by
Jamilah Lemieux Follow @JamilahLemieux Ann Friedman Follow @annfriedmanx and Heather Havrilesky Follow @hhavrilesky
Matter and MSNBC.com are rereading
Susan Faludi’s feminist classic, Backlash. Here’s
our conversation on Chapter 12.
“In the first half of the ’80s, the advice experts told women they suffered from bloated egos and a ‘fear of intimacy’; in the second half, they informed women that atrophied egos and ‘codependency’ were now their problems. In the decade’s war on women, these popular psychologists helped fire the opening shots—then rushed to the battlefield to bandage the many wounds.” — Susan Faludi, Backlash, “Chapter 12 — It’s All in Your Mind: Popular Psychology Joins the Backlash.”