Faludi's Nightmare

New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani rips into Susan Faludi's The Terror Dream, a book, she explains, that takes the "momentous subject of 9/11 and come to the conclusion that it led to…an assault on the freedom and independence of American women." Kakutani opens:

This, sadly, is the sort of tendentious, self-important, sloppily reasoned book that gives feminism a bad name.

She pooh-poohs Faludi's premise that 9/11 has led to the "disappearance of female voices" from the public debate:

To begin with, the reader wants to ask: What disappearance of female voices? What "bugle call" to "return to Betty Crocker domesticity?" Since 9/11, Hillary Rodham Clinton has become the leading Democratic contender in the race for the White House, with a good chance of becoming the first female president in history; Katie Couric was named anchor of the CBS Evening News; and women like Lara Logan of CBS and Martha Raddatz of ABC have been reporting from the frontlines of the war in Iraq.

Kakutani twists the knife in the concluding paragraph:

Such errors of logic are typical of this ill-conceived and poorly executed book—a book that stands as one of the more nonsensical volumes yet published about the aftermath of 9/11.

Ouch.

Full review here.