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Power Tends To Corrupt,
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

- Barbara J. Berg, PhD

Synopsis
The news in 2008 was that women had taken huge strides forward. Feminists’ decades-long struggle finally seemed to be paying off, not only in boardrooms, classrooms, and kitchens but also at the very top—in presidential politics. But what is the truth behind the headlines?

In Sexism in America: Alive, Well, and Ruining Our Future, renowned feminist author Barbara J. Berg debunks the many myths about how far women have come and the pervasive belief that ours is a postfeminist society. Combining authoritative research and compelling storytelling, Berg traces the assault on women’s status from the 1950s—when Newsweek declared “for the American girl, books and babies don’t mix”—to the present, exploring the deception about women’s progress and contextualizing our current situation. All women are hurt by a society lauding their attributes in speeches while scorning them in public policy and popular culture, and the legacy of the women’s movement is being short-circuited in every aspect of their lives.

Passionate, extensively documented, humorous, and persuasive, Sexism in America is simultaneously enlightening, frightening, and revitalizing. Berg, an ardent optimist, helps women understand where they are and why and how they can move beyond the marginalizing strategies. It is exactly the right book at exactly the right time.

Publishers Weekly
Sexism has not gone away, argues journalist/activist Berg, it has simply adapted to our changing culture. Berg offers a refresher course on the 20th-century women's rights movement and its unexpected devolution in recent years, drawing on aspects of culture like advertising and reality TV, scientific research and an online survey of 300 not-so-randomly selected women and interviews with 200 more. Contemporary women, Berg says, are encouraged to imitate vapid media darlings instead of breaking glass ceilings (or breaking even) in academia, business and government. Containing the requisite—and accurate—feminist media criticism and movement history, updates to the 2008 presidential election and Obama's first few months, this is an excellent, easily decipherable text for history, sociology and women's studies students—and even older feminists looking for an update. Berg uses short chapters for flowing discussions on work, reproductive rights, health and activism. She focuses on working women's issues, and more discussion on women who choose to be full-time homemakers and their particular concerns would have added balance. But Berg still offers a wakeup call for young women entering the cultural and career trenches on what went wrong and how to fix it.

Library Journal
This book is Berg's extremely persuasive dismissal of the claim that the United States is a "post-feminist, post-racial" society. Using testimonies from her survey of hundreds of American women, as well as extensively documented research, this self-admitted second-wave feminist gives a rapid-fire account of the advancement of women's rights and the continuing backlash on feminist progress from the 1950s to the present. Berg's feminist critique of seemingly gender-neutral events are a revelation. The attacks of 9/11, the war in Iraq, the current economic crisis, and the continuing health-care debate are examined with a keen eye toward their impact on women. Equally insightful is Berg's analysis of the setbacks facing the third wave of feminists in the United States. Limitations on contraception and abortion, the sexual harassment of women in the military, the fight for gay and lesbian equality, and the never-ending pay gap are but a few of the "new" issues tackled by Berg. VERDICT Each chapter of this book offers an impassioned plea: feminism is not dead, but there is still a great need for feminist women and men to fight for the rights of women in America. As Berg aptly states in her conclusion, "Everyone who believes in gender equality...must join together to push for progressive policies that will enhance all of our lives." Highly recommended.—Veronica Arellano, Univ. of Houston Libs., TX

Biography
Barbara J. Berg, PhD, is the author of The Crisis of the Working Mother, Nothing to Cry About, and The Remembered Gate: Origins of American Feminism. She has written for the Baltimore Sun, Ladies’ Home Journal, Ms., the New York Times Magazine, Parents, the Washington Post, and Working Woman.