A Feminist Critique - Hardcover

Langer, Cassandra L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0064350258 ISBN 13: 9780064350259

Publisher: Basic Books, 1996

Beginning in the 1940s with Hollywood's image of the American woman, this book goes on to discuss images of home, family, and domesticity in the 1950s and the impact of Betty Friedan's The Feminist Mystique on the 1960s generation. Next, it examines the 1970s, the so-called golden age of American feminism, including sexual politics and reactionary rhetoric about lesbians and women who didn't follow the party line. Antifeminist cultural discourses on women's rights, including Susan Faludi's Backlash, are discussed in relation to abortion, equal pay for equal work, and other political, social, and cultural issues. The book assesses the highly charged sexual politics of the 1990s using the writings of Camilla Paglia, Naomi Wolf, and Katie Roiphe to analyze different levels of postfeminism. With examples from the mass media, film, literature, popular culture, art, and art criticism, this book surveys the impact of the American feminist movement, how it originated, why certain ideas and images had to change and how this movement shaped our notions of feminine and masculine over the last fifty years. A Feminist Critique is a fair and much-needed overview of the accomplishments, issues, and goals of the feminist movement and its future course.

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About the Author:

Cassandra L. Langer has taught art history and criticism at the School of Visual Arts, Hunter and Queens colleges of the City University of New York and the University of South Carolina.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Failing to deliver on the title's ambitious promise, this is a scattershot look at feminism, sexism, movies, music, art, homophobia, violence, legislation, Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, and whatever else crops up along the way. Feminist historian and critic Langer begins with a brief, superficial look at the history of women's rights activism, the origins of various groups of feminists and pseudofeminists, and some theories about the nature of sexism. With that out of the way, she commences a topic-hopping discussion of matters having to do with female socialization, sexuality, and reproduction; the influence of the media (especially cinema) on society's attitudes toward women; and the stands (sometimes completely opposing) that various women's groups take on feminist issues. Marring the book's arguments are questionable leaps of logic that at times seem more intended to annoy than persuade. For instance, Langer asserts that, were welfare suddenly ended, a large number of women ``would become prostitutes.'' Langer is also given to delivering sweeping generalizations, telling us what ``most'' or ``many'' members of various groups think (``Most ultraconservatives assume that teenage boys are `loose cannons' ''). At times, even her credible statements lack supporting data, as when she comments that female voters were the ones who in 1992 sent three new women and returned one female incumbent to the US Senate. This work does feminists few favors, although, by its very shortcomings, it suggests just how valuable a cogent, unbiased, popular history of the last half century of feminism would be. -- Copyright �1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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