Christina Hoff Sommers (born 1950 in Akron, Ohio) is a self-described conservative libertarian[1] author who researches culture, adolescents, and morality in American society. Her best-known books are Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men. A former philosophy professor in Ethics at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, she is a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. She speaks on college campuses through the conservative Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute's campus lecture program.
Sommers earned her B.A. at New York University where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1971. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy at Brandeis University in 1979. A critic of what she considers politically correct trends within feminism, critics have referred to Hoff Sommers as an antifeminist.[1][2]
Philosophy
Christina Hoff Sommers questions the direction that feminism has taken and the integrity of some of the research it has produced. Hoff Sommers claims that flawed reports have commanded large research grants and have been instrumental in setting misguided legislation and education policy. She claims in Who Stole Feminism that the often quoted March of Dimes study which says that 'domestic violence is the leading cause of birth defects,' does not exist. She also writes that violence against women does not peak during the Super Bowl, a widely-held belief. Research reports on domestic violence were used in setting the scope of such things as the Violence Against Women Act, which allocates $1.6 billion a year in federal funds for fighting domestic violence. She also attacks women's organizations like the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in her book Who Stole Feminism, which prompted the AAUW to respond. An AAUW press release states:
Unfortunately, Who Stole Feminism? is not about making positive societal change or changing behavior to create a more equitable society for women and girls. Rather, AAUW perceives the book to be an attack on scholars, women's organizations, and higher education. Contrary to what Sommers contends, there is nothing in any of our research about terms she uses--domination, subjugation, victimization, or oppression. Anyone who has read The AAUW Report will know that none of this is in our research. Ours is not a radical agenda despite Sommers' characterization of AAUW. We are about positive societal change. What does Sommers have to offer women and girls of America? Our research looks for solutions and is based on facts, not anecdotes or soundbites. The important thing to remember is that this debate is not about AAUW; it's about the children in this country. What is important is that our daughters and sons reach their full potential. [3].
In The War Against Boys and articles, Hoff Sommers faults misguided school curriculum, based on flawed research, for many problems in education including the falling reading scores of lower-school boys.
The Washington Post said of the book The War Against Boys:
In the end, Sommers fails to prove either claim in the title of her book. She does not show that there is a "war against boys." All she can show is that feminists are attacking her "boys-will-be-boys" concept of boyhood, just as she attacks their more flexible notion. The difference between attacking a concept and attacking millions of real children is both enormous and patently obvious. Sommers's title, then, is not just wrong but inexcusably misleading. For the claim in her subtitle that "misguided feminism is harming our young men," she does not present a shred of credible supporting evidence but rather advances her position by assertion and abstract argumentation. ...Sommers's book is a work of neither dispassionate social science nor reflective scholarship; it is a conservative polemic. Sommers focuses less on boys than on the feminists and cultural liberals against whom she has a long-standing animus. As a society, we sorely need a discussion of boyhood that is thoughtful and searching. This intemperate book is a hindrance to such conversation.
Hoff Sommers uses the terms "equity feminism" and "gender feminism" to differentiate what she sees as acceptable and non-acceptable forms of feminisnm. Hoff Sommers describes equity feminism as the struggle for equal legal and civil rights and many of the original goals of the first wave of the women's movement. She describes "gender feminism" as the action of accenting the differences of genders for the purposes of creating privilege for women in academia, government, industry, or advancing personal agendas.citation needed
A critical review of her work in Z Magazine attacked her for what the author considered hypocrisy. It points out that she claims that feminists suppress dissent and yet attacked The New York Times for having Nina Auerbach review her book. It also points out numerous perceived factual errors and distortions in her work.[4]
Books and articles
- Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women (1994) ISBN 0-684-80156-6
- The War against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (June 2001) ISBN 0-684-84957-7
- Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life
- Right and Wrong: Basic Readings in Ethics
- One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance
- A Book for Real Boys
- Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?
See also
References
- ^ Bhattacharya, Chandrima S. (March 1995). "American Association of University Women Memorandum". AAUW Media Relations. Retrieved on 2007-09-02.
- ^ McElroy, Wendy (1999-11-12). "Prostitution: Reconsidering Research", SpinTech, (magazine). Retrieved on 2006-10-19.
- ^ LaFramboise, LaFramboise (1996). The Princess at the Window: A New Gender Morality. Toronto, Canada: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-025690-3. Retrieved on 2006-10-19. “Over the past few years, a growing number of women have written books critical of mainstream feminism. Among them [...] Christina Hoff Sommers.”
- ^ Hoff Sommers, Christina (1994). Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Simon and Schuster, 22. ISBN 0-671-79424-8 (hb), ISBN 0-684-80156-6 (pb), LCC HQ1154.S613 1994.
- ^ ibid. p. 21
- ^ Jennifer Pozner: Female Anti-Feminism for Fame and Profit.
- ^ Flood, Michael (2004-07-07). "Backlash: Angry men's movements", in Stacey Elin Rossi, ed.: The Battle and Backlash Rage On. N.p.: XLibris, 273. ISBN 1-4134-5934-X. Retrieved on 2006-10-19.
- ^ Wilson, John (December 2005). The Myth Of Political Correctness. N.p.: Duke University Press, 224. ISBN 978-0822317135.
- ^ "Queer and Loathing". Z Magazine (December 2005).
Further reading
- Sterling Harwood, "Introduction: A Statistical Portrait," in Sterling Harwood, ed., Business as Ethical and Business as Usual (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2000), pp. 166-167.
External links
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