A new edition of the feminist classic, with an all-new introduction exploring the role of backlash in the 2016 election and laying out a path forward for 2020 and beyond

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award Enraging, enlightening, and invigorating,Backlashis, most of all, true.Newsday

First published in 1991,Backlashmade headlines and became a bestselling classic for its thoroughgoing debunking of a decadelong antifeminist backlash against womens advances. A Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist, Susan Faludi brilliantly deconstructed the reigning myths about the costs of womens independencefrom the supposed man shortage to the infertility epidemic to career burnout to toxic day careand traced their circulation from Reagan-era politics through the echo chambers of mass media, advertising, and popular culture.

As Faludi writes in a new preface for this edition, much has changed in the intervening years: The Internet has given voice to a new generation of feminists. Corporations list gender equality among their core values. In 2019, a record number of women entered Congress. Yet the glass ceiling is still unshattered, women are still punished for wanting to succeed, and reproductive rights are hanging by a thread. This startling and essential book helps explain why womens freedoms are still so demonized and threatenedand urges us to choose a different future.