[J]ust days after 9/11 [was] the Houston Chronicle headline, "No Place for Feminist Victims in Post 9-11 America"; a seemingly out of place assertion that speaks volumes about the American fixation on a clear-cut vision of victim and hero [...] It was, as New York Magazine put it in a headline, the stay-at-home widows [...], those "Perfect Virgins of Grief" that America's attention turned to. [...]
[American medias attempted] to rewrite 9/11 as a moment of valor and glory, conveniently skipping over the sadness, the loss, the humbling gravity of a world in which America could be so vilified by those in other parts of the world. [...]
Faludi's Terror Dream gives us insight into the revisionist myth that has ruled American catastrophe since its inception. From a 1678 sermon lamenting that men have become too effeminate to properly defend America, to the fear that feminism has effeminized a 21st century population, Faludi's narrative is a powerful wake up call.