Part 2: Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

Part 2, "The Backlash in Popular Culture", looks first at trends in the print and television media. Whereas feminist marches for jobs, equal pay, and coeducation receive no coverage, a protest against the Miss America pageant does. The media focuses on burning bras (isolated displays, organized by males and using hired models) to form a myth that alienates women. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, most editors avoid the women's movement; when forced to write about it, declare it a fad, a bore, or dead-and try to discredit it. By the mid-1970s, media and advertisers cooperate to "neutralize and commercialize" feminism, claiming women with equality want only self-gratification at the shopping mall. Ads show "liberated single girls" and "perky MBA 'Superwomen'" enjoying themselves. The "pseudo-feminist cheerleading" stops suddenly in the early 1980s, replaced by a dirge about the...