The War Against Feminism

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Conservative critics charge that Faludi falsely conjures up a junta of antifeminists who conspired to force women to buy lacy underwear, watch reactionary movies, quit their jobs, mind the kids and do the laundry. "She chooses to invent a malevolent conspiracy instead of railing against God and the facts of nature," says author George Gilder, who describes himself as "America's No. 1 antifeminist." On the contrary, Gilder argues, the media and politicians are all in the ideological thrall of the feminists, "because feminism and sexual liberation are the religion of the intellectual class in America." The reason more women do not hold elected office as a result, he adds, is because "women don't vote for feminists. The people don't want feminism. Only the elite does."

Faludi, in fact, takes pains to make her targets more subtle. "The backlash is not a conspiracy, with a council dispatching agents from some central control room, nor are the people who serve its ends often aware of their role," she explains. "Some even consider themselves feminists."

Why the Backlash Worked

If American women perceive a backlash against their progress, it is probably due more to what they encountered at work than on the screen or in the newspapers. The persistent recession pitted men and women against one another in a battle over job quotas that threw all the issues of economic fairness into bold relief. "Women, after all, and minorities are the first to lose jobs," observes Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a black political leader in Los Angeles. "So there is what you might call a new militancy among women."

It was the showdown between Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill that unveiled the depth of passion that women still feel about discrimination in private and public life. The fact that a majority of women as well as men wound up disbelieving Hill did not change the fact that the episode was a defining moment in the backlash debate. The National Women's Political Caucus placed an ad in the New York Times and in one week raised $85,000 from 1,300 people, far exceeding any of the caucus' previous ads or mailings. "Anita Hill focused attention on the fact that there were no women on that Senate panel making decisions about people's lives," says Harriett Woods, president of the caucus. "Hill-Thomas opened it up like a volcano erupting." The episode allowed feminists and others to make the point loud and clear, and with visual aids, that women are not to blame for their troubles, that the women's movement still has a role to play and that powerful forces will be fighting back.

But the question remains of why so many women with firsthand experience of discrimination still refuse to call themselves feminists. There is something in the label that a lot of women, especially young ones, reject even as they acknowledge how much the movement increased the opportunities available to them. Younger women "think of feminists as women who burn bras and don't shave their legs," says Pat Schroeder, dean of Capitol Hill's 29 Congresswomen. "They think of us as the Amazons of the '60s. The facts have no relation to it, but it's become conventional wisdom."