Culture of Recovery: Making Sense of the Self-help Movement in Women's Lives

A thoughtful exploration of the recovery movement and its impact on contemporary life—from talk shows and self-help books to Clinton's presidential campaign.

In her examination of the self-help phenomenon, Rapping, professor of communications at Adelphi University (Media-tions: Forays into the Culture and Gender Wars), attended numerous recovery meetings, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and its imitators, interviewed female participants and watched hours of TV talk shows where women described experiences of abuse or other severe problems with men. She also analyzed self-help books, which are aimed primarily at women. Although the author disagrees with the recovery movement's emphasis on the individual woman's responsibility for solving her problems, thereby ignoring the role of societal oppression of women as a contributing factor, she argues that, despite this "weakness," feminism is at the core of the recovery movement because women are now at least able to identify their pain. Unfortunately Rapping's commitment to this theory undermines her otherwise interesting critique of the self-help movement.
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