In many ways, this book would be better if it were more directed; you can read halfway through the book before starting to really get Faludi's point, which points to poor editing and a badly done outline. However, I found that weeks after reading it, I was still thinking about it, still applying the stories and the pieces of insight. So perhaps the format is effective, even if the size and density of the book is off-putting.
If you find yourself wanting to think about this more, I recommend looking into Warren Farrell's writing on gender equality. It's worthwhile for staunch feminists like myself to sit down and question some hard-line beliefs, and Farrell, like Faludi, is good at asking questions and making you think.
"Stiffed" is very well written, and each section can be read independently. Faludi does a good job of bringing each narrative back to the central theme of how society has failed men.
But like "Reviving Ophelia," careful readers will note that every person who is portrayed as a helpless victim of society or the media just happens to come from a family dominated by abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, or death. And that their adult lives mirror these problems as if they are trying to recreate these family relationships through their marriage or jobs. Coincidence ? Or is it really the media's fault ?
Faludi looks at both issues, and the book is most convincing when it uses the theme of family tragedy to tie together the narrative threads. The role of society seems trivial in comparison, although "Stiffed" does explain the anger of men that feel society has somehow betrayed them for not repairing them. A woman reading "Stiffed" in that frame of mind might actually get some insights about men.
Faludi seems to be on the right track in that she at least touches on family histories, which are often a taboo in this field. I'd like to see her do another book about women comparing the relative importance of society/media with the effects of abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, and death. Which one really causes women (and men) to marry jerks ? "Stiffed" just doesn't go far enough.
In fact, parts of "Stiffed" seem to actively rebuke the role of society. Most people aren't fighting "society" or the media, their struggles are with dysfunctional "families" at work and inappropriate personal relationships.
But that's a marketing dilemma, after all. Looking at family history is old hat, going back over a century. A post-modern expose' of societal hypocracy and conspiracy used to seem so hip and so much more comforting, but in our post-post-post-modern era, maybe Faludi will really bring it back home next time.
Be clear: Faludi is a feminist and she says so many, many times in the book. She interviews her subjects as a female writer of a book on masculinity and she never claims anything else. She analyizes the problems of her subjects through the lens of feminism and she "admits" that as well.
Unfortunately even if you lower the bar and grant all these things to her up front she still over-reaches. She extrapolates far too much from far too little. You can't build a grand antidote from small anectodes. At one point in the book she quotes a cute line from a hollywood cynic that the film industry sees the USA as New York and Hollywood with everything inbetween as "in-flight movie" -- the irony is that she goes on to do exactly that in this book! With the notable exception of Vietnam veterans, almost every interview in the book is about Southern Californians and New Yorkers. Can she really be making that case that because something happens in South Central or Manhattan that it must be happening in Seattle and Montgomery the same way? Perhaps she does this hyper-inference to compensate for a problem I had with this book...
I was drawn to the book because of its over-riding message of a mass-media celebrity culture promoting an ornamental society driven by consumerism as the root cause of problems in our society. But the message is made uncomfortable by the fact that the book is being sold to me as a commodity, that she herself is an attractive, heavily made-up, coiffed female and that the style of reportage in "Stiffed" is, in fact, not academically rigorous and therefore kind of "surface" -- ornamental, to borrow a phrase.
To apply the same kind of psychoanalysis to her as she does to her subjects: I'm betting that Susan Faludi struggles with lots and lots of demons; that it is hard for her to rationalize what she knows to be good and true about feminism against what she needs to do to earn a living, feel useful to society, connect with the loved ones in her life, maintain calm relations with her parents, etc. In other words, I'm betting she's just like the rest of us.
