Customer Reviews

Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

Susan Faludi is an excellent reporter, and her book is very readable. The quality of the chapters varies. I found the chapter on laid-off workers in California to be very compassionate and forthright. Other chapters spend a great deal of time on men who are really at the fringes of American masculinity, and the tone can me one of mocking sometimes. Not that the mocking is not sometimes deserved, but you have to wonder how a woman could write a 600+ page book about the powerless of the American male and not include anything about divorced fathers or men employed in dangerous occupations. Where is the mainstream?

Most of the time, while the narrative is interesting, Ms. Faludi goes off track when she tries to fit her stories into a pattern. Occasional true insights are lost in a general pattern of blaming everything on "the fathers." It is essentially a boomer book, written from a perspective all too common in my generation--that we are victims of the failures of the previous generation. It is a pity that this comes along at a time when my generation is actually learning to give that generation some credit for bringing us through the Depression and World War II.

It is also interesting that someone writing about the powerlessness of American men should have lambasted other authors who have had similar points of view, such as Warren Farrell, in her earlier book BACKLASH, and apparently sees no change in perspective between the two. Most American men, like most American women, do not want to think of themselves, and do not want to be thought of by others, as victims. But Faludi does a good job of exploring the fact that most of the worst of male behavior springs not from male power, but the lack of it (the book grew from the point when a light bulb went on over her head while meeting with a group of male abusers, and she realized that it was the lack of power that was the source of their behavior).

It's worth reading, but I would borrow it from a library to avoid its cost, and I would feel free to skip certain sections. The chapter on Vietnam vets is slanderous to the group, and other sections (e.g. the making of Rambo) are just a waste of time.

Although our observations are sometimes way off base, it is good to see Faludi writing on men and making the effort to understand us, given the slant of her previous writing. Still, I wish she had seen fit to deal with some more typical men, their more typical problems and ways of dealing with them. To judge American men by those who populate most of Faludi's pages is like judging Mexico by Tijuana.

I read Faludi's "Stiffed" more out of duty than desire (I'm a bug for gender issues). I liked it more than I thought I would, but I could recommend it more wholeheartedly if it were about 200 pages shorter. I have to commend her on her research, though--she gets to known men as diverse as inner-city "gangstas," laid-off aviation executives, Spur Posse members, Promise Keepers and shipyard workers.

Faludi's thesis is that present-day American men have been sold a bill of goods--"stiffed"--denied the opportunity to fulfill their true masculinity. Clearly she's on to something, or else why would the yearning for father be so strong, as expressed by youth gangs, Iron John, Robert Bly, and the Promise Keepers? Faludi locates the great betrayal historically (but a tad mystically) in the dislocations of the cold war, which forced our fathers into regimented, frequently overblown or meaningless work--and, as distasteful as that might be, such makework started to disappear through layoffs and downsizing just when the Baby Boomers started to claim what they thought was their rightful inheritance. In essence she is saying that American men, regardless of socioeconomic standing, have become a throwaway generation.

Faludi's writing style is delightful and her sympathy is obvious. She does hymn the despair for too long, though, and she might have clued us in on how some men avoided getting stiffed (or is EVERY American man a tragedy? ). Faludi came to her analysis as a feminist, presumably from the political left--yet much of what she says was anticipated 20 years ago by neoconservative Christopher Lasch in "The Culture of Narcissism," when he opined that most modern Americans don't get the opportunity to do truly meaningful work. His conclusion was the same as hers--resulting in the kind of futility that he calls "narcissistic" and she calls "ornamental." "Stiffed" is an important book, not a seminal work like "The Feminine Mystique" or even "Iron John" but nonetheless a book that people will talk about. It is a feminist book, but also a humanist book, and her sympathy is welcome.

Take this book for it is: a series of journalistic essays chronicalling a substraint of human existance in the USA. It is not a "study" in the academic sense and I doubt Faludi meant it as such so reviewing it as if it were a deeply researched, objective archialogical dig is probably missing the point. This turns out to be a problem for me but not simply because it is much closer to Charles Kuralt (sp?) than Jared Diamond. I don't mind reading people's opinions and obsevations, especially if it's well written like "Stiffed."

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.

Ms. Faludi creates a work that is in dire need of editing. In the more than six-hundred pages of generalizations and patronizing prose Ms. Faludi leaves no question answered. She poses roundabout theories with serious flaws in their premises and moves on to more convoluted thesis.

Recently I attended a lecture by Ms. Faludi. In the hour and a half that she lectured and answered questions, she did not tighten her loose grasp of what she tries to discuss and ultimately prove. Unimpressed with her performance I had anticipated a clearer explaination of her analysis and conclusions in her book. Utterly disappointed.

Authors who recieve $1 million by their publisher before printing make me suspicious as to the truth of the hype and media attention.

Susan Faludi Stiffed

Susan Faludi rose to fame with thepublication of "Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Women inAmerica" which won the 1992 national book critics Circle Award. She has now turned her attention to the other side of the sex war with the publication of her new book "Stiffed, The Betrayal of the American Man". Contrary to the allusion of the title, this champion of feminism has not defected to the side of patriarchy - her thesis is that men as well as women are victims of masculinity.

Stiffed is a 608 page journey through the various personal crises of many different groups of men. The book is light on facts and statistics and takes the form of a narrative through Faludi's numerous interviews. The underlying theme that unifies these many disparate groups of men is that they find themselves betrayed by the modern world and are unable to play the masculine roles that society has conditioned them to play. This has resulted in a profound crisis for these men.

According to Faludi this crisis is caused by the inability of modern American men to live up to the masculine role models created by their War Generation fathers. She contends that the War Generation returned triumphantly from the Second World War to become the male providers of the 1950s boom, standing confidently in their role as the breadwinners for their families. Modern men have been left trying to fill the footprints of these fathers while changes in the economy and the rise of feminism have destroyed the old post-war world. Modern man has subsequently become a victim of his own previous identity.

Faludi has cleverly selected subjects that fit her case - troubled teenagers, anachronistic Cold War warriors, and failed middle aged men. Strangely absent are any interviews of men with healthy ambitions, happy marriages, or successful careers. It is thus not surprising that she concludes her "modern man" to be an absolute failure. Furthermore, this pathetic image of modern man has been accepted as good coin by many pundits on both sides of the Atlantic and is a testament to how many commentators share her outlook and are questioning masculine values. From the front page of Newsweek to being serialized in the British press, Stiffed looks set to win as much acclaim as Backlash.

Faludi is right to identify the end of the post-war political order as leading to the current questioning of masculinity. However, she incorrectly ascribes this doubt to communication problems between father, son, man and woman...

In addition to miscommunication, Faludi throws in globalization as the major material change underlying the masculinity crisis, yet she never explains why this problem at the economic level should have led to a breakdown of male identity. She ignores the fact that the very men she sees as archetypal patriarchs, the War Generation, were themselves the product of a far more significant economic dislocation during the Depression. Faludi does not explain why when faced with the problems caused by globalization "modern men" have spiraled into a crisis of self doubt and uncertainty, while their forefathers sought solutions to their economic woes.

Faludi does not offer many solutions to her lost boys. She simply thinks that they should recognize that the models they are trying to follow are out of date, that they will not be able to control things or be the providers and voices of authority in family life and should move on to other things. (Of these other things she makes no comment.)... END

The topic of this book could have made for a great work if the author had done comprehensive and objective research. Faludi interviewed a very narrow section of the male population to apparently confirm many of her own preconceived notions about men and what makes them unhappy.

For those interested in the topic, the book Real Boys is infinitely more insightful and meaningful to those who want to understand men and boys.

How sad. Authors now have a few conversations with a few human subjects, jump to conclusions that appear to mesh with ther prior preconceptions, and then peddle the whole mishmash as some sort of social science "research." For each of the troubled men Faludi describes in this book, I can easily think of a dozen or more who have faced similar circumstances in very different ways, and have very different views on the matter. I guess these men just don't count, since Faludi has not graced them with her supposed journalistic saavy. I am a social scientist by profession, and this is definitely not social science. However, if you think you might like the equivalent of a 600 page plus "Cosmopolitan" article on men, then you may enjoy it.

Ms. Faludi has an appreciable knack for identifying a problem. In Stiffed, she has identified two problems. The most extrodinary one crosses gender lines and preys on us all. That is consumerism. The other problem, the betrayal of American men, hits a chord of compassion. Since reading Stiffed, I can no longer watch a single television show, movie, or commercial without seeing expressions of these problems that she has laid her little typing fingers on. Furthermore, I have found myself a kinder, gentler feminist since reading this book. I actually know many of these characters that she writes about, but have never understood the motivations for many of the things they said or did until reading Stiffed. It is bitter gratitude that should be extended to Ms. Faludi for writing this book. Feminists are mothers to sons as well as daughters.

While I generally agree with Ms. Faludi's thesis, the data frequently felt stretched in supporting it. But as scholarship I'd rate it OK, as reading, it is JUST PLAIN AWFUL! The writing is always coherent, but always appallingly bland. She makes a chapter on male porn stars boring! Not just boring, painful to slog through. Lifeless reportage, with little connection to her 'characters'--all thin stick figures we never get close enough to feel we've really met them. She chooses some of the most arbitrary settings for physical descriptions, which tend to read either like APBs, or mislplaced hallmark '... as the moon swept across ...' Most decively, though, she has no real facility with the language. She writes clear, lifeless sentences a 3rd grade grammar teacher would be thrilled with, but which utterly fail to capture the magic of any moment. A good scholar in need of a talented writer to collaborate with. Not everyone who has the wisdom or research to support a book has the writing gifts to carry it off. At 662 pages, poor writing skills grow fatal. If she had a brilliant thesis, I'd slog through 20-30 pages of a journal for the information, but 600+ pages straining to maintain consciousness is far too much. Faludi needs to find the humility to admit this and find a good collaborator, and she could really produce excellent work.

At the very least, she needs a strong editor. Page after page I was amazed at how she belabored the obvious. Spralwling chapters do the work required of only a single annecdote or two. This should have been a thin 100- to 150-page book, with 3/4 of the scenes axed, and each of those pared at least in half.

I have issues with my father, and other issues with my sons. I'm not a feminist, but an ally of feminism. I've been seeking ways to redefine the expectations called "manhood" since my divorce more than a decade ago. I've seen men's movements that get their agenda by taking the opposite position of NOW on every point, and I've heard "enlightened men" claim they'd prefer to live in a matriarchy. Men often feel stiffed, and they're often unreasonably concerned with remaining stiff. So, when an acclaimed feminist takes on manhood in America and listens well, it merits my attention.

Faludi's book is based on in-depth interviews of porn stars and movie stars, conspiracy theorists and promise keepers, displaced workers and juvenile deliquents. What holds the book together is the methodology Faludi employed, although she never explains it as such. She sought far and wide for "men in crisis". She tells a good story, an interesting story, and one that will ring true for a great many men, as well as the women who love them and hate them. She tells this story well.

One of the consistent themes in the book is a gap between expectations and reality for men of the post-WWII generation, and the crisis of identity they've bequeathed to their sons. This crisis is not the whole story, but it is certainly a major chord. Faludi tells it long, and she keeps you reading. _Stiffed_ is a big book, and those who want her to get to the point and explain what it all means will be disappointed. The few tentative conclusions she draws are shallow and incomplete. It is the process that interests her, rather than the conclusion (some might say that is one of the ways her feminist perspective shows through).

However, in this process she leaves out a critical element. She writes of sons and their fathers, but says very little about these sons as fathers. This book appealed to me as a divorced father of two sons, a widowed father of a third, and now step-father to another. None of these roles are highlighted in the lives of the men she interviewed. In a story that often focuses on father-son relationships, Faludi misses the third generation.

All this is to say that _Stiffed_ is a flawed book, but it is one of the best flawed books I've read. And despite its flaws, it's well worth reading and discussing. In ten years this book will be forgotten, but only because people have read it, argued with it, and following a similar process have written more.