SOURCE: “Exit, Stage Back,” in National Review, March 30, 1992, pp. 41-2.

In the following negative review of Backlash, Gallagher attacks Faludi's feminist perspective, particularly her support for divorce and her unwillingness to admit the importance of children and family for many women.

Pity poor Susan Faludi. Just when she thought she had everything—a high-status job as a Wall Street Journal reporter, the joys of single life, power breakfasts, the right to an abortion, even a Pulitzer Prize—suddenly, sometime in the Eighties, she began to feel unloved. Legions of women, instead of following—or at least envying—women like her, began to do unspeakable things: like vote for Reagan, or don miniskirts, or have babies. How to account for this inexplicable backsliding? Why was feminism losing its hold on women at the moment of its (and Miss Faludi’s) greatest triumph? Suddenly an answer came to her: It...