Customer Reviews

The Terror Dream Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America

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First, let's talk about the writing. Faludi is a brilliant writer. She could write about grass growing and make it a great read. There were times, reading her book, where I just had to stop and digest how well she puts things. A number of times, thoughts that she wrote with the beauty of Rumi came to mind.

Now, to the content of the book. Faludi submits a premise which she characterizes by a concept we learn in basic biology-- "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." And in her book, she calls the beginning narrative of the book Phylogeny.

The German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, suggested, in this theory, the idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny means that as over the short time span of nine months, a fetus, in the womb, goes through ontogenetic phases of development, it recapitulates the stages of development we see as we go up the evolutional scale-- phylogenetically, that took billions of years to develop.

So we start, in biology, with single celled, then microscopic organisms, then fish, amphibia, with tails, mammals with tails, until we reach the anthropoid stage.

Faludi suggests that as a nation, we are now recapitulating our early evolutionary stages.

She says, "Haeckel's hypothesis retains a metaphorical power in the realm of cultural history. The ways that we act, say, in response to a crisis can recapitulate in quick time the centuries-long evolution of our character as a society and of the mythologies we live by. September 11 presented just such a crisis..."

In her beginning section, called ONTOGENY, She does a superb job documenting how, after the 9/11 terrorist attack, there were no obvious heroes. No brave surviving rescuers, no brave fighters, no people who bravely dug through the rubble to discover survivors. It happened so fast, all the rescuers who came to the site either died or got there too late.

So the nation, the media-- had to come up with heroes. And they chose pregnant women who lost their mates in the attack. To make this work, the media and right wing groups massively attacked the idea of strong women. Even the fashionistas made frilly the fad.

The fact was that women had played as much a role in rescuing and dying as men. But the strong women who were there, at the WTC site were marginalized and ignored, or even put down and attacked. Their strength didn't fit the STORY that was being told, being etched into stone by the media.

Faludi gives example after example-- in the media, in the fire department, in fashion-- how this attack on women relentlessly took place-- all to serve to make men feel bigger and stronger.
She writes, "What mattered was restoring the illusion of a mythic America where women needed men's protection and men succeeded in providing it. What mattered was vanquishing the myth's dark wrin, the humiliating "terror-dream" that 9/11 forced to the surface of the national consciousness. Beginning with the demotion of independent-minded female commentators, the elevation of "manly men" at ground zero, and the adoration of widowed, pregnant homemakers-- that is, a cast of characters caught up in the September 11 trauma-- the myth quickly rippled out to counsel- and chastise-- the nation at large. Most particularly its women.

Faludi mentions how the "Jersey Girls" strong women who took on president Bush and the congress, demanding a 9/11 inquiry and demanding that Bush and Cheney testify, were attacked as shrill. She reminds us how Rudy Giuliani chided them that they had to "trust our government." And the Wall Street Journal and other media complained of Jersey Girl fatigue. (I had a chance to meet and later correspond with the Jersey girls. They were heroic, in the true sense of the word. )

After solidly describing the "terror dream" and the myth that was created, or, perhaps, more accurately, resurrected, Faludi takes us back, in her Phylogeny section of the book, to show how early on, strong pioneer women were marginalized, how the books and stories about brave women, the statues were re-told and re-"visioned."

Because, back in the early days of the settling of America, when pioneers lived in log cabins, they were attacked by the terrorists of the time-- the American Indians, who would raid a house, burn it, kill the men and kidnap the women. Some women bravely fought back-- successfully. Others adapted, effectively and happily. But those events created stories of weak, ineffective men. That couldn't be.

So writers actually changed the stories, making the women weak and resurrecting the men who had run away, making them the strong heroes. Back in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, American men re-wrote history to create stories of weak, helpless women.

Putting the Salem witch trials into context, she shows that the women who were accused were independent, strong women, often widows who were not dependent upon men. Strong women were treated as insane, evil, possessed..., wrong.

I've been writing in my op-eds, for the past four years, since before the war started, that the right wing in America is engaged in a war against the feminine-- not just women, but also the feminine archetype. Jean Shinoda Bolen has written extensively about the need for women and feminine energies to make a difference (in her super book MESSAGE FROM MOTHER; Gather the Women and Save the World) Faludi brilliantly describes just how the weak, pathetic "Stupid White Men" culture that Michael Moore described in his book, of that name, how the media and the right systematically orchestrated this attack on women as strong and heroic.

She says, near the end of the book, "When an attack on home soil causes cultural paroxysms that have nothing to do with the attack, when we respond to real threats to our nation by distracting ourselves with imagined threats to femininity and family life, when we invest our leaders with a cartoon masculinity and require of them bluster in lieu of a capacity for rational calculation, and when we blame our frailty on "fifth column" feminists-- in short, when we base our security on a mythical male strength that can only measure itself against a mythical female weakness-- we should know that we are exhibiting the symptoms of a lethal, albeit curable, cultural affliction. Our reflexive reaction to 9/11-- fantastical, weirdly disconnected from the very real emergency at hand-- exposed a counterfeit belief system. It reprised a bogus security drill that divided men from women and mobilized them to the defense of a myth instead of the defense of a country."

Damn, she nails it. When I had a chance to meet John Kerry, I cryptically said to him, "don't let Bush be Viagra." I've said for years that Bush, his war, his cowboy idiocy, have all been props the boys in this myth, this terror dream have been projecting upon, so they could salvage their masculinity. Faludi dissects the apparition that infected America's soul. Having cast light upon it, there is no doubt it will no longer have the power it has previously enjoyed.

She writes, "To not understand the mythic underpinnings of our response to 9/11 is, in a fundamental way, to not understand ourselves, to be so unknowing about the way we inhabit our cultural roles that we are stunned, insensible, when confronted by a moment that requires our full awareness. To fail to comprehend the historical provenance of our reaction, the phylogeny behind our ontogeny, is to find ourselves thwarted in our ability to express what we have undergone..."

The book is a brilliant exploration of aspects of American culture we don't ordinarily think of. If you like Zinn's People's History of the United States, or if you are willing to see America with new eyes, this book could be for you.

First things first, I commend Faludi, as always, for her writing style. Faludi's journalism background has made her books very readable and her latest is no exception. Those who fear a long-winded book full of academic jargon need not be afraid. This is vintage Faludi.

Second, a previous reviewer has dismissed the argument of this book that it's just human nature the way people respond to such crises. Faludi goes to show us the opposite: human nature includes a survival instinct within us all, male or female but too often, other forces and the need to create heroes brings up a divide between men and women, casting the former as heroes and the latter as the victimized in need of saving. Perhaps this isn't a new argument, but Faludi brings it new life by comparing the post-9/11 climate to earlier periods in the history of the United States. I had heard of many of the male archetypes referred to here, the Daniel Boones, the Natty Bumppos but I have never read many captivity narratives and to me, this was new ground.

I could have used a bit more in the beginning when Faludi discusses Susan Sontag and Barbara Kingsolver. What those writers said after 9/11 is never quoted in full; I admit feeling a little angry at their comments in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, not because I was bloodthirsty but because they seemed the words of apologists and ill-timed. Then again, that was my emotional response to a day that still haunts me and I'll never be able to think rationally about it, but it would also cause me to miss Faludi's point: it's not so much what they said as the reaction to the women who spoke out as opposed to male commentators who said similar things yet were ignored by the press.

I recommend this book, whether you agree with it or not. As interesting as the first section of the book is, it's the second that held my interest best. This book will undoubtedly anger some, but it's worth reading and discussing, adding to an increasing lists of polemics about the current state of the union.

The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America, by Susan Faludi, is unsettling.

Let me start with her ending:

"When an attack on home soil causes cultural paroxysms that have nothing to do with the attack, when we respond to real threats to our nation by distrusting ourselves with imagined threats to femininity and family life, when we invest our leaders with a cartoon masculinity and require of them bluster in lieu of a capacity for rational calculation, and when we blame our frailty in 'fifth column' feminists - in short, when we base our security on a mythical male strength that can only increase itself against a mythical female weakness - we should know that we are exhibiting the symptoms of a lethal, albeit curable, cultural affliction" (p. 295).

What? And Susan Faludi can make a case for this? As it turns out, however complex this is, Faludi makes a very strong case. There is a smell somewhere in the house, and Faludi attempts to track it down.

Here is the book, in outline form.

1. There was an event we call 9/11.

2. Society at all levels responded to this event.

3. In an extraordinary reversal of the "Rosie the Riveter" phenomenon that redefined the potential for women to hold up this nation, at all levels of society and in all quarters, the post 9/11 phenomena of "manly men" and "perfect virgins" is being forced upon us in entertainment, politics, media coverage, the blogiverse, and unfortunately, journalism.

4. This will have further impacts on society.

Faludi, with the writing and analysis skills I appreciated in her book, Backlash, tackles this topic head-on. My first reaction? Guilt. I was oblivious to the broader issues here. Yet now, I wonder how I could have missed it.

The late Jerry Falwell's rant against "pagans, abortionists, and feminists" for lifting God's "veil of protection" from the US apparently had a much wider and receptive audience than I would have guessed.

Here's what Faludi says:

"In some murky fashion, women's independence had become implicated in our nation's failure to protect itself" (p. 21).

The sedition? Women's liberation "feminized" men. And feminists have emasculated our military's ability to defend our nation.

I knew it was my fault.

Women writers and speakers seeking to find meaning and lessons in the 9/11 attacks were raked over the coals. Women-authored opinion pieces practically disappeared from view. Author Barbara Kingsolver, crucified in the national press for a quote she never even said, lamented "The response was not the response you would expect toward a child. It was more like we were witches" (p. 32).

And you know how we treat witches.

There was the return of the "supermen" (aka Rumsfeld and Cheney). The women on Flight 93 were forgotten. Tributes to women firefighters were rare. Male victims in the Twin Towers were overshadowed by the wives of these victims [I certainly believe there were many, many victims].

"If women were ineligible for hero status, for what would they be celebrated" (p. 80)? Faludi argues that the role of women in the post-9/11 world was as "perfect virgins of grief."

The second half of the book is Faludi's analysis of how American society got to this point. She discusses the historical factors "predisposing" society to a world as defined by the Rush Limbaugh types.

Wait till Limbaugh gets a summary of this book.

The most surprising thing, for me, was that I needed Faludi to sharpen my eyesight. There were things going on around me that perhaps I wasn't seeing. She gives me glasses that I can use to see for myself whether a post 9/11 world is as "culture bending" as she claims.

What was missing from this book is any kind of response from those who would disagree with her premise.

So, Susan Faludi, thank you for opening my eyes. You will make many people angry. You will make some contemplative. And you will make others active.

In "The Terror Dream" Susan Faludi writes, "A culture forges myths for many reasons, but paramount among them is the need to impose order on chaotic and disturbing experience--to resolve haunting contradictions and contain apprehensions, to imagine a way out of darkness." Throughout her book she presents a fascinating argument detailing how from the time of the Puritans, through the age of the wild frontier, to the era of the John Wayne archetype, American mythmakers--journalists and book publishers in particular-- have mythologized the 'heroic' male and consigned women to the role of frail 'victim' amidst the background of national anxiety or tragedy. Faludi skillfully presents a well-researched look into the Puritan view of the importance of being weak before God and how captivity was seen as a way to strengthen that aspect of their faith and character. Faludi introduces the reader to the 'captivity narrative' which was popular at the time and featured such heroines as Mary Rowlandson, who survived and escaped captivy from the Indians.

In the era of the wild frontier, however, the image of the rugged, solitary, independent frontiersman, best embodied by Daniel Boone, who fiercely decried the exaggerated image of him put forth by his contemporaries, become dominant and was made so by an increasing number portrayals of poor, defenseless women. Indians were made out to be the bad guys and I thought it was interesting how Faludi pointed out the similarities between 9/11 and the execution of nearly 300 Native American Indians in 1862. Faludi notes that in each crisis, society reacted in a way that did not allow a discourse to exist. The literary critic Kenneth Burke once wrote that, "History is an endless conversation." In the case of the 1862 execution of the Indians and the days immediately following 9/11, there was only a monologue. I did not know that very few women were allowed to contribute to Op-Ed sections of newspapers right after 9/11. Why? I was surprised to learn that some people reacted to 9/11 by saying, 'Well, this blows feminism right off the map!' Faludi rightfully questions the relation between feminism and the horrific events of 9/11.

It is a shame that people will most likely never know about the heroic exploits of Cynthia Ann Parker or Hannah Duston, but I am glad that there are people like Susan Faludi who will remind us that history and the mythmakers have overlooked figures who play such important roles in rejecting gendered stereotypes.

This is an excellent book and like many good books, it kept me thinking, even when I was not reading it. I am sure some people will not agree with everything she writes, but her argument deserves to be considered.

Being a long-time Faludi fan, I was not quite sure if I wanted to read a book about 9/11, not because I had been traumatized by the event or anything, but I was unsure that I would find a book that looked at all of the complex views of such a complex event. However, I found, as usual, Faludi's insight into the propagation of the Male-as-Hero Myth and the Female-as-Victim/Weak Myth to be an intriguing lens through which to look at 9/11. This books continues, in a way, the material that the author brought to BACKLASH, that women in a certain context can be subjugated or oppressed, depending on the need of those in power (in tis case, the media, and by extension, politicians). Faludi adds to the age-old paradigm of women as either virgins or whores; now they are also victims, even when they really aren't. Clearly there were heroines of 9/11, but why have they been obscured? One reviewer of this book actually proves Faludi's point about blaming feminism for being crybabies rather than being "Americans". I hate to be the one to burst anyone's bubble, but women are Americans, too, and they have every right to assert their position as participants in this Great Experiment, especially when they are purposely being erased by conservative pundits and the sexist media. I cannot wait for this book to come out in paperback so that I can put this as required reading on my college syllabus.

It's great to read books where the author expresses everything you believe. Pierce's Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free was such a book for me. But it's equally great to read an author who offers you a completely new perspective on things. Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream gave me an opportunity to analyze the post-9/11 media and politics from a feminist point of view. Or rather, from the point of view of the damage that the collective trauma of 9/11 did to the feminist movement and its achievements.

The terror attacks of 9/11, Faludi argues, punctured the myth of America's invincibility. The feelings of fear and insecurity that everybody experienced as a result led to the emergence of a series of phenomena aimed at restoring this feeling of invincibility and security. Sadly, this restoration was conducted along the lines of the patriarchal vision of gender. Faludi's book analyzes the ways in which the media attempted to convince us of the validity and the profound relevance of the patriarchal worldview for the post-9/11 world.

Armed with her truly extensive research, Faludi demonstrates that the responses to the trauma of 9/11 represent a coherent whole, fueled by the call for the return to the traditional gender roles: "Taken individually, the various impulses that surfaced after 9/11 - the denigration of capable women, the magnification of manly men, the heightened call for domesticity, the search for and sanctification of helpless girls - might seem random expressions of some profound cultural derangement. But taken together, they form a coherent and inexorable whole, the cumulative elements of a national fantasy in which we are deeply invested, our elaborately constructed myth of invincibility."

Faludi analyzes the reasons behind many events that in the aftermath of the trauma we might have failed to notice and address. The push to present the heroes of 9/11 as exclusively male and its victims as exclusively female (even though this goes against all available evidence). The evisceration of female intellectuals (Barbara Kingsolver, Susan Sontag, Katha Pollitt) for saying the exact same things that their male colleagues were saying with impunity at that very moment. The promulgation of unsupported myths about women deciding to abandon the workplace in massive numbers, women choosing family over careers, and women desperate to get married and have babies as a result of 9/11. The push for the return to traditional gender roles. The fictitious image of "security moms." The treatment of 9/11 widows and the complete marginalization of 9/11 widowers. The story of Jessica Lynch that was based on an incredible number of lies and distorions.

Faludi delves into the depths of American history in order to disinter its foundational myths and discover why the collective trauma of 9/11 provoked such an unequivocally gendered response. Well-written, brilliantly argued, beautifully researched, Faludi's book is definitely worth reading.

"The Terror Dream" analyzes how the media and the government manipulated the events that transpired on 9/11 (and the aftermath) so that everything be presented as a return to strict gender roles circa the 1950s and/or the Wild West. Faludi pulls out all these great quotes from the media and blogosphere (my favorite: "The phallic symbol of America has been cut off," he wrote of the World Trade Center, "and at its base was a large smoldering vagina, the true symbol of American culture, for it is the western culture that represents the feminine materialistic principle, and it is at its extreme in America") in order to show the backlash against feminism and women in general.

She points out how the overwhelming majority of those who died at Ground Zero were male, and yet the media searched in vain to find pictures of women being carried out of the ruins by strong firemen; she also points out how the rescue efforts were largely pointless, as most of the survivors walked themselves out of the building. When those male-hero stories failed to materialize, the "victims" plastered all over the media became the poor widows and little girls left behind.

Then she turns to how the government portrayed itself, going back to Westerns and stories of the Wild West, and making themselves out to be coyboys saving the nation from invaders; she goes back further in history to draw these parallels.

The whole time I was reading, I was also wondering to myself...was my head in the sand during all of this?! How could I have not noticed?! I remember specific events--such as the Jessica Lynch "rescue"--but I'm surprised that I never put two and two together as to how these stories were being presented to the public.

Still, this is not a book about victimization; rather, it's the beginning of a long-needed discussion on how the media and government draws the attention away from real issues that need to be faced.

I recently read "Terror Dream" by Susan Faludi. She's an American journalist and author of the well-known books "Backlash" , and "Stiffed". In this book she explores the myth and misogyny in the cultural/media response to 9/11. It's interesting in my opinion, some of the more famous case-studies she talks about are the firefighters, the 9/11 widows, Jessica Lynch, the media's feigned concern for illiterate afghan girls. Faludi's thesis is that there was a dichotomizing between male heroes and female victims; regardless of whether or not this was the reality of the players involved in any situation. The male heroes had to be gritty, masculine, characters of action; whereas the female victims had to be innocent, helpless, preferably virgins. She said this originates in America's historical cultural continuum, going back to John Wayne, and beyond that, to captivity stories from the frontier days.

She draws a very strong analogy between Cynthia Anne Parker* and Jessica Lynch. It was an interesting read for me in particular due to my knowledge-level. At the time of the attacks and in the events following such as the Iraq war, I didn't have much of an awareness of how the media manipulates gender. As Faludi would revisit some of the developments I would remember some of them. In hindsight it seems like it was so obvious what was going on, though I don't think I caught much glimpse of it at the time.

There's a chapter on the firefighters of New York for a chapter. The media portrayed them as heroes, and I remember debating this with people online at the time, if they were really were heroes. Faludi argues that they were actually victims. 343 of them died on 9/11. One fact which I was not aware of was the extent to which they did not need to die. There was a warning put out to rescue workers to get out, as the towers could fall. The warning was never received as the FDNY were using malfunctioning radios. This information was later suppressed. This is well-explained by her thesis, the firefighters needed to be heroes, gritty heroes. Following the events and the media brouhaha, there was a backlash against female firefighters in the country and their numbers actually began to decline. She also discusses some of the accompanying mythology. A viral story on the media at the time was that American women were horny for firefighters, because of how manly they were. She goes through so many of these stories and she fails to find a single specific example of the media use an actual, named woman dating a firefighter; it's all hearsay and assumptions.

Outside of this book, I never heard that the flight attendants on United 93 were making coffee to throw on the terrorists' faces. The media portrayal was entirely that of a few men, in particular Todd Beamer, rising up to the challenge of the situation, finding strength, saying "let's roll" and thus saving the planes from crashing into the white house.

A chapter is devoted to the 2004 presidential election. One thing which I did not recall was the competitive machismo between Bush and Kerry. Kerry spent a lot of time in hunting garb, and talking about how to kill animals. We know the historical verdict: he was not successful in his election strategy. Faludi pointed out a key difference is that while both Kerry and Bush tried to be male heroes, Bush's team also inserted accompanying female victims who needed to be saved. Laura Bush was made a spokesmen for "security moms" and said he husband wanted to keep people safe, and there was this huge TV ad where Bush hugged an ~11 year old girl called Ashley, who had lots her (mom?) in 9/11. I don't recall the ad but she said it was aired 30,000 times, so it was clearly important.

I won't say much about the chapter on Jessica Lynch as I think that event has been successfully dismantled. Faludi did interview Lynch and it seems Lynch didn't know the woman in her own story. She has no recollection of being raped by her Arab "captors" (hospital medical staff), something which the media interpreted as "suppression of memory". She remembers being well-treated in the hospital from which she was "rescued" by American troops who broke down the doors on their way in rather than waiting for the doctors who were planning on opening the door for them.

She has a very strong explanation of the attention devoted to the plight of women in Afghanistan. The propagandist image of "Afghan girls in school" is a lot more about chivalry than about feminism, even if it gets called feminism to be more politically correct. The narrative is that the girls in Afghanistan are helpless against the lesser advanced men of the orient, and they can only be saved by western male soldiers -- "heroes" -- coming in to save them. It fits seamlessly into the dichotomistic 9/11 media mythology of male heroes (Bush, Giuliani, firefighters) and female victims (pregnant WTC widows, Afghan girls). This was used to justify the invasion. She chronicled how the tone of the media's commentary shifted over time once the attention shifted to maintaining occupation. There was a quote from National Review, where it was said that imposing equality on Afghanistan would be justifying the stereotype of the "ugly American".

Evolving media portrayals with time is something Faludi revisited in almost all of her case studies. Lynch was eventually criticized for "seeking" too much media attention (It seems like the media was chasing her). It seemed particularly aggravating with the 9/11 widows. The media sought them out, in particular those that were pregnant at the time for which there was a competition. They would be a given a script which was generally followed early on. Over time many would veer from the script, and the virgin Mary became the evil bitch. Within a few years, there were criticisms of the widows for moving on rather than mourning their man forever. A made-up story about "boob implants" is one example, there was also a scandal when one of the FDNY widows "seduced" a married man. The Jersey girls in particular veered off script.

I recommend reading it, you might find it a bit frustrating to read though it's very annoying, to read about the American media. It's also written, I think, for an audience of slightly higher sophistication than my own. Being a Canadian born in the 1980s I didn't know who John Wayne and what he represented, and I was not as interested in the chapters chronicling gender in the American captivity stories back in the frontier days of wars with native Americans. One thing I wonder about is how Faludi would fit Sarah Palin into this narrative. Palin's media portrayal does not strike me as being that of a helpless victim, I wonder if this means Americans have moved on from 9/11 and shifted to another state of psychosis.

*[Nota Bene: Cynthia Anne Parker was a Texan white girl from the 1800s who wads captured by (Commanche?) tribesmen along with some other people; her uncle is said to have made a strong attempt to rescue her over the years; turns out when she was rescued she didn't want to go back to white society; though that part was suppressed. Her uncle was played by John Wayne in the 1950s movie The Searchers, which is apparently a critical to the historical development of Hollywood narratives.]

I really didn't enjoy most of this book. Why? The writing was fantastic. The points incredibly well made. Faludi is an inspiring writer. The problem is not the book. The problem is that the book tells an awful truth about the state of the United States. Not just the day after the 911 terrorist attack, but to this very day. I think many of us had an uneasy feeling about how 911 was being presented to us through the media. As a volunteer fire fighter, EMT, and, and law enforcement officer, I knew something was wrong. I could tell women were being presented as belonging in one kind of box and men into another, and that those boxes just didn't fit how real human beings behave. But I didn't know why. I still don't know why totally, of course. Faludi offers us a very well researched piece of the truth from a feminist perspective. But it will take twenty, thirty, maybe one hundred more writers with the courage and intelligence she has to dig into the other aspects of what happened before we have a decent picture of the degree to which we've been lied to, the degree to which the reality of what happened and what is happening still has been shifted. This book is an excellent place to start.

Stephen Kinzer commenced his excellent book, "All the Shah's Men," with an epigraph from Harry Truman: "There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know." It is an epigraph that would be equally suitable for Faludi's meticulously researched book. In the first chapter she gave a key caveat to her work, in which she essentially states that this is NOT a book which renders a comprehensive analysis of America's response to 9-11,: "Rather this is a book about one facet of our response, a facet that runs deep in the American psyche, yet has gone largely unrecognized and undiagnosed."

And that facet is the "proper" role of male-female relations in American society, as defined by the "decision makers" in the various cultural, media and governmental "elites." I lived for most of the first two years after 9-11 outside the United States, and it was at times embarrassing to read the reaction to this event by all too many of our "pundits," characterized by the chapter heading: "We're at war, sweetheart." In the introduction Faludi quotes Seymour Hersh that "the biggest weakness of the Arabs is shame and humiliation." and she goes on to ask: But what of our own shame and humiliation? I thought of the website which proclaims that it "watches Fox News so you won't have to." Large swathes of Faludi's documentation comes from sources that I am grateful she researched, so I didn't have to, from Jerry Fallwell, to Camille Paglia and William Bennett, and watching various episodes of "Sex and the City." Even the ever so smug David Brooks makes more than a cameo appearance, with quotes such as: "the sudden sartorial need of affluent male shoppers to get `in touch with their inner longshoremen.'"

There was a rationale response to 9-11: devote sufficient resources to capturing the person responsible, Osama bin Laden, declare victory, and end the conflict, all of which could have been accomplished in 2001. It still has not occurred, and the events have been hijacked for other purposes. One facet, as she would say, has been a continuation and reinforcement of trends which she identified in her seminal work, "Backlash." Promote the image of the strong, virile, protective male, and the necessary complement, the dependent, helpless female. In retrospect, the "superman" treatment of Donald Rumsfeld is a suitable, ridiculous icon for this trend, along with the "strut" of George Bush on the USS Lincoln. The myth-makers were in highest gear; the chapter on the rescue of Jessica Lynch was particularly informative, and if the players did not act out their assign roles in the myth, they were generally pilloried and marginalized, from Jessica to various 9-11 widows.

I found the second part of the book equally fascinating, and indeed, another aspect of our history I did not know. Faludi focuses on the long history of the American frontier, from the earliest days in New England, when there was a real danger of Indian attacks against isolated settlements, until the final "closing" of the frontier in 1890. There were repeated stories of the kidnapping, particularly of women, by the Indians. Some were capable of defending themselves, others elected to live with their captives. The myth-making machine tried to re-write many of these stories, to make the women helpless, and the men their virile protectors. The impact of one movie, "The Searchers," with John Wayne, set with a Monument valley backdrop, on such directors as George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, Ron Howard, and Paul Schrader was most illuminating.

In her concluding chapter, "What If?," Faludi asked all too many germane questions to this event, and clearly outlined another course of action that could have been taken. I particularly liked her quote of Kipling's "The Last of the Light Brigade," and how that might apply to the long-suffering NYC firefighters.

I read through all the 1&2-star reviews, and found no criticism of her accuracy, or even thesis. It was mainly the "feminist rant" slurs. I did find the use of "Ontogeny," and "Phylogeny," which I, like most, had to look up, a bit pedantic. And even if I had a nightmare early on the morning of September 11th, about being involved in a plane hijacking, I wouldn't admit it - the coincidence is too unbelievable, and gets the book off to one of those "mystical" starts, that is belied by Faludi's documentation. And like Publisher's Weekly, I was surprised that Faludi omitted Abu Ghraib, with Lynndie England et al., and the need to sexually humiliate Iraqi prisoners.

Overall though, an excellent book, a full 5-stars, good, painful coverage of the follies of our reaction to the events of 9-11, and a rationale, detailed thesis concerning one "facet" of that reaction, the one concerning male-female interactions in America.