Faludi chapters

Susan Faludi articulates her points very clearly, and the reading was easy to follow. However, like several of my peers, I am suspicious of the validity of the many statistics she presents, mainly because she doesn't cite specifically where exactly she gets her stats from.

Assuming that her stats and her sources are valid, I found her criticism of the Reagan administration's role in fighting women's independence to be very intriguing. She claims that "In the Reagan administration, U.S. Census Bureau demographers found themselves under increasing pressure to generate data for the government's war against women's independence, to produce statistics proving the rising threat of infertility...the dark side of single parenthood" (8). If this claim is true, it is certainly reprehensible. As an American, I find it embarrassing that a president's administration would intentionally try to warp stats to make it harder for women (or any group of people) to live independently.

Supposedly, the Reagan administration also censured Jeanne Moorman's marriage study. Faludi says that Reagan administration officials "handed down a directive, ordering her to quit speaking to the press about the marriage study because such critiques were too controversial...She was told to concentrate instead on a study that the White House wanted-- about how poor unwed mothers abuse the welfare system" (13). Once again, this is disgusting
and shameful to read. Apparently, the Reagan administration was only concerned about the welfare of a select few individuals in the nation, and independent-thinking women weren't part of this select group.

Once again, I fully realize that these claims really have no true validity apart from hearsay. As an American, I hope that the accusations toward the Reagan administration are not completely true, because they're truly shameful if this is indeed the case.