Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: mommy wars, boy crisis, New York Times, United States, Martha Stewart (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rivers is at her best when she holds up a well-known news story that condemns ambitious women and reveals the bad science behind it... her media lesson is a good one: Don't believe the hype."--Bust

"What Rivers' book did for this woman is calm me down."--Margery Eagan, Boston Herald

"Rivers explores examples of the disparaging ways professional women are depicted in the popular press."--BU Today (Boston University)

"Continuing where Susan Faludi left off with Backlash, [Rivers] illustrates how specious pseudo-science, faulty "facts" and institutional sexism permeate news about gender issues, with negative consequences for public policy. Selling Anxiety does a great service to public debate by debunking the erroneous data upon which such shoddy journalism is based, and providing accurate information to counter sexist narratives."--Ms. Magazine

Review

"[Rivers's insights on media could] save the sanity of media watchers enraged or bewildered by the distance between image and reality." (Gloria Steinem )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: UPNE (August 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584657375
• ISBN-13: 978-1584657378
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #876,556 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lies, damn lies, and statistics..., October 21, 2007

By	Kaeli Vandertulip (Irving, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women (Hardcover)

Because of advertising and viewers demographics, the news media present stories with a clear bias-how to scare women. Whether it's the idea that divorce will ruin children, looking older will ruin women, or that feminism ruined everything for everyone, media outlets took anecdotal evidence and poorly run (and quickly discredited) studies to prove whatever sells quickly and salaciously in a sound bite-and women suffer for it.

This would make an excellent book club book. The entire time I read the book, I wanted to discuss it with someone else. Because of the scope of the book, the author stuck to examining issues in the media as it pertains to scaring women-how can we freak out the women through news, advertising, and politics. It really is a brilliant policy-but it overlooks many other factors. Again, I understand that this is because of the scope of the book. I wish the author had put notes at the end of each chapter or footnotes in, instead of putting everything as an endnote at the back of the book. The work is well-documented, though-you can't fault the author on that. This is a great read, right along with The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women

3.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Issues, Too Little Time, February 8, 2009

By	Rodger Streitmatter "Washington Critic at Large" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women (Hardcover)

I generally have no problem with books that have been written by journalists. I like the straightforward approach that gets to the point without getting bogged down with a lot of academese. Unfortunately, though, the journalist writing this book tried to cover so much ground so quickly that she ultimately did a disservice to her subject.

On a macro scale, the biggest problem is that she dutifully states a thesis on page 1: "The more that women advance in the world of business, academia, medicine, law, economics--the more desperately gloomy the news about women and achievement becomes." Fair enough. But then she sticks to that focus in no more than three or four of her eleven chapters. In the rest of the book, she goes off on tangents (sometimes about books written by women, other times on Bush social policy) that make it difficult for the reader to remember the thesis initially offered.

On a micro level, one of the several irritants is that the author ranted about the trend story of the moment (such as mothers killing their children), but most of those stories do not have sufficient shelf life to have any resonance today--a scant two years after the book was written. Another of the micro irritants is the stream of typos that can be found in every chapter.

All of this being said, I need to add that Selling Anxiety raises some excellent issues and makes any number of worthwhile observations about how the news media treat women. In particular, I like what she said about news outlets often doing a shameful job of reporting on research studies. Most of the good stuff, though, is concentrated in a few chapters--and three or four good chapters do not a good book make.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars News media ignore facts when it comes to women, September 27, 2007

By	Carolyn M. Bloomer (Sarasota, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women (Hardcover)

Extended, often repetitive, often ranting descriptions of how news media ignores scientifically valid facts and research in favor of perpetuating popular and fashionable myths about women. Eleven chapters look at issues and stereotypes such as working women as either `Superwomen' or `Twitching Wrecks'; smart women can't find husbands; childless women are unfulfilled; daycare harms children; mothers are dangerous and selfish; women can't `have it all'; women ignored as journalists, pundits, and anchors; media attacks on Hilary Clinton, Teresa Kerry, and Martha Stewart; right-wing female pundits (e.g. Ann Coulter, Phyllis Shlafly Marabel Morgan); media displaces substantive issues with `gossipy' obsessions with beautiful female victims (Jon Benet Ramsey, Laci Peterson, Terri Schiavo, Jennifer Wilbanks); women's brains are different and not equal; Bush administration's war against contraception and condoms. Well researched, thoroughly documented, points clearly presented. Probably a more important read for younger women - for those of us who lived through struggles of the 60s and 70s this book is more a reminder than a revelation.