Susan Faludi, "The Naked Citadel"

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Susan Faludi first became interested in writing about feminism in the fifth grade, when she polled her classmates to determine their feelings about the Vietnam War and legalized abortion. In the furor that followed Faludi's release of her data showing her peers' liberal attitudes, Faludi came to realize, as she put it in a recent interview, "the power that you could have as a feminist writer. Not being the loudest person on the block, not being one who regularly interrupted in class or caused a scene, I discovered that through writing I could make my views heard, and I could actually create change."

The daughter of a homemaker and a Hungarian holocaust survivor, Faludi was raised in Queens and attended Harvard, where she studied literature and American history. After graduating in 1981, Faludi worked for a number of newspapers, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, before devoting her time to writing Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (1991), a study of the media's assault on feminism. Backlash won the National Book Critics Circle Award for general nonfiction in 1991 and made Faludi a household name. She appeared on the cover of Time magazine alongside Gloria Steinem and, almost overnight, became a national spokesperson on women's rights and the future of feminism.

While doing research for Backlash, Faludi began to wonder why the men who opposed women's progress were so angry. In setting out to understand this anger, Faludi interviewed a religious brotherhood, the Promise Keepers, sex workers in the pornography industry, union members, the unemployed, and other males who felt disempowered or disenfranchised. "The Citadel," which presents Faludi's investigation into why male cadets were so enraged by the admission of women into the military academy, is one part of this project and has since been incorporated into Faludi's second book, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man (1999). The surprising thesis of Stiffed is that men, too, have suffered during the recent social upheavals because "working with others anonymously and loyally to build something larger than yourself is no longer seen as glorious." Although Faludi holds out the hope for a society in which men and women can work together cooperatively, she also believes that "[t]o revive a genuine feminism, we must disconnect feminism from the individual pursuit of happiness and reconnect it with the individual desire for social responsibility: the basic human need and joy to be part of a larger, meaningful struggle, which engages the entire society."

Susan Faludi, "The Naked Citadel", The New Yorker, September 5, 1994, 62-81.
Initial quotation drawn from Brian Lamb's interview with Susan Faludi on Booknotes, October 25, 1992; closing quotation drawn from Kate Melloy's interview with Susan Faludi, "Feminist Author Susan Faludi Preaches Male Inclusion".
Digital Image drawn from Ohio University's Society for Women Students and Supporters.

Links to Explore

Susan Faludi interview: a discussion of Stiffed with New York Times book editor, Bill Goldstein, on Sept. 28, 1999, includes downloadable audio file.

The Citadel's home page: includes links the Department of Cadet Activities, the Citadel Code, and a discussion of the history and symbolism of the Citadel's ring.

Backlash.com: home page for the "equalitarian movement."

Interview with Catherine Manegold: author of In Glory's Shadow : Shannon Faulkner, the Citadel, and a Changing America discusses life at The Citadel after Faulkner's departure.

Questions for Connecting:

• Whether one feels called upon to argue for or against the training practices Faludi describes in “The Naked Citadel,” it is clear that they differ in significant ways from the teaching and learning practices used in non-military educational institutions. Faludi offers a host of reasons for why cadets find life at The Citadel to be rewarding, but her explanation serves, in large part, to make the cadets and their actions more difficult to understand. In “Immune to Reality,” Daniel Gilbert sets out to create a theory of happiness, one that explains why humans, in general, are so unprepared to predict and to pursue the material things and activities that lead to happiness. Does Gilbert’s theory shed new light on the choices and the actions of the cadets at The Citadel? Would Gilbert’s explanation for why The Citadel continues to attract students—male and female—reinforce, extend, or contradict Faludi’s argument? Write an essay about the degree to which happiness, as Gilbert defines it, plays a role in education inside and outside The Citadel.

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