Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women

Because of advertising and viewers demographics, the news media present stories with a clear bias-how to scare women. Whether it's the idea that divorce will ruin children, looking older will ruin women, or that feminism ruined everything for everyone, media outlets took anecdotal evidence and poorly run (and quickly discredited) studies to prove whatever sells quickly and salaciously in a sound bite-and women suffer for it. This would make an excellent book club book. The entire time I read the book, I wanted to discuss it with someone else. Because of the scope of the book, the author stuck to examining issues in the media as it pertains to scaring women-how can we freak out the women through news, advertising, and politics. It really is a brilliant policy-but it overlooks many other factors. Again, I understand that this is because of the scope of the book. I wish the author had put notes at the end of each chapter or footnotes in, instead of putting everything as an endnote at the back of the book. The work is well-documented, though-you can't fault the author on that. This is a great read, right along with The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women