Unscrewed

Fauxpowerment as the Central Argument

Unscrewed is a book about one idea: fauxpowerment. Jaclyn Friedman uses the term for an era in which women are given the appearance of sexual power without the real power to support it. The book treats that gap as a source of the anxiety and fear many women carry about their own sexuality.

Friedman pushes against a common instinct, which is to read those feelings as personal shortcomings. She argues they are better understood as side effects of a larger arrangement. Once that framing is in place, the rest of the book works as an effort to show how the arrangement operates.

Where Media, Religion, Politics and Education Reach Into Intimate Life

Much of the book follows the points where outside institutions shape private life. Friedman examines how media, religion, politics and education each influence what people expect from sex and what they believe they are permitted to want. Her approach blends reportage with analysis, so the book moves between concrete examples and the patterns behind them.

The result is a portrait of sexual politics in America that is pointed without being abstract. Friedman breaks down the causes of fauxpowerment and describes its signs, giving readers a set of markers to look for in the culture around them.

Tools for Recognizing and Confronting the Illusion

The book's second purpose is practical. After laying out how fauxpowerment works, Friedman offers readers tools to take it on in their own lives. The emphasis falls on recognition first, then on the steps a reader can take once the illusion is visible.

Unscrewed asks readers to examine what they have been told to accept about sex, power and equality. Its central claim is that the sense of empowerment many women are offered can be separated from actual power, and that the separation is something a reader can work on.