The women's movement hit my neighborhood like a freight train. Everybody got divorced. You wonder what would have happened to women if the suburbs hadn't been built.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the transformative impact of the women's movement on traditional family structures in suburban America.
Susan Faludi's quote highlights the rapid societal changes brought about by the women's movement, particularly in suburban neighborhoods where traditional marriage and family roles were challenged. The metaphor of a 'freight train' conveys the overwhelming and inevitable nature of these changes, suggesting that the construction of suburbs provided both physical space and a social context that facilitated this transformation in women's roles and relationships.
In practice
In discussions about the evolution of gender roles, this quote can emphasize the impact of social movements.
Feminism's agenda is basic: it asks that women not be forced to "choose" between public justice and private happiness. It asks that women be free to define themselves-instead of having their identity defined for them, time and again, by their culture and their men.
The media and the rest of popular culture weren't recording people's reactions to 9/11; they were forcing made-up reactions down people's throats.
The system of heroism depends on women to be weak so men can be strong.
As it turns out, social scientists have established only one fact about single women's mental health: employment improves it.
When the enemy has no face, society will invent one.
Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to 'choose' between public justice and private happiness.
Something is very wrong when our federal and state governments have a high tolerance for the unrestricted distribution of weapons of mass destruction, and it would be wrong to let this deadly form of neglect continue to facilitate bloodshed across America.
Often I have heard the taunt that suffragists are women who have failed to find any normal outlet for their emotions, and are therefore soured and disappointed beings. This is probably not true of any suffragist, and it is most certainly not true of me. My home life and relations have been as nearly ideal as possible in this imperfect world.
In my time, the follies of the town crept slowly among us, but now they travel faster than a stagecoach.
So easy to fall into a rut, isn't it? Why should ruts be so comfortable and so unpopular?
The liberals have not softened their view of actuality to make themselves live closer to the dream, but instead sharpen their perceptions and fight to make the dream actuality.
The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create.
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