THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409150408
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J1 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 231 lines
Susan Faludi grew up in New York City during the tumultuous '50s and '60s, watching women around her return to work, divorce their husbands, get college degrees. Such would form the foundation for her feminist philosophy.
A 1981 graduate of Harvard, Faludi became a copy editor for the New York Times, then a reporter for the Miami Herald, the Atlanta Constitution, the San Jose Mercury News and the Wall Street Journal.
In 1991, she won a Pulitzer Prize for stories about the human cost of Safeway's leveraged buyout. Her best-selling ``Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women,'' published in 1991, transformed Faludi into a prominent spokeswoman for the feminist movement and sparked criticism that she painted women as victims and manipulated her research to further her agenda.
Her next book, to be published next year, deals with men's changing roles in the face of women's transforming roles in contemporary society. It explores men's feelings of confusion, anger and joy as they try to define themselves.
Following are excerpts from a conversation Faludi had with staff writer Lynn Waltz.
Q: Are young women today living with a false sense of equality? Also, how damaging is the distancing of young women from the label ``feminism?'' Should we drop the word feminist? Is there an alternative label?
A. Young women's attitudes have changed to some degree just in the past four years. I think up until, in the last half of the '80s in particular, if you look at opinion polls, you see a large increase in the number of young women saying, ``I'm not a feminist but. . . .'' The other half of that statement is that they actually believe in feminism.
There never have been so many feminist-minded young women. A huge and growing majority of young women expect equal pay and equal voice. They want to be leaders, want to have all their rights and responsibilities. They want to have the influence and authority that men have. The huge majority want reproductive rights. That grows every year. A huge majority of women think that the battle for women's equality is not over.
So when young women say ``I'm not a feminist,'' they really mean, ``I know there's inequality and discrimination, and I know I'll be punished if I speak up.''
Maybe it's just Pollyanna talk on my part, but it seems to me there's been something of a turning of the tide since the last presidential campaign that brought so many women into office.
Clinton put women's rights on the platform in no small measure, particularly abortion rights. That whole period in '89-'90 was a wake-up call for young women. There was a sudden burgeoning of women's rights groups on campus.
So it seems as if at least on progressive college campuses that all these women woke up around '90 and '91. They saw Anita Hill. They saw ``Thelma and Louise.'' They realized if Bush were re-elected they would probably lose their right to an abortion.
Q: If the extreme right under Reagan was responsible for much of the female bashing and backlash, what impact is the Clinton administration having? What about Hillary as a role model?
A. I think the reason there's such hysteria over Hillary Clinton is she is such a powerful woman for women to emulate. So many women do admire her. That's why she's such a threat.
In Kentucky recently, a number of state politicians, including a congressman, burned Hillary in effigy supposedly to express their hostility against the health care bill. When they're reduced to holding a mock lynching of a woman, you know you've got some pretty scared and angry bunnies out there.
I think what makes Hillary so frightening is she represents the future. This is the last gasp of quite a number of dinosaurs out there who know it's inevitable that a woman will run for the top office. Hillary is a dress rehearsal for that. In some ways they're not wrong. A lot of people voted for Clinton because of Hillary. Because she represented a future where society will finally acknowledge that women have just as much capacity to run the country as men.
Q: Aren't women in an era of unprecedented choices? Stay at home; professional career; mommy track; independent businesswoman; independent contractor? What's wrong with that?
A: Sure, you can be a business owner, part of the trend in glamorous entrepreneurship for women. The stats for average growth for these enterprises is pathetic. Most of them are on the minimum wage line. For every Donna Karan there are vast numbers of women for whom independent contracting means cleaning somebody's house.
You can call that a choice but you'd be deluding yourself. You get on the mommy track, wages fall. The temporary service industry that's screwing everybody, it's not an indulgence. Maybe you can only find part-time work. There was a story a few weeks ago about triple moonlighting, people holding three jobs. The days of working for a corporation and getting life insurance and health insurance are over. Those are the real choices facing us.
Q: Some have criticized your book for painting women as victims. If a woman believes she's a victim, isn't she beaten before she starts? Conversely, many young women do not believe they are victims. Do they have a head start?
A. I don't think I said women were victims in the book. The reason I wrote the damn book is not to encourage women to wallow in their victimhood but to stand up and speak for themselves.
What's also very revealing is the same people who so bitterly take to task feminists for ``wallowing'' are the same ones who turn around and say poor men. Men are victimized. They don't know what to do in the workplace. They don't know what the rules are anymore. They're battered as much as women. They're so confused. The poor white male.
The McLaughlin Group, all those guys on TV are constantly bellyaching about how the poor white male has been marginalized and pushed off the face of the earth. Is Howard Stern starving? Is Rush looking pinched in the face for lack of a paycheck?
Q: In your book, you criticize a number of popular movies for their hidden messages that attack women. How do this year's movies fare? Are there any movies that portray women in a good light?
A. Jamie Lee Curtis apparently thinks that ``True Lies'' was a great vehicle for portraying a strong, modern woman, but I don't think so.
Curtis' role is rather humiliating. She gets Hollywood's definition of a a strong woman. You get to do a striptease dance in front of your husband without knowing he's your husband. He gets to humiliate you publicly. Then you get to have a cat fight with another woman and kill her.
The woman in ``Forrest Gump'' was a very odd role because she really came to represent everything that was wrong. She was the victim of the counterculture, the peace movement, the drug experience, the sexual revolution.
The movie had a very sneaky little message while claiming to be on her side. They were rather PC about it. Oh, here's this poor young woman who was molested by her father, who was beaten up by her supposedly peace-loving boyfriend and then, of course, she winds up getting AIDS - the ultimate punishment of the sexual revolution.
So on the one hand, the movie seemed to sympathize with the victim by seemingly taking a feminist line on problems defined by the women's movement - incest and abuse - but in fact, the ultimate message was rather retrograde. If she had just stayed at home and married the simpleton next door, then she wouldn't have had all these problems and be lying six feet under.
I liked ``The Piano.'' A lot of feminist-minded people didn't care for it. I think their argument was that she fell for this man who basically molested her. I thought to read it that way was to reduce it to a formula. The characters were so much more developed and complicated.
I think people don't understand what constitutes a feminist movie. To me a feminist movie is just one that allows women to be full-bodied characters just like the men. A lot of Hollywood movies also do the same thing to men, reduce them.
Q: How do female icons like Roseanne, Madonna, or even Candice Bergen fit into your philosophy? Do they damage or help women struggling for identity?
A. Madonna has kind of disappeared from the scene. We're so ruled by celebrity journalism. She was on every cover on the stand six months ago, then she vanishes. Like Cindy Crawford.
I think the bottom line with Madonna is she's a really excellent capitalist. . . . She's a savvy self-marketer, or she was. I don't know if she would be considered that today.
Roseanne is a different story. I like her, not only for portraying a strong woman, but a strong woman of the working class.
Generally when Hollywood and the sitcom world deign to show independent women, it's generally of the glamourous upper-class stripe. All of popular culture has dealt with class problems by denying they exist. The women I admire are never major icons.
Q: Whom do you admire?
A: Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the great feminist minds and a funny writer to boot. She has managed to wangle her way into a regular column in Time magazine. I subscribe only to read her.
I really admire women like Molly Ivins. There's this whole group of very feisty, humorous, strong women who are writing and speaking today. Musicians, too.
Liz Phair. She's not eager to be called a feminist, but certainly her message is everything feminism stands for. There's sort of a swagger that a lot of these women have.
Shannon Faulkner. I also admire her. She's an example. She won't call herself a feminist, but she's one of the bravest gals in the country. She's a product of feminism. She's the progeny of all these years of struggle not only to push for women's rights but to push women into realizing they deserve it.
Q: You recently wrote a piece for the New Yorker about The Citadel. Is it your impression that VMI is similar? Can any all-male school environment not be sexist? What about all-female environments? Is it two-faced for feminists to complain about all-male schools while advocating all-female schools?
A: To compare an all-male institution that's been around for a zillion years with a small female school that was opened to correct the situation where they had nowhere to go for education is ridiculous. It's convenient for the lawyers to make this argument that it's equality minded, but it's completely duplicitous. These are not men who are out to make the world a genderless place or politically equal place for men and women.
The women's college is not hoarding power. It's not hoarding the top spots in the job market. That's not what they're about. Whereas places like The Citadel, that's how they advertise themselves. We'll use the old-boy network to get you top placement. The old-boy network has broken down. Women will get into The Citadel and realize it's not the road to a powerful job.
Q: Many women feel that Esquire magazine is fundamentally sexist, but Ms. doesn't seem like a good alternative for women hungry for great contemporary writing and comment on our culture. What are the alternatives? How damaging is Esquire to women? Should we be asking our men to discontinue their subscriptions?
A. It's funny you should bring this up because I was just agonizing over this yesterday. The problem journalists have is a shrinking pool of choices of who you're going to write for. I like to be read by people who may not agree with me. I like to persuade them through reporting and persuasive writing.
On the other hand, if you're writing for a magazine that is continually putting forth a hostile and humiliating portrait of women, then isn't it your ethical obligation to protest in some form? Including writing for as well as purchasing the magazine?
I like to think if more of us, meaning my particular breed of feminist, write for that magazine, won't that force out the others given they can only run a certain number of people?
Your ultimate goal is to reach people and make them question what's going on in society around them. I'm not ready to give up on Esquire yet.
The women's magazines are far worse. They're going straight to women saying, ``You've got to look this way and buy these products and do this to your body.'' That's far more damaging because it's served up in such a kind and gentle way. It's presented to us as, ``This is your friendly companion. We're just telling you this because we care about you.''
At least when you get slapped in the face by one of the men's magazines, you know it. You put the woman's magazine down and you loathe yourself and you don't know why. Playboy, you set it down and say, ``I don't like it,'' but you're less likely to internalize it. I prefer that. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
AP/1991
Faludi
Graphic
ESSENTIAL READING
Susan Faludi picks a few must-reads for women today:
Virginia Woolf, ``A Room of One's Own.'' Itwas one of those
formative books for me personally.
Charlotte Perkins Gillman. Even though she wrote in the early
1900s, she's a shockingly modern feminist writer.
Rush Limbaugh. There are really wretched books we should read
just to know what's going on out there, but we shouldn't buy them.
Katha Pollitt. She's a very funny, acerbic, astute feminist
writer, and a columnist for the Nation.
Peggy Orenstein, ``Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the
Confidence Gap.'' This book is really important for parents and
high school girls.
Susan J. Douglas, ``Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with
the Mass Media.''
KEYWORDS: FEMINISM INTERVIEW by CNB