1980s in America
One way people think of the 1980s is as the decade when the radical, baby boomers of the 1960s became adults. Certainly, most Americans spent the 1980s reckoning with the cultural and social upheavals of earlier decades, especially feminism and the women’s movement. In Backlash, Susan Faludi looks at how Americans of the 1980s came to think about the effects of the women’s movement. The book addresses, in order starting with Chapter 2, the issues of: “scientific” studies of women; feminism; print media (magazines and newspapers); movies; television; fashion; the beauty/ cosmetics/ surgery industries; the New Right/ conservative ideology; politics and the Democrats; societal “experts”; the self-help industry; women’s work/ jobs/ careers; and abortion.
Choose the topic that most interests you from the list above. Submit a brief response paper (about 500 words) that explains how that topic expressed a backlash against women and feminism during the 1980s. What sort of evidence does Faludi use to show that a backlash exists? What does this backlash tell us about women’s place in the 1980s in general? Does that cohere or conflict with your impressions about the decade before reading this book?
*** I am a 39-year-old woman. My professor k ows this. I clearly knew about the mistreatment of women.
