{"id":1774,"date":"2016-11-29T15:37:21","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T15:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/wordpress\/?p=1774"},"modified":"2018-06-01T22:55:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-01T22:55:44","slug":"a-conversation-with-susan-faludi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/?p=1774","title":{"rendered":"A\u00a0Conversation With Author Susan Faludi on Her Surprising New Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, November 17, 2016.<\/i><\/p>\n

I have decided that I have had enough of impersonating a macho aggressive man that I have never been inside.<\/i><\/p>\n

That was the email Susan Faludi<\/span><\/a>, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and award winning author, received from her 76-year-old father Steven Faludi. He sent it along with several attached selfies of himself in blouses, skirts and wigs, explaining his decision to fly to Thailand for gender reassignment surgery. Faludi appeared in City College\u2019s Steinman Hall recently to share the story from her latest book \u201cIn the Darkroom\u201d during a talk and discussion.<\/p>\n

Faludi, best known for her groundbreaking 1991 book \u201cBacklash: The Undeclared War Against Women,\u201d<\/span><\/a> has generally focused on the ideas of feminism and arguments that surround it. Her 1999 book, \u201cStiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man,<\/span><\/a>\u201d brings attention to how the traditional masculinity collapses. Other books include \u201cThe Terror Dream<\/span><\/a>,\u201d and \u201cComplaints & Disorders<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her latest book marks a departure, a story she says was far from easy for her to write. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I could have done this without being a journalist,\u201d Faludi stated to the CCNY audience. \u201cBecause in a way, when you have a very difficult parent, it\u2019s easier to just let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the idea of being the journalist quickly faded when the natural emotions as a daughter came into play. The author admitted the struggles of her relationship with her father, who she had been estranged from before he became Stefanie. \u201cIn truth we never had a good relationship,\u201d Faludi said. She remembers her dad, who passed away in 2015, as macho aggressive, narcotic, domineering, and violent while growing up. \u201cAll of which sparked my early feminism,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\"img_6042\"<\/p>\n

One of the questions that continuously lingered was whether or not this was just another one of Stefanie\u2019s \u201cquick changes\u201d or was this really him? After Faludi\u2019s father escaped the Holocaust during WWII, he went through a series of re-inventions such as documentary photographer, all American commuter dad in Westchester county, muscular sportsman and alpine mountaineer, and high end commercial photographer in Manhattan where he specialized in altering images.<\/p>\n

An excerpt from the book reveals that her father believed Stefanie was his \u201creal self:\u201d I was role playing as a man. Now as a woman, I am not role playing anymore. It\u2019s who I am now. Since the operation I\u2019ve developed another personality.<\/i><\/p>\n

Writing \u201cIn the Darkroom,\u201d taught Faludi an important lesson: She learned through the process to picture her parents as being less symbolic and more human. \u201cAs children we don\u2019t think of frailties and vulnerabilities,\u201d she stated. \u201c[But] we did come to a zigzag way of understanding and awareness of where each of our struggles came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

By Krystal Rivera, with thanks to CCNY’s student paper The Campus.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

\"susan-faludi\"<\/p>\n

Pulitzer Prize winning\u00a0journalist and best-selling\u00a0author of\u00a0Backlash,\u00a0<\/em>on her new book,\u00a0In the Darkroom<\/em>,\u00a0a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize<\/p>\n

Susan Faludi\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted\u00a0family saga. When the feminist writer learned that her 76-year-old father\u2014long estranged and living in Hungary\u2014had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new\u00a0parent who claimed to be \u201ca complete woman now\u201d connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father\u00a0she had known, the photographer who\u2019d built his career on the alteration of images?<\/p>\n

Susan Faludi is the author of the bestselling\u00a0Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women<\/em>, which won\u00a0the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction,\u00a0Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man<\/em>, and\u00a0The Terror\u00a0Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Darkroom\u00a0is an absolute stunner of a memoir \u2013 probing, steel-nerved, moving in ways you\u2019d never expect.\u00a0Ms. Faludi is determined both to demystify the father of her youth \u2013 \u2018a simultaneously inscrutable and volatile\u00a0presence, a black box and a detonator\u2019 \u2013 and to re-examine the very notion and nature of identity.\u201d\u00a0\u2013\u00a0The New York Times<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cA searching investigation of identity barely disguised as a sometimes funny and sometimes very painful family\u00a0saga\u2026 An out-and-out masterpiece of its kind.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2013\u00a0The Guardian113<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, November 17, 2016. I have decided that I have had enough of impersonating a macho aggressive man that I have never been inside. That was the email Susan Faludi, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and award winning author, received from her 76-year-old father Steven Faludi. He sent it along with several attached selfies of himself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[66,64],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2848,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions\/2848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rifkindcenter.ccny.cuny.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}