Susan Fauldi is an American journalist, humanist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and writer of the book published by Three Rivers Press in 1991; Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Backlash is truly revolutionary, educational, and thought provoking. Women have come so far and have been making much advancement for years now. In just the past 40 years, The Equal Rights Amendment, The Equal Credit Opportunity Act, The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and most presently the Lily Ledbetter Act are some examples of women’s advancements. Although it seems like things are getting better and women are continuing to make more and more progressions there is still much discrimination they endure regularly, which is known as the ‘backlash’.
Susan Fauldi’s thesis essentially states that although women in the 1980’s were told that they had been liberated due to the rights granted to them during the Women’s Movement, they began to suffer a backlash in many areas because of the gains they were making in response to their newly possessed rights. Fauldi argues that the media is the driving factor in the existing backlash. As women were making strides and gaining power in many areas, they experienced a forced adherence to much discrimination and disparity. Susan Fauldi argues that although the women’s liberation movement should be considered a wonderful, progressive event in history, in reality it is seen by many, predominantly those who wish to prohibit women, as threatening. These feelings of threat and intimidation cause the liberation and entire movement to act as a source of problems women had to face during the 1980’s. Susan Fauldi’s ideas, words, and thoughts throughout the chapters in her book, further relay the message to her readers that the problems women experienced after the movement are extremely misleading due to their construction in the media without any trustworthy evidence. She also explains that the backlash can be seen as a historical trend, which...