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Title: Stiffed : The Betrayal of the American Man by Susan Faludi ISBN: 0-380-72045-0 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.12 (107 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Not a bad book but not on Backlash's level
Comment: Stiffed is not up to the landmark level Susan Faludi reached with Backlash, to be sure. However some of the negative reviews derive their "facts" from something other than what's contained in this book.
Comments on Faludi's appearence seem to be based upon confusing/lumping her with Naomi Wolf (both are strong writers but they bear little resemblences in their grooming standards). Other "reviews" seem to be based upon what they think might be in the book as opposed to what's actually in the text. (Reading Stiffed would provide those "reviewers" with a stronger grasp of the actual book.)
I've now read the book five times and will surely read it many times more in the future. I bought it at a local bookstore when it came out (in the pre-online shopping jump). Backlash was and is an amazing book. As her follow up to Backlash, Stiffed can not help but suffer from comparisons.
The hardcover editions of both demonstrate that smaller type was used for Stiffed -- especially on the subheadings. Backlash weighed in at 460 pages and Stiffed weighs in at 608 -- in smaller type. So Faludi certainly gets in more words here.
That makes it all the more surprising to me that Stiffed did not provide more enjoyment. (Where, for instance, is the humor evidenced in Backlash -- as when Faludi answers two questions for Susan Brownmiller?)
Her case studies are strong. That's not the problem. It's her scope and the way she puts it together. She devotes a section to Promise Keepers, or rather local Promise Keepers groups where men share their feelings and experiences. I was distressed reading this section. The groups seem to serve some need for the men involved in them and let's hope they bring the peace the men seem to think they do. But regardless of that, they are a part of the larger group Promise Keepers and I feel it was remiss on Faludi's part not to present an analysis of the larger group. Now maybe Faludi, as a woman, can't get a close up look to the larger group.
I attended one gathering (and I believe women weren't allowed at this conference -- they certainly weren't allowed to speak). Nationally known male figures spoke and what they said was troublesome to me. (Along the lines of not sharing a relationship but controlling it and commanding it as a birthright -- my take on the conference.) It wasn't the let's-all-help-each-other-man crowd Faludi met in the "encounter" (my word, not hers) groups she attended. (The language at the conference I attended covered all bases but quickly fell to cursing -- cursing at police officers and security guards who were attempting to maintain peaceful exiting from the stadium and safe crossing to the parking lots -- when an unexpected hail storm hit the stadium.) Maybe I caught them on a bad day. But I don't think Faludi can really comment on a sub-group without commenting on the larger group they belong to.
With that section, I felt Faludi missed her premise at the outset. With one or two others, I felt she didn't carry her points far enough.
This was especially true of her examination of the history of Details magazine. I felt we got half the story and that it wasn't connected in the manner that was required or carried far enough. (One aspect ignored was over the controversy generated by the Stephen Dorf and Michael Stipe cover stories. Most readers of the magazine remember the editorial reigns changing hands at this time.)
Some critics have argued Stiffed is a Backlash retread. I would disagree. In fact, had she approached the book as a male study equivalent, I think Stiffed would have been a better book.
It would have given it a firmer structure. Backlash didn't hop from group to group. Chapters dealt with certain subjects: entertainment, fashion, myths, etc.
In an interview while promoting Stiffed, Faludi did a great job analyzing the then recently released film Fight Club. It was exactly comments like those that are missing in the book. Although Fight Club hadn't shown up in the theaters prior to Stiffed's publication there were many other movies she could have analyzed and discussed.
It's been suggested in another review that she's ripping apart what she proposed in Backlash. I feel that's a misreading. Backlash's central thesis is not opposed to the findings in Stiffed. Both books deal with the cultural myths and ideas we're given as opposed to the realities we live.
As for the comments that she's somehow been harsh on males, I disagree completely. She was far more vigorous when exploring women (and men) in Backlash.
I also would argue that Backlash had endnotes worth reading. If you've read Backlash but skipped the endnotes, go back and read them. Some just cite sources but many include additional comments from Faludi. That's not the case with the "endnotes" to Stiffed which, with about fifteen exceptions, are strictly citations.
Maybe Stiffed was the victim of the typical sophomore slump. Or maybe she could hear her detractors as she wrote and attempted to respond to that within the text of this book. Maybe it was an editing decision on the part of publishers. No one really knows but Faludi.
Despite all of that, it's still a book worth reading. It has many sections that dazzle. Hopefully on her next book, Faludi's humor will be more present and she'll examine underlying causes
-- large and small -- more. But that doesn't mean Stiffed is a bad book. Or even just an okay book. It is a notch below Backlash but it's still filled with provocative insights. (And few books ever achieve what Backlash did.) No one can dispute that Faludi can convey the particulars of a meeting -- her eye for key details remains as strong as her insights -- and she remains a writer worth reading.
Rating: 5
Summary: She's tied it all together
Comment: Displaying fascinating and unique case studies, Faludi's Stiffed is a terrific contemporary sociological analysis of what has been happening to the American male over the last forty years. She's definitely hit on something and her conclusions seem to be right on the mark. To boil down the six-hundred odd pages into a succinct conclusion: Faludi combines bad dads, the U.S. culture of superficial consumerism, and of course the diminishing amount of well paying, unionized blue-collar jobs, to prove that many American men have been getting kicked in the teeth over the last four decades.
Faludi does a tremendous amount of leg work in interviewing everyone from male porn studs and ghetto gangsters to midwest gun huggers and fanatical football fans. The most jaw-dropping chapter is her analysis of the bullying and hazing that goes on at the Citadel. Here is a bunch of macho superpatriots who have bought into the American dream their entire lives, yet when they graduate they'll have a good chance of serving drinks at Orange Julius (through no fault of their own and much like college grads everywhere).
She does a masterful job of dissecting the after effects of the My Lai massacre, specifically how American life has treated both Lt. Calley and the heroic whistleblower. Moreover Faludi documents all sorts of bizzare behavior on behalf of virtually the entire My Lai platoon.
Stiffed is almost seven hundred pages and contains loads of information, but because it's so interesting and well written, and includes the unique dynamic of having a feminist intellectual lending her talents to the plight of the American man, it's quite an enthralling and fascinating read. I left this book thinking that Faludi's really tied it all together and has come up with a coherent, holistic and acurate picture of what's actually been going on. Stiffed is an excellent addition to Faludi's library which contains the already classic "Backlash." If you've read either one, than you owe it to yourself to read the other.
Rating: 2
Summary: The contradictions between "Stiffed" and "Backlash"...
Comment: As a man and Faludi fan, I jumped at this book when it came out. I read Backlash, and found Faludi's arguments urgent and persuasive. It won many awards precisely because it presented exhaustive research and brilliant reportage. In Backlash, Faludi made some very strong, brave claims, and they wound up totally convincing because of her disection of each issue. I was very disappointed when I finished Stiffed, to find that Faludi used the very methods of research she vehemently (and astutely) criticized in Backlash!
Backlash was ground-breaking because Faludi dismantled the "research" and "evidence" presented to America by the media, who never bothered to analyze the studies they were reporting on, e.g. irresponsible journalism. She managed to skillfully show how even the studies by top-notch, esteemed scholars were just methodologically flawed, biased diatribes. She even criticizes Queen-Feminist Betty Friedan for asserting in The Second Stage that men may not be able to bend for every feminist demand simply because men already feel so weak in this culture.
So, then, after being so impressed by Backlash, I pick up Stiffed. The first chapter is precisly arguing what Friedan (and five or six male authors she included in Backlash) was villified for.
But the most glaring, irrepairable flaw in Stiffed, as other reviewers have alluded to, is this: many of the influential research done is the 80's was effectively weakened by Faludi's observation, in Backlash, that small samples were used to explain the attitudes and behaviors of all American women. In fact, THE book on the effects of divorce on women, was viewed as obsolete by Faludi because the author relied on 20 or so women, who were dealing with special circumstances. When reading Stiffed, one can't help but remember this powerful argument against misrepresenting a population. In fact, Faludi, in Stiffed, relies on 10 men...and men who no doubt were included for their unique and extreme situations. Faludi dismissed the women in the divorce study becuase they were welfare recepients, which, she argued, would no doubt present unique struggles. Then, in Stiffed, she asks the reader to accept the underlying issues and negativity in men based on her sample. (Porn Stars, Sylvester Stallone, the Spur Posse, students at the Citadel) You get the point.
While the topic of man's futile quest for masculinity is VERY important and relevant, the bottom line is this: AFTER READING STIFFED, ONE CAN'T HELP IMAGINE, HAD IT BEEN WRITTEN BY SOMEONE ELSE, WHAT A BRILLIANT AND ENTERTAINING JOB FALUDI WOULD HAVE DONE BUTCHERING THE METHODOLOGY AND FINDINGS IN HER BOOK BACKLASH!
Trust me, this is not the book to read if you were empowered by "Backlash," and want it to remain a source of reference and scholarly achievement.
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Title: Backlash : The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi ISBN: 0385425074 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 06 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The WAR AGAINST BOYS: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers ISBN: 0684849577 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 12 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women by Christina Hoff-Sommers ISBN: 0684801566 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Decline of Males: The First Look at an Unexpected New World for Men and Women by Lionel Tiger ISBN: 0312263112 Publisher: Golden Books Adult Publishing Pub. Date: 02 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Gendered Voices by Karin Bergstrom Costello ISBN: 0155015788 Publisher: Heinle Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $44.95 |
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