[Kobi]

Susan Faludi is a journalist who wrote Backlash:The Undeclared War against Women, 1991, which argued that feminism and women's rights were undermined by the media and corporations -- just as the previous wave of feminism lost ground to a previous version of backlash, convincing women that feminism and not inequality was the source of their frustration.

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• Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to "choose" between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves -- instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men.

• The internal qualities once said to embody manhood - sure footedness, inner strength, confidence of purpose -- are merchandised to men to enhance their manliness. What passes for masculinity is being extracted and sold back to men. Literally in the case of Viagra.

• The demand that women "return to femininity" is a demand that the cultural gears shift into reverse, that we back up to a fabled time when everyone was richer, younger, more powerful.

• As it turns out, social scientists have established only one fact about single women's mental health: employment improves it.