Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

by Susan Faludi

  “The dramatic increase . . .”: Personal interview with Greg Duncan, 1988.

  In 1984, demographers . . .: Ronald C. Kessler and James A. McRae, Jr., “Note on the Relationships of Sex and Marital Status to Psychological Distress,” Research in Community and Mental Health (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1984) pp. 109–30.

  From the start, men . . .: Gallup Poll, May 1989: 31 percent of men said they were the spouse who wanted the divorce versus 55 percent of women. In only 20 percent of the cases did both spouses want the divorce. The 1985 Cosmopolitan/Battelle report also found that women were more approving than men of divorce for unhappily married couples with young children: 43 percent versus 31 percent. See Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989) p. 39.

  A 1982 survey . . .: Simenauer and Carroll, Singles, pp. 379–80.

  The nation’s largest study . . .: Wallerstein, Second Chances, pp. xvii, 40, 41. Weitzman, too, had trouble finding divorced women who regret their decision. She notes: “[E]ven the longer-married older housewives who suffer the greatest financial hardships after divorce (and who feel most economically deprived, most angry, and most ‘cheated’ by the divorce settlement) say they are ‘personally’ better off than they were during marriage They also report improved self-esteem, more pride in their appearance and greater competence in all aspects of their lives.” When Weitzman asked divorced men and women to describe what they missed most from the marriage, the men said they missed having a lover and partner in life, while women said they missed only their husband’s income. See Weitzman, Divorce Revolution, p. 346.

  “Indeed, when such . . .”: Wallerstein, Second Chances, p. 41.

  Nonetheless, in her much-publicized . . .: “Lasting Pain,” The Family In America newsletter, June 1989, p. 1; Judith S. Wallerstein, “Children After Divorce: Wounds That Don’t Heal,” The New York Times Magazine, Jan. 22, 1989, p. 18.

  “Because so little was . . .”: Wallerstein, Second Chances, p. 319.

  “It’s not at all . . .”: Personal interview with Judith Wallerstein, Feb. 1991.

  Public support for . . .: General Social Survey. National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago, See also Arland Thornton, “Changing Attitudes Toward Separation and Divorce: Causes and Consequences,” American Journal of Sociology, 90, no. 4: 857.

  On February 18 . . .: Federation des Centres d’Etude et de Conservation du Sperme Humain, D. Schwartz, and M. J. Mayaux, “Female Fecundity as a Function of Age,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 306, no. 7 (Feb. 18, 1982): 404–6.

  The supposedly neutral . . .: Alan H. DeCherney and Gertrud S. Berkowitz, “Female Fecundity and Age,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 306, no. 7 (Feb. 18, 1982): 424–26.

  The New York Times Bayard Webster, “Study Shows Female Fertility Drops Sharply After Age of 30,” New York Times, Feb. 18, 1982, p. A1.

  A self-help book . . .: Price and Price, No More Lonely Nights, pp. 19-20.

  In fact, in an earlier study . . .: D. Schwartz, P. D. M. MacDonald, and V. Heuchel, “Fecundability, Coital Frequency and the Viability of Ova,” Population Studies, 34 (1980): 397.

  The one-year cutoff is widely . . .: Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, May 1988, p. 35; Jane Menken, James Trussell, and Ulla Larsen, “Age and Infertility,” Science, Sept. 26, 1986, pp. 1389-101; John Bongaarts, “Infertility After Age 30: A False Alarm,” Family Planning Perspectives, 14, no. 2 (March/April 1982): 75.

  In a British . . .: Bongaarts, “Infertility,” pp. 76-77.

  John Bongaarts . . .: Ibid., p. 75.

  Three statisticians . . .: Menken, Trussell, and Larsen, “Age and Infertility,” p. 1391.

  Three years later . . .: The 1982 National Survey of Family Growth Cycle III, National Center for Health Statistics; W. D. Mosher, “Infertility: Why Business Is Booming,” American Demographics, July 1987, pp. 42-43. Five years later, the 1988 update of the Family Growth Survey found that infertility had decreased still further to 7.9 percent.

  “No, none at all . . .”: Personal interview with Alan DeCherney, March 1989.

  A New York Times columnist . . .: Anne Taylor Fleming, “The Infertile Sisterhood: When the Last Hope Fails,” New York Times, March 15, 1988, p. B1

  Writer Molly McKaughan . . .: Molly McKaughan, The Biological Clock (New York: Doubleday, 1987) pp. 123, 4, 6.

  It afflicts women who . . .: Christopher Norwood, “The Baby Blues: How Late Should You Wait to Have a Child?” Mademoiselle, October 1985, p. 236.

  (In fact, epidemiologists find. . .): Data from American Fertility Society, the Endometriosis Association, Centers for Disease Control, and Family Growth Survey Branch of the National Center for Health Statistics, 1989.

  (In fact, professional women. . .): Norwood, “The Baby Blues,” p. 238.

  (In fact, a 1990 study. . .): “Older Mothers, Healthy Babies,” Working Woman, Aug. 1990, p. 93; Diane Calkins, “New Perspective on Pregnancy After 35,” McCalls, Jan. 1987, p. 107; Stephanie J. Ventura, “Trends in First Births to Older Mothers,” Monthly Vital Statistics Report, 31, no. 2, National Center for Health Statistics (May 27, 1982): 5.

  Several state and local . . .: Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc, et al., v. City of Akron et al, nos. 79-3700, 79-3701, and 79-3757, U.S. Ct. of Appeals, 651 F.2d 1198 (1981).

  More than . . .: Carol J. Rowland Hogue, Willard Cates, Jr., and Christopher Tietze, “Impact of Vacuum Aspiration Abortion on Future Childbearing: A Review,” Family Planning Perspectives, 15, no. 3 (May-June 1983): 119-25; Carol J. Rowland Hogue, Willard Cates, Jr., and Christopher Tietze, “The Effects of Induced Abortion On Subsequent Reproduction,” Epidemiologic Review, 4 (1982):66.

  But, as a research . . .: Hogue, Cates, and Tietze, “Impact of Vacuum Aspiration Abortion,” pp. 120, 125.

  Federal statistics bear out . . .: Sevgi O. Aral and Dr. Willard Cates, Jr., “The Increasing Concern with Infertility: Why Now?” Journal of American Medical Association, 250, no. 17 (1983): 2327. Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, p. 51; William D. Mosher, “Fertility and Family Planning in the United States,” Family Planning Perspectives, 20, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1988) pp. 207-217; Charles F. Westoff, “Fertility in the United States,” Science, 234 (Oct. 31, 1986): 554-59.

  The same White House that . . .: Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, p. 17.

  The infertility rates of . . .: “Fecundity, Infertility and Reproductive Health in the United States, 1982,” Data from the National Survey of Family Growth, Series 23, no. 14, National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, Md., May 1987; Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, p. 52.

  This epidemic, in fact . . .: Julius Schachter, “Why We Need a Program for the Control of Chlamydia Trachomatis,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 320, no. 12 (March 21, 1989): 802–3; A. Eugene Washington, Robert E. Johnson, and Lawrence L. Sanders, “Chlamydia Trachomatis Infections in the United States: What Are They Costing Us?” Journal of American Medical Association, 257, no. 15 (April 17, 1987): 2070–74; Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, pp. 61–62. Pharmaceutical manufacturers helped to spread PID, too, through gross negligence—by dispensing IUDs long after their managements were aware of the infection-inducing effects. IUDs increased women’s odds of contracting PID by 9 percent; women who used the infamous Dalkon Shields were six times more likely to develop PID. See Morton Mintz, “The Selling of an IUD: Behind the Scenes at G.D. Searle During the Rise and Fall of the Copper-7,” Washington Post, Health section, Aug. 9, 1988, p. Z12; Pamela Rohland, “Prof Continues Battle over Defective IUDs,” Reading Eagle, Nov. 18, 1990, p. A20; William Ruberry, “Tragic Dalkon Story Finally at an End,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, Jan. 21, 1990, p. F1; The Boston Women’s Health Collective, The New Our Bodies, Ourselves (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1984) p. 421.

  By the mid-to late ’80s, as many as . . .: David G. Addiss, Mic
hael L. Vaughn, Margi A. Holzheuter, Lori L. Bakken, and Jeffrey P. Davis, “Selective Screening for Chlamydia Trachomatis Infection in Nonurban Family Planning Clinics in Wisconsin,” Family Planning Perspectives, 19, no. 6 (Nov.-Dec. 1987): 252–56; Julius Schachter, Dr. Moses Grossman, Dr. Richard L. Sweet, Jane Holt, Carol Jordan, and Ellen Bishop, “Prospective Study of Perinatal Transmission of Chlamydia Trachomatis,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 255, no. 24 (June 27, 1986): 3374–77; personal interview with Julius Schachter of the University of California at San Francisco, March 1989.

  Although the medical . . .: Personal interview with Julius Schachter; Julius Schachter, “Chlamydial Infections,” New England Journal of Medicine, 298 (Feb. 23, March 2, and March 9, 1978): 428–35, 490–95, and 540–49; Washington, Johnson, and Sanders, “Chlamydia Trachomatis,” pp. 2070, 2072.

  Men’s sperm count . . .: Amy Linn, “Male Infertility: From Taboo to Treatment,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 31, 1987, p. A1.

  (Low sperm count is. . .): Infertility: Medical and Social Choices, p. 85.

  The alarming depletion . . .: Ibid., p. 121.

  A 1988 congressional study . . .: Ibid., p. 29.

  “Why don’t we do . . .”: Personal interview with William D. Mosher, March 1989.

  “Most of this small book is . . .”: Ben J. Wattenberg, The Birth Dearth (New York: Pharos Books, 1987) pp. 1, 127.

  Harvard psychologist . . .: Richard J. Herrnstein, “IQ and Falling Birth Rates,” The Atlantic, May 1989, p. 73; “A Confederacy of Dunces,” Newsweek, May 22, 1989, pp. 80–81.

  “Sex comes first . . .”: Herrnstein, “IQ and Falling Birth Rates,” pp. 76, 79, 73.

  His inflammatory tactics . . .: Ben J. Wattenberg, The Real America: A Surprising Examination of the State of the Union (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1974) pp. 152, 168–71; Wattenberg, The Birth Dearth, p. 179. For an excellent analysis, and debunking, of Wattenberg’s birth-dearth theory, see Tony Kaye, “The Birth Dearth,” The New Republic, Jan. 19, 1987, pp. 20-23.

  Just ten years later . . .: Wattenberg, Birth Dearth, pp. 14, 97-98.

  According to Wattenberg’s . . .: Ibid., pp. 9, 57, 95, 115.

  For generating what . . .: Ibid., pp. 119-28, 159.

  “I believe that The Birth Dearth . . .”: Ibid., p. 204.

  Allan Carlson, president . . .: Kaye, “Birth Dearth,” p. 22.

  At a 1985 American . . .: “Views on Women Link and Distinguish New Right, Far Right,” The Monitor, June 1986, p. 1.

  At a seminar . . .: “Birth Dearth Hustlers Want to Promote Baby Boom,” Eleanor Smeal Report, April 30, 1986, p. 3.

  Illegitimate births to . . .: Data from National Center for Health Statistics, Children’s Defense Fund’s Clearinghouse on Adolescent Pregnancy, and Alan Guttmacher Institute.

  The fertility rate has fallen from . . .: Data from National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Bureau of the Census.

  In other words, he was speculating . . .: Kaye, “Birth Dearth,” p. 22.

  They failed to . . .: Frank Furstenberg, “The State of Marriage,” Science, 239 (March 1988): 1434.

  In the mid-’80s, several . . .: See, for example, “The Age of Youthful Melancholia: Depression and the Baby Boomers,” USA Today Magazine, July 1986, pp. 69-71; Martin E. P. Seligman, “Boomer Blues,” Psychology Today, Oct. 1988, pp. 50-55; “Depression,” Newsweek, May 4, 1987; Susan Squire, “The Big Chill,” Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Nov. 1987, p. 137; Mark MacNamara, “The Big Chill Syndrome,” Los Angeles, Aug. 1988, p. 71.

  The rising mental distress . . .: Elizabeth Mehren, “Frustrated by the Odds, Single Women Over 30 Seeking Answers in Therapy,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 1986, VI, p. 1.

  A 1988 article in New York Woman Meryl Gordon, “Rough Times,” New York Woman, March 1988, p. 80.

  In fact, no one . . .: Personal interviews with Ben Z. Locke, chief of epidemiology and psychopathology research, National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Myrna M. Weissman, psychiatry professor at Columbia University and former director of the Yale University Depression Research Unit; Dr. Gerald L. Klerman, associate chairman for research and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University; Jane Murphy, associate professor of anthropology, department of psychiatry, at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Psychiatric Epidemiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, 1988, 1989.

  As psychological researcher Lynn L. Gigy . . .: Lynn L. Gigy, “Self-Concept of Single Women,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 5, no. 2 (Winter 1980): 321-40.

  But the lack of data . . .: Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830–1980 (New York: Penguin Books, 1985) pp. 61, 134.

  The 1983 landmark “Lifeprints” study . . .: Grace Baruch, Rosalind Barnett, and Caryl Rivers, Lifeprints: New Patterns of Love and Work for Today’s Women (New York: Signet Books, 1983) pp. 261, 279.

  Researchers from the . . .: Lois M. Verbrugge and Jennifer H. Madans, “Women’s Roles and Health,” American Demographics, March 1985, p. 36. The 1990 Virginia Slims Opinion Poll also finds a direct link between self-image and employment. See The 1990 Virginia Slims Opinion Poll, p. 28.

  Finally, in a rare . . .: Baruch, Barnett, and Rivers, Lifeprints, p. 281.

  The warning issued by . . .: Susan Faludi, “Marry, Marry? On the Contrary!” West Magazine, San Jose Mercury News, Aug. 10, 1986, p. 6.

  The psychological indicators . . .: See, for example, Carol Tavris and Carole Offir, The Longest War: Sex Differences in Perspective (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977) p. 221; Bernard, The Future of Marriage, pp. 30–32, 312–13; Women and Mental Health, ed. by Elizabeth Howell and Marjorie Bayes (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981) pp. 182–83; Kay F. Schaffer, Sex-Role Issues in Mental Health (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1980) pp. 136–67; D. Nevill and S. Damico, “Developmental Components of Role Conflict in Women,” Journal of Psychology, 95 (1977): 195–98; Walter R. Gove, “Sex Differences in Mental Illness Among Adult Men and Women,” Social Science & Medicine, 12B (1978): pp. 187–198; Mary Roth Walsh, The Psychology of Women: Ongoing Debates (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) p. 111.

  A twenty-five-year longitudinal . . .: Judith Birnbaum, “Life Patterns and Self-Esteem in Gifted Family-Oriented and Career-Committed Women” (1975), in Women and Achievement: Social and Motivational Analyses, ed. by M. Mednick, S. Tangri, and L. Hoffman (New York: Halsted Press, 1975) pp. 396–419.

  A 1980 study . . .: Gigy, “Self-Concept,” pp. 321–39.

  The Mills Longitudinal . . .: Scott Winokur, “Women Pay a Price,” San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 16, 1990, p. E1.

  A Cosmopolitan survey . . .: Linda Wolfe, “The Sexual Profile of the Cosmopolitan Girl,” Cosmopolitan, Sept. 1990, p. 254.

  Finally, when noted mental . . .: Walter R. Gove, “Mental Illness and Psychiatric Treatment,” in The Psychology of Women, ed. by Mary Roth Walsh (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987) p. 11.

  “Women’s burnout has . . .”: Freudenberger and North, Women’s Burnout, p. xiv.

  “More and more . . .”: Shaevitz, Superwoman Syndrome, p. 17.

  “A surprising number . . .”: Susan Agrest, “Just a Harmless Little Habit,” Savvy, Oct. 1987, p. 52.

  As The Type E . . .: Braiker, Type E Woman, p. 5.

  “Women are freeing themselves . . .”: Personal interview with James Lynch, March 1988.

  “The women’s liberation . . .”: Morse and Furst, Women Under Stress, pp. 275, 305.

  “Although being a full-time homemaker . . .”: Witkin-Lanoil, Female Stress, p. 11

  Yet the actual evidence . . .: “Basic Data on Depressive Symptomatology, 1974–75,” U.S. National Health Survey, Public Health Service, April 1980, p. 3; S. Haynes and M. Feinleib, “Women, Work and Coronary Heart Disease: Prospective Findings from the Framingham Heart Study,” American Journal of Public Health, 1980, pp. 133–41; Lois Wladis Hoffman, “Effects of Maternal Employment in the Two-Parent Family,” American Psychologist, Feb. 1989, pp. 283–92; B
aruch, Barnett, and Rivers, Lifeprints, pp. 179–80. A Metropolitan Life Insurance survey found that women in executive jobs have a 29 percent higher life expectancy than women in clerical and low-status jobs; they also have a lower rate of heart disease. See “Gender Health,” Women/Scope, 2, no. 7 (April 1989): 4. The 1988 Gallup Poll found that women’s sense of worth and satisfaction is “strongly conditioned by educational, occupational and financial status”: 81 percent of the women making more than $35,000 were satisfied with themselves, compared with 62 percent of women who made between $15,000 and $34,999, and 42 percent of the women who made less than $15,000. See “Personal Goals of Women,” Sept. 25, 1988. The Gallup Organization, pp. 164–65.

  They are less . . .: Ruth Cooperstock, “A Review of Women’s Psychotropic Drug Use,” in Women and Mental Health, p. 135.

  “Inactivity,” as a study . . .: Verbrugge and Madans, “Women’s Roles and Health,” p. 38.

  Career women in the ’80s . . .: David Alexander Leaf, “A Woman’s Heart: An Update of Coronary Artery Disease Risk in Women,” Western Journal of Medicine, 149 (Dec. 1988): 751-57; Bonnie R. Strickland, “Sex-Related Differences in Health and Illness,” Psychology of Women Quarterly, 12 (1988): 381-99.

  Only the lung cancer rate . . .: Strickland, “Sex-Related Differences,” p. 387.

  Even in the “feminine mystique” . . .: William H. Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic and Political Roles, 1920–1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) p. 220.

  In the ’80s . . .: Hochschild, Second Shift, pp. 241-42.