Susan J. Douglas is a professor of communications at the University of Michigan and an In These Times columnist. Her latest book is Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work is Done (2010).

Senior Editor Susan Douglas’ column “Back Talk” appears in each issue of In These Times. She writes frequently on gender issues, media criticism and national politics.

Douglas is the Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan and is also chair of the department. She is author of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Undermines Women (with Meredith Michaels, The Free Press, 2004); Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Times Books, 1999), which won the Hacker Prize in 2000 for the best popular book about technology and culture; Where The Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media (Times Books, 1994; Penguin, 1995) and Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922 (Johns Hopkins, 1987).

Where the Girls Are was widely praised, and was chosen as one of the top ten books of 1994 by National Public Radio, Entertainment Weekly and The McLaughlin Group.

Douglas lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband and daughter. She received her B.A. from Elmira College (Phi Beta Kappa) and her M.A. and Ph.D from Brown University. She has lectured at colleges and universities around the country, and written for The Nation, The Village Voice, Ms., the Washington Post and TV Guide, and was the media critic for The Progressive from 1992-1998.

Douglas has appeared on the “Today Show,” the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” “Working Woman,” CNBC’s “Equal Time,” NPR’s “Fresh Air,” “Weekend Edition,” “The Diane Rehm Show,” “Talk of the Nation,” and various radio talk shows around the country.