beth’s Reviews > Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women > Status Update
beth
is 6% done
'If the widespread promotion of the Harvard-Yale marriage study had one effect, it was to transfer much of this bachelor anxiety into single women's minds. In the Wall Street Journal, a thirty-six-year-old single woman perceptively remarked that being unmarried "didn't bother me at all" until after the marriage study's promotion; only then did she begin feeling depressed.'
— Feb 10, 2026 08:58AM
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beth’s Previous Updates
beth
is 22% done
I suppose the Fatal Attraction phenomenon was the Gone Girl of its time, in that a fictional story was used to try and smear 'real' (made-up) women in the press.
— Feb 13, 2026 12:15PM
beth
is 18% done
'But this homage to feminine passivity was cleverly packaged in activist language, a strategy that simultaneously acknowledged women's desire for autonomy and co-opted it. The New Traditionalist, the ads said, was an independent thinker who "made her own choices" and "started a revolution."' You still see this a lot today -- it reminds me of shaving ads.
— Feb 13, 2026 07:48AM
beth
is 17% done
Crazy how often the press spread lies about women's supposed behaviour that then actually led to the behaviour happening... eg concocting that 'women who chose business careers found they weren't able to prioritise family' (imagined women) and then the number of women applying to business schools the next year would suddenly lessen after a decade of growth... awful.
— Feb 12, 2026 10:27AM
beth
is 14% done
'To make a fuss about sexual injustice is more than unfeminine; it is now uncool. Feminist anger, or any form of social outrage, is dismissed breezily—not because it lacks substance but because it lacks "style."'
— Feb 12, 2026 08:57AM
beth
is 13% done
'Household income would have shrunk three times as much in the decade if women hadn't worked in mass numbers. And this fact dealt the final blow to masculine pride and identity: not only could the middle-class man no longer provide for his family, the person who bailed him out was the wife he believed he was meant to support.'
— Feb 12, 2026 05:14AM
beth
is 13% done
'In reality, the past decade's economic pains most often took a disproportionate toll on women, not men.' Most women entered worse-paying jobs in positions with few male competitors.
— Feb 12, 2026 05:10AM
beth
is 13% done
'The economic victims of the era are men who know someone has made off with their future—and they suspect the thief is a woman.'
— Feb 12, 2026 05:07AM
beth
is 13% done
Important to note: that population of men were not the ones driving the backlash though. Those men were far more affluent. The poorer men were its audience, ready to internalise the backlash's messages.
— Feb 12, 2026 05:03AM
beth
is 13% done
I suspect there's a lot of overlap with the situation today, in that it is men who feel economically left behind that are the most hostile to feminism. This makes sense, it's easier to target women than it is the system of structures making their lives hard. The language these men describe themselves with is remarkably similar to now.
— Feb 12, 2026 05:01AM
beth
is 13% done
'The men who belonged to this group had one other distinguishing trait: they feared and reviled feminism. "It's these downscale men, the ones who can't earn as much as their fathers, who we find are the most threatened by the women's movement," Susan Hayward, senior vice president at Yankelovich, observes.'
— Feb 12, 2026 04:58AM
