through stereotyping and the mischaracterization
of women. She contends that the media contributed
to the antifeminism culture through imbalanced re-
porting. The book heavily relies on Faludi’s skills as a
journalist and includes numerous case studies and
specific examples as evidence of the change in soci-
etal views and in the cultural environment.
In 1999, Faludi published another best seller,
Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, about men
and the culture of masculinity. She later published
The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America
(2007), which examines the spreading of myths in a
culture and compares the 2001 terrorist attacks on
the United States with events in the early days of U.S.
history.
Faludi won the Pulitzer Prize for labor reporting
while working atThe Wall Street Journal.Backlash
earned the National Book Critics Circle Award. She
has also written forThe New York Times,The New Yorker,
The Nation, andNewsweek.
Impact Some consideredBacklashthe beginning of
renewed popularity for feminist issues. At the very
least, the book brought discussion of women’s issues
to a higher level. The book coincided with another
story already dominating the media. In 1991, Anita
Hill, then a University of Oklahoma law professor,
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that
Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas
had made unwanted sexually suggestive and lewd
comments to her when she worked with him. As a re-
sult of this allegation and some high-profile Holly-
wood films, sexual harassment was a popular topic in
the early 1990’s.
InBacklash, Faludi frequently refers to Faith Pop-
corn, a marketing executive and best-selling author,
who was gaining popularity in the 1990’s as a self-
proclaimed forecaster of pop culture and business
trends.
In the early 1990’s and for years after its publica-
tion date,Backlashwas required reading in women’s
studies courses and graduate classes at many univer-
sities.Further Reading
Faludi, Susan.Backlash: The Undeclared War Against
American Women. New York: Crown, 1991.
Graham, Judith, ed. “Susan Faludi.”Current Biogra-
phy54, no. 2 (February, 1993): 22.
Halpern, Sue. “Susan Faludi: TheMother JonesInter-
view.”Mother Jones24, no. 5 (September/October,
1999): 36.
Sherri Ward MasseySee also Hill, Anita; Popcorn, Faith; Schlessinger,
Dr. Laura; Women in the workforce; Women’s rights. Falwell, Jerry
Identification American evangelist
Born August 11, 1933; Lynchburg, Virginia
Died May 15, 2007; Lynchburg, VirginiaFalwell continued to be a controversial force in religion and
politics as a representative of the Christian Right, although
his organization ran up huge debt and suffered a drop-off
in donations during the 1990’s.Falwell established the Thomas Road Baptist Church
in 1956 in Lynchburg, Virginia, which grew to over
twenty thousand members in the early twenty-firstThe Nineties in America Falwell, Jerry 321
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Susan Faludi poses with her
book Backlash in 1991.(AP/Wide World Photos)