Stiffed: The Betrayal of Modern Man by Susan Faludi (2000-09-07) Paperback – January 1, 1760

I was so surprised by this book. Although a friend recommended it, by the title I did not think I would be all that interested. Fascinating. I don't always agree with some of Faludi's conclusions but the research is well documented and it leaves the reader the opportunity to draw ones own conclusions.It is surprising what the she has found. Very surprising. An original work as far as I know. I hope the length of the book doesn't anyone away. I think if you have any interest in modern cultural dynamics, particularly sexual dynamics, this is a rare book about men.Why on earth is this book written by a woman instead of a man? Where are our chroniclers?

Susan Charlotte Faludi (born 1959) is a journalist and author, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991. She has also written Backlash and The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 662-page hardcover edition.]She said in the first chapter of this 1999 book, “Both the feminist and the antifeminist views are rooted in a peculiarly modern American perception that to be a man means to be at the controls and at all times to feel yourself in control… Everywhere men look… they are told that there is no alternative: they must be at the helm. A man controlling his environment is today the prevailing American image of masculinity.” (Pg. 9-10)She continues, “Men don’t see how they are influenced by the culture either; in fact, they prefer not to. IF they did, they would have to let go of the illusion of control. Today it is men who cling more tightly to their illusions. They would rather see themselves battered by feminism than shaped by the larger culture… By casting feminism as the villain that must be defeated… men avoid confronting powerful cultural and social expectations that have a lot more to do with their unhappiness than the latest sexual harassment ruling.” (Pg. 14)She observes, “When I talk with men who grew up during the baby boom, this mission to manhood shows up in their minds not as promises met but as betrayals, losses, and disillusionments. It is as if a generation of men had lined up at Cape Kennedy to witness the countdown to liftoff, only to watch their rocket---containing all their hopes and dreams---burn up on the launchpad. There had been so much anticipation, so much excitement, so many assurances that nothing could possibly go wrong. But somehow, it all had.” (Pg. 27)She asks, “A question that has plagued feminists like myself is the nature of male resistance to female change. Why are so many men so disturbed by the prospect of women’s independence? Why do so many men seem to begrudge it, resent it, fear it, fight is with an unholy passion? The question launched my inquiry. But, in the end… It is not the question, finally, that drives this book… The more I consider what men have lost---a useful role in public life, a way of earning a decent and reliable living, appreciation in the home, respectful treatment in the culture---the more it seems that men of the late twentieth century are falling into a status oddly familiar to that of women at mid-century… I began to wonder why men refrain from engaging in their own struggle… why don’t men revolt?” (Pg. 40)She reports cases such as that of Don Motta, who “had worked as a military-contracts negotiator… For the last quarter of his tenure at the company, Motta had watched the layoff spasms, every more frequent and acute, closing in… For men of Motta’s generation, corporate loyalty wasn’t supposed to be a mistake; it was supposed to be a meal ticket to lifetime employment… The day came… He had two weeks to exit. What Motta dreaded most was … the telephone call to inform his wife, Gayle… The weeks and months to follow streamed by like an endless unreeling bad dream. He shipped out one hundred résumés… None led to a job… his savings were nearly gone… A few months after the layoff, Don Motta came home to find another man settled on the living room couch… One day, Don came home and threatened her… The boyfriend jumped in and pummeled him… Just the week before... his wife had thrown him out of the house… That he was no longer able to [support his family] was a matter of vast, unspeakable shame.” (Pg. 63-65)She observes about Bill McCartney’s Promise Keepers organization, “What kind of help the men were getting from the stadium events was unclear. Bill McCartney’s name was rarely invoked in conversations… none said he was the reason they came. That McCartney junked a high-paying, flourishing career as a coach to spend more time with his family was unfathomable to them; most of the men in the stadium were there out of fear that their families would junk THEM because they DIDN’T have high-paying, flourishing careers. While the coach’s press conferences were packed, his customary pep speech at the rally’s finale, full of overamped sports clichés… generally provoked a mass exodus. The men took his ascendancy to the mike as their cue to head for the exits and beat the rush.” (Pg. 231-232)Later, she asserts [after a conversation with a man who told her, ‘Jesus Christ IS my identity’], “I wasn’t sure how Howard cold find his identity by modeling himself after a childless bachelor. Why was the image of Jesus paramount, instead of a seemingly more apt biblical model, like an Old Testament patriarch---Jacob, for instance, fathering the twelve sons who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel---or, for that matter, God the FATHER? Promise Keepers billed its agenda as helping men to become better fathers and husbands. Yet ‘identity in Jesus’ was what Promise Keepers promised most of all…” (Pg. 255-256) She adds, “Despite its pitiful calls for its members to turn off their TVs, what Promise Keepers offered its men was but another communion with the marketplace. Every path seemed to lead only to another PK Product Tent or scented bookstore.” (Pg. 259)She considers Campus Crusade for Christ: “‘The most satisfactory way to understand Campus Crusade for Christ is to see it not merely as a movement but rather as an extended FAMILY,’ Crusade chronicler Richard Quebedaux wrote in 1979. For each new convert, the Crusader who brought him into the group ‘becomes a spiritual “parent.”’ Such movements did not so much challenge institutional authority as respond to its felt absence with the promise of a ‘relationship’ with a personalized authority figure.” (Pg. 272)Of the magazine ‘Details,’ she observes, “In the old ‘Details,’ loosening up men’s roles was connected to expanding women’s options; gay liberation and feminism were two sides of the same coin. Stories in the new ‘Details,’ however, tended to take a chilly view of feminism… Women’s freedom was now judged to be the flip side of men’s uselessness. It was as if the ‘Details’ editors believed that women’s advancement in the workplace had left men with no place to go but the sexual stage, and that on this stage, women were not only competitors but, humiliatingly enough, arbiters of what constituted a manly performance. Women seemed to be in control wherever they looked.” (Pg. 522-523)In the final chapter, she concludes, “But for the many men I’ve met in researching this book, that gender battle was only a surface manifestation of other struggles… it was perhaps surprising… that the journey men led me on ultimately led me back to feminism. With that return, I was struck all the more by how tragic it is that women and men find themselves so far apart. If my travels taught me anything about the two sexes, it is that each of our struggles depends on the success of the other’s. Men and women are at a historically opportune moment where they hold the keys to each other’s liberation.” (Pg. 594-595)She continues, “At century’s end… The commercialized, ornamental ‘femininity’ that the women’s movement diagnosed now has men by the throat. Men and women both feel cheated of lives in which they might have contributed to a social world; men and women both feel pushed into roles that are little more than displaying prettiness or prowess in the marketplace. Women were pushed first, but now their brothers have joined the same forced march.” (Pg. 602)She explains, “My travels led me to a final question: Why don’t contemporary men rise up in protest against their betrayal? If they have experienced so many of the same injuries as women, the same humiliations, why don’t they challenge the culture as women did? Why can’t men seem to act?... If men have feared to tread where women have rushed in, then maybe that’s because women have had it easier in one very simple regard: women could frame their struggle as a battle against men.” (Pg. 603) She adds, “The male paradigm is particularly unsuited to mounting a challenge to men’s predicament. Man have no clearly defined enemy who is oppressing them. How can men be oppressed when the culture has already identified them as the oppressors, and when they see themselves that way?... Nor do men have a clear frontier on which to challenge their intangible enemies. What new realms should they be gaining---the media, entertainment, and image-making institutions of corporate America? But these are institutions, they are told, that are already run by men; how can men invade their own territory?” (Pg. 604-605)She ends, “[A man] no longer has to live by the ‘scorecard’ his nation handed him. He can begin to conceive of other ways of being ‘human,’ and hence, of being a man. And so with the mystery of men’s nonrebellion come the glimmer of an opening, an opportunity for men to forge a rebellion commensurate with women’s and… to create a new paradigm for human progress that will open doors for both sexes. That was, and continues to be, feminism’s dream… In the end, though, it will remain a dream without the strength and courage of men who are today faced with a historic opportunity: to learn to wage a battle against no enemy, to own a frontier of human liberty, to act in the service of a brotherhood that includes us all.” (Pg. 607-608)This book is not anywhere near as epochal and pathbreaking as her MAGNIFICENT ‘Backlash’ book was; and her personal distaste for certain Christians mars some aspects of her work. But she deserves considerable credit for having made a significant effort to look deeply and seriously into “how the other half lives.”

I'm a huge fan of Backlash. I was less so of Stiffed. I think the analysis was a little misjudged - not that the points she makes are invalid, but rather I wished she had pushed to a wider picture - one with more psychological/ historical depth - which wasn't her aim! I suppose I felt the straight- up sociological and political analysis worked very well in 'Backlash' but this subject needed possibly a different grounding.