The well-known feminist author Susan C. Faludi '81 issued an S.O.S. on behalf of American men last night in Sanders Theatre, where she spoke before an audience of about 500 Harvard community members.

Faludi, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of the best-selling 1991 book, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women returned to Harvard, where she earned her undergraduate degree, to talk about her latest work, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man.

Backlash attacked the notion that feminism eradicated discrimination against women. Now Faludi has turned her attention to the plight of American men.

During the course of her hour-long speech, which was followed by a question-and-answer period, Faludi expounded upon the thesis of Stiffed, arguing that neither men nor feminists are to blame for the current crisis of manliness in America.

Rather, Faludi said, "men have suffered layers of betrayal," the deepest of which is the demise of utilitarian society and its replacement by a consumer-driven culture in which "celebrity and sex-value are all that matter."

"We live in a world of images," Faludi said, adding that men have suffered from a kind of fame syndrome.

"You're not a man [anymore] unless you play one on television," Faludi quipped.

Though she conceded that she is an unlikely candidate for the job of counseling American men, Faludi said lessons from the feminists' struggle can be applied to the situation confronting men today.

"The last thing a man in distress wants to see coming over the horizon [to save him] is a feminist in battle gear," she said, eliciting chuckles from the crowd.