cash crops," Governor Andrus explained, "it becomes significant."

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[dukeofankh]

I mean, I want to make it clear, while I do personally enjoy more activist-adjacent discussions a la feminism because I am personally interested in that as a topic, a big part of what I want is just a sense of community with men who are not abusive, misogynistic, or obsessed with heirarchical squabbling. Both so that I can have social spaces in which I feel safe, and so that we can see aspects of ourselves reflected and celebrated in others.

Frankly, I don't think men respect each other. And I think progressive men are especially prone to viewing themselves as the sole or vanishingly rare exception to an otherwise bad group.

Are there many ways to be a man? Sure. For example, I have a pretty low tolerance for combative conversational styles, but some men thrive in that environment. I don't think that there is a moral judgment to really be made about that style of communication, even if it is fair to say that it has advantages and disadvantages. I might not enjoy an otherwise moral and positive masculine community if the way the men interacted with each other was too chirpy and antagonistic, even if to everyone else it was clearly meant in good fun.

So any sort of community standard is by definition exclusionary, and I do acknowledge that in my post, but I think the issue at hand is more nuanced than just typical ideological purity testing. Most men need to be able to respect each other in order to respect themselves as singular examples of men.

As for why, and moving to your second comment, it reminds me a lot of conversations in Susan Faludi's Stiffed. She would suggest that manhood is inherently tied to social utility--a sense of self built around being a contributing member of society--and that how to become that has historically been a process inherently tied to the mentorship of older men. Seeing good men model good manhood, learning how to perform it yourself, and then seeing in yourself the traits you associate with a good man. Absent that, manhood is nothing more than ornamental, an arbitrary performance completely severed from any actual relevance to society or the self.

How can someone move from seeing themselves as a good boy to being a good man if we struggle to envision older men who aren't on some level ontologically bad? If we cannot tangibly see what a good man looks like on a day to day basis, then there is no way to look at ourselves and find good manhood there, because the term is empty of a model or meaning.

I want to emphasize this though, even if I personally have a dim view of every man being an island unto himself, I do not think the answer is a monolithic masculine model. Masculinities, plural, is definitely the way forward. A Super Smash Brothers character select screen (complete with customizable Mii for people who don't like any of the models and prefer to do their own thing) is a far better analogy for what I think would actually have a positive effect than one all-encompassing yardstick by which to judge a broad and diverse group. A balance of community and modelled behavior on one side, and flexibility on the other.

Trying to find progressive masculine community is so exhausting.

I've flipped through local men's groups, trying to find places to explore masculinity in a chill, progressive setting. First of all, they mostly seem to be modelled after AA, and like, my gender isn't a debilitating addiction, it's part of my identity actually, but also, the invite and description of the event have maybe a short paragraph tops actually waving vaguely in the direction of what the purpose of the group is, and then ten to twenty paragraphs breaking down the rules. One spent longer talking about the hand signals he would use to direct conversation than he did describing what the conversation would be about. Another had a full paragraph explaining that if the group thought you were evading what they thought your "real" problem was, they'd probably "call you to take accountability". Like...I don't even know who these people are yet and they're already letting me know that they view it as their right, no, their duty, to bully me into seeing things their way. Like, this is in the invite.

...and this warning is there instead of any sort of breakdown of like, I dunno. Whether you should be a feminist to show up. Whether it was a safe space for queer men. What the hell they wanted to talk about. Joining a men's space is on some level inherently submitting yourself to the authority of the leaders of that group, and you don't usually get a particularly clear breakdown of what the values and goals of those leaders are, because on some level the answer is always going to be "whatever I want"

And like, unfortunately you do need to filter men to build a men's space. You do need to remove or chastise men who act in ways that are toxic or disruptive or misogynistic. If you don't things turn into an MRA chapter pretty quick. But the sort of emergency powers that leadership takes on as a result of that...just kind of naturally end up reproducing masculine heirarchies.

MensLib, the only online community of progressive dudes talking about masculinity that I'm aware of, is...on Reddit. So there is a moderator system. In theory, a moderator is there to...moderate. This is a space where people are going to be talking, and mods are there to make sure things don't get too toxic or off topic.

The issue is that, on some level, that is technically a leadership position. In a sub trying to rehabilitate masculinity. So you've got a bunch of folks who view themselves as the leaders of this bastion of goodness standing against the depredations of the misogynistic internet, guiding the hapless smooth-brain neophytes towards The True Way.

In practice, this looks like 95 percent of the posts submitted for the subreddit being rejected. That isn't hyperbole. On average, the sub has about one new post per day. Almost all posts directly relating a personal experience are deleted immediately, in favour of articles written about masculinity in traditional media publications, which are considered more trustworthy than the sus lived experiences of the guys in the sub. The post I wrote here about the effect of purity culture on male sexual shame that's sitting at about 15K notes was based on a 10K word post I wrote for Reddit that was deleted because "I didn't cite any sources to prove that there is a link between purity culture and male sexual shame, or that my experience was anything more than anecdotal". I get comments deleted on a regular basis, and after paragraphs of protesting in modmail that my comments are both fully in line with feminism and not against the rules, the mods have just finally told me that the rules don't actually drive their actions as a team. They delete anything they feel leads the conversation in a direction they personally feel is unproductive. The rule cited at the time of deletion is really just the broad category of why they decided to hit the button that says nobody is allowed to read what I wrote.

The issue is kind of twofold. First of all, progressive men do not trust other men. A good dude knows that he, individually, is a good person, but literally any other man external to him is on thin ice. Do you really want to tie your wagon to that guy? Do you trust him, really? How do you tell the difference between a guy criticizing an article because it's factually incorrect and criticising it because a woman wrote it? Probably best to play it safe and delete it. Weight of the odds, he's probably a misogynist, right? This is the internet.

And thats the other half of it. If you view yourself as part of the leadership of The Good Guys, and you're getting hatemail from incels and facists all day, you get to the point where most of the time people challenge your authority it's because they're a terrible person. It is very, very easy to get to the point where someone challenging you is seen as evidence that they are a bad person. And now someone is challenging you (and therefore bad), in an environment where you are in charge, and you have a "make your opponent disappear" button.

I know. A Reddit mod was rude to me and now I'm butthurt. It's petty and stupid. I'm just feeling like there's nowhere else to really go, and I'm pretty despondent that literally every space I've seen that even looks like it might be for progressive men has the same deeply hierarchical structure and constant status-oriented squabbling as patriarchal spaces.

[itsy-bitsy-sassy-sis]

i recently realized im in my "finding myself" era, which like? I thought i already did that growing up? by apparently i have to do it again? idk fuck being in your twenties

anyways, everything is so tiring, the economy, the misogyny and the overall state of world we live in and for some reason i notice it more. i might blame it on the bubble i chose to live in, but at the same im not mad i get to be aware of those issues. but i think i found the sollution at least.

books. and occasionally some articles, but mostly books.

i say, if those things are going to torment me every day, at least im gonna be educated about them. no more "idk man, i think this thing sucks, but i don't really know what to say or do about it". there are deep social-economic issues behind my suffering and im going to figure out what they are and why they exist in the form they do

[jackklinemybeloved]

I changed my mind reading feminist theory is too sad. I read one page of a book from the nineties and nothing has changedddddd

[femsolid]

"Feminism has a tendency to trash the past, setting fire to its own legacy in order to start afresh – a process Susan Faludi has dubbed its ‘ritual matricide’. Women who went before us are an embarrassment. In late 2020 a tweet comparing Covid-19 to feminism went viral, declaring both to have ‘problematic second waves’. The young female tweeter gained multiple likes and follows, which may be of less practical use than the equal pay legislation and domestic violence shelters created by second-wavers, but at least they are clean. The longer you live, and the harder you fight, the dirtier your hands become."

- Hags by Victoria Smith

[atavist]

For years, a mysterious figure preyed on gay men in Atlanta. People on the streets called him the Handcuff Man—but the police knew his real name. @atavist issue no. 149, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” is now live:

No one could be certain when the Handcuff Man had staged his first attack. Adamson claimed that he’d been terrorizing Midtown since the late 1960s, that he drove a white Lincoln, was about five foot ten, and had black hair and glasses. A sex worker said that the Handcuff Man had picked him up in Piedmont Park in 1977, asked him to take shots of liquor, then assaulted him. The victim managed to flee with a stab wound to the shoulder, and later saw the man again at the park eyeing other male hustlers. He didn’t report the crime because he was afraid of being outed to loved ones.

In 1984, Susan Faludi, then a twentysomething reporter a few years out from becoming a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, wrote a front-page story about gay hustlers for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She asked her sources about the dangers of their lifestyle and learned that “the greatest fear on the street right now is invoked by the specter of ‘The Handcuff Man,’ a man who reportedly picks up hustlers, offers them a pint of vodka spiked with sleeping pills and then handcuffs and beats them.”

[maxdibert]

They butchered all female characters and it's true, but people can simply don't like Sansa's chapters or don't enjoy her character because she's classist. She thinks bastards are beneath her in earlier chapters and in Alyanne. She's disgusted by Arya spending time with Butcher boy and other peasants because they're beneath her.

I'm not saying she's s bad person or the worst one or that we should blame her for being passive while being hostage. She's a kid, she's s victim, she can still have a positive change. but I'm reminding that saying people are misogynist because they don't like her is a reach. And it's not that people hate her, they just point out things she did or thought about in canon and her fans scream "you hate her! You hate women!" No. It's okay to not like a character, you can point out their flaws, it doesn't make you a mysoginist.

Oh, trust me, the issue isn’t that people simply don’t like Sansa—it’s why they don’t like her and the patterns that emerge when you look at how traditionally feminine female characters are treated in fandom discourse.

See, I don’t care if someone criticizes Sansa for her classism. That’s a valid discussion. I don’t care if someone dislikes her personality. Not every character is for everyone. But let’s not pretend that the dominant criticism Sansa gets in fandom spaces has ever been about her early prejudices. No one’s out here writing essays about how Sansa Stark needs to deconstruct her internalized feudal biases. What do we see instead?

“Sansa is useless.” “She’s weak.” “She’s stupid.” “She just stands there and does nothing while other people suffer.” “She should have done something.”

And that’s where misogyny enters the chat.

Because when you actually break these takes down, what they boil down to is that people resent Sansa for not being proactive in the way that they think a strong female character should be. She’s written as a character whose resilience is passive rather than active, who survives through adaptability rather than aggression, and fandom hates that. This is a known trend in media reception.

Feminist film and literature studies have examined this bias for decades. De Beauvoir discusses how femininity is traditionally coded as passive, and because of that, it is devalued in comparison to traditionally masculine-coded traits like physical strength, direct confrontation, and assertiveness. Susan Faludi discusses how women who embody traditional femininity often face more ridicule than those who adopt “strong” or “unconventional” roles. And the male gaze, as theorized by Laura Mulvey, conditions audiences to respond more favorably to female characters who are active participants in traditionally masculine-coded spaces—combat, strategy, direct rebellion—while dismissing those who navigate systems through softer, less immediately visible means.

Sansa fits this mold perfectly. She does not fight with a sword, she does not make grand speeches, she does not take direct violent action, so fandom deems her “useless.” But here’s the catch—this standard is not applied equally.

Think about how Tyrion is treated for his ability to navigate the political landscape through words rather than force. Is he called “useless” for not picking up a sword and charging into battle? No—because intellect and political maneuvering, even when nonviolent, are still considered active and thus valuable in a way that Sansa’s more passive survival is not.

Now, compare Sansa’s treatment to Arya’s. Arya is beloved in fandom spaces, and yes, she has her own set of haters, but notice how different the tone of that criticism is. Arya is rarely called “useless.” She is rarely ridiculed for being afraid. She is allowed to be traumatized, to make mistakes, to be messy and complicated in ways that Sansa is not—because Arya performs a more masculine-coded form of resilience. She fights, she kills, she runs, she rebels.

And just to be clear, none of this means that Arya’s arc is bad or that her popularity is undeserved. The problem isn’t that Arya is liked—it’s that traditionally feminine resilience is not. The issue is that Sansa is not disliked because of her flaws in isolation, but because those flaws reinforce her femininity, and femininity is what people are actually responding negatively to.

This is why calling Sansa hate misogynistic is not a reach. It’s not about saying that everyone has to like her. It’s about looking at the larger pattern of why she is dismissed, why she is mocked, and why so many people cannot accept a female character whose form of strength does not align with masculine-coded ideals.

So no, I’m not saying that every single person who dislikes Sansa is a raging misogynist. But I am saying that if your criticism boils down to “she’s useless, she’s weak, she’s stupid,” you should probably examine why those specific critiques keep coming up for female characters who embody traditional femininity. Because it’s not a coincidence.

[fem-lit]

hey gyns! i’m so sorry i haven’t posted in so long. i thought we could have a poll to choose which book to read next.

CORRECTION: the phyllis chesler book title is actually “woman’s inhumanity to woman”!!! sorry :/ it seems like i’ve forgotten how to copy? i promise i won’t make the same mistake with the quotes though.

2nd CORRECTION: her name is supposed to be laura bates not hates!!! how mortifying. not going to repost/reupload the poll since it’s already gotten a couple of votes, but please know that i am so so sorry!!! and embarrassed!!! i feel very illiterate D: