Yesterday’s Motoko Rich article alleging a lack of consumer interest in feminist books about the work/family balance sparked quite a bit of criticism—at Gawker, for example, Emily Gould had some choice words about using three whole weeks’ worth of accumulated Bookscan numbers to write a book off as dead.
Later that afternoon, Leslie Bennetts, the author of the book in question, issued a counterattack in the Huffington Post, which begins by claiming that the article is part and parcel of the “wretched” NYT coverage of women’s issues. More specifically, she points out that far from not selling, The Feminine Mistake landed on the Times extended bestseller list—a fact Rich’s article didn’t mention because, according to a secondhand quote from a Times editor, “she knew that as of the April 29 list it had dropped off the list.”