Susan Faludi delivers the Graduate School's annual Olin Foundation Lecture in Bailey Hall March 26. Robert Barker/University Photography
At a time when the media is holding up women like Linda Tripp and Paula Jones as feminist icons, Susan Faludi says, it's no wonder women are wary of the feminist label.
Faludi addressed a crowd of about 1,200 in Bailey Hall Thursday, March 26, in the Graduate School's annual Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Foundation lecture. A prominent feminist and journalist, Faludi spoke about the perceptions of feminism in today's society, as well as its impact on men's roles.
Faludi is perhaps best known for her 1991 best seller Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which argued that women were under a counterattack for the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and it challenged the idea that women were suffering because of the movement.
In her lecture Thursday, Faludi called the past year a "silly season" for feminism. The characters in movies such as the First Wives' Club are being held up as feminist icons along with women involved in allegations of sexual misconduct against the president, she said.
"We've entered a very muddled time," Faludi said. "And this is a peculiar burden for feminism."
In critiquing the causes of these distorted views of feminism -- or "revisionist feminism," as she termed it -- Faludi said commercial culture was much to blame. Celebrating women such as Tripp, Jones and Monica Lewinsky is more about marketing then exposing the issues that affect all women, she said.
Faludi defined traditional or "authentic" feminism as striving for equality and the expansion of opportunity for women. And she attacked revisionist feminist thinkers who look at individual women as marketable figures lacking the desire to strive for collective causes.
"These women do not show traditional feminism's focus on the right to speak, but rather on the right to be packaged and sold," she said. "They shift feminist focus away from political and economic freedoms to personal life freedoms. They focus on condemning traditional feminism, instead of critiquing the world around them."
"It was refreshing and inspiring to hear a reasonable feminist critique of popular culture," said junior Lindsay Davis. "She reflects the core values of true feminism."
In the second part of her lecture, Faludi discussed her upcoming book on the role of men in society. Since all men struggle with what it means to be a man, she said, she sees their circumstance as very real and complex.
Many men struggle with feelings of powerlessness -- feelings that some right-wing demagogues try to exploit, Faludi said.
Thus, while women are moving into new roles, men are becoming nostalgic for the past and often using women's groups as scapegoats -- even though both men and women may be suffering under the same institutions.
Faludi argued that men are in danger, not from losing their traditional roles, but from not acting to discover new realms of human identity. And she challenged women to help them find the way.
"Women can play a part in opening a door for men, a door that may lead to a world far more just and humane than one we live in now," she concluded.
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