Post-Backlash Feminism

Post-backlash Feminism: The New Misogyny.

This site is designed showcase the book and to continue the project it undertakes: to write and think about women's lives and the effect our media has on how we move in the world. So I will monitor mainstream media and document post-backlash trends--chastity balls, anyone?--and invite commentary. You'll notice I blog about other things re: women and women's lives as well and have posted some of my other works.

I am a feminist academic. Got my Ph.D. in 1994 from University of Delaware. My work has always centered on power--who has it, who doesn't, who can get it, who can't and why. This particular book takes up the question of the media's role in distributions of power and gender.

Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, academe does not provide the isolation of an ivory tower for most academics, most especially, female academics. Privileged isolation is reserved for conservative, white men, generally.

Instead, the more time I spent as an academic, the more obvious the connection between ideas, power and teaching became for me. The skills provided by the academic life--close reading, analysis, interrogating ideas, questioning assumptions--suit and serve the writing life outside academe. (They also enhance one's ability to read a recipe, for example, the local newspaper or a public school boosters newsletter. )

So: academic, mother, screaming liberal, wife, aging daughter and writer. Media fanatic. That's me, in no particular order.

My life as a single mother has defined and refined my politics over the years. I've raised both kids alone. Being a single mother allowed me to understand the value our culture puts on "women's work" (almost none) and to experience first hand  the especial penalties reserved for working mothers. Whether it's institutional aggression to my politics or indifference to my son's special needs, doing this on my own taught me a thing or two about advocacy.  And the value of other women specifically, of like-minded companions generally. That is not to say women always agree or do what is best for other women. It is to say that there is enough sexism to go round and provide a bit of common ground.