PERSON PROFILE

Christina Hoff Sommers

Hoff Sommers has written two major books, both subsidized by the conservative movement.

Who Stole Feminism?

The first, Who Stole Feminism, is a rip on so-called "Gender Feminists". A critical review of it in Z Magazine pointed out numerous flaws (see more about this book below):

"Who Stole Feminism? is a deeply flawed book--not because it "dares" to challenge the feminist "orthodoxy," but because it distorts scholarly research and feminist views in order to tear down a straw person called "gender feminism.""

The War Against Boys

In The War Against Boys Hoff Sommers "accuses feminists...of waging war against American boys." This book was roundly and soundly debunked by the Washington Post in July of 2000:

"Examined carefully, Sommers's case does not hold up well. She persistently misrepresents scholarly debate, ignores evidence that contradicts her assertions, and directs intense scrutiny at studies she opposes while giving a free critical ride to research she supports...

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.

Had Sommers written a calm, factual presentation of boys' academic and social problems, this could have been a valuable book. Boys do lag behind girls in reading and writing, and they do trail in extracurricular participation. They are both perpetrators and victims of violence more often than girls are. But 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. '"

Who Stole Feminism?, in depth

Here's more of the Z Magazine review of Hoff Sommers' "Who Stole Feminism" (scroll down the page):

"Who Stole Feminism? is a deeply flawed book--not because it "dares" to challenge the feminist "orthodoxy," but because it distorts scholarly research and feminist views in order to tear down a straw person called "gender feminism."

And it is Sommers and her conservative allies, not "gender feminists," who seek to suppress dissenters. In a 1991 letter to the American Philosophical Association Proceedings, Sommers complained that feminist philosophers "transgress the norms of intellectual exchange" and accused them of "the attempt to suppress my minority standpoint." As one example, Sommers cited Sandra Lee Bartky, a University of Illinois at Chicago philosopher who wrote a private letter to the editor of the Atlantic, urging that a better reporter about feminism than Sommers be used for a story and (in a second letter) suggesting a debate between the two sides take place in the Atlantic's pages.

But when Sommers led a campaign in the media against the New York Times'choice of Nina Auerbach to write a review about Sommers's book, no one called this censorship. On the contrary, writers like Jim Sleeper, Hilton Kramer (a "deliberate attempt to annihilate an important new book on feminist politics"), and Howard Kurtz ("A Review or Revenge?") accused Auerbach and The New York Times of trying to (in Rush Limbaugh's words) "kill this book." Sommers claimed that Auerbach had "recognized" herself in the book and used the review to "settle scores," accusing Auerbach of "professional malfeasance" for her review.

But as Auerbach notes, "there was never anything self-serving about my hatred of this book." Auerbach never recognized herself in the book or wrote the review out of revenge. Rebecca Sinkler, editor of the Times Book Review, points out that Auerbach was chosen because "Auerbach is known as a contrarian, and a critic of academic feminism in its sillier manifestations"--and Auerbach's own review concluded that Sommers could have made a believable "charge of thought-policing" if she had examined the anti-pornography movement.

For writing a negative review, Auerbach was attacked by Sommers and vilified by conservatives across the country even though (as Sinkler observes) "No one who has charged her with bias has found anything inaccurate in her review." Yet Jean Elshtain ( New Republic), Mary Lefkowitz ( National Review), and Elizabeth Fox Genovese ( Atlanta Constitution) favorably reviewed the book without anyone criticizing the fact that all three are praised in Who Stole Feminism?as "distinguished figures."(l31-2) Why was Nina Auerbach attacked for reviewing a book which didn't mention her, while four supporters named in the book (including Cathy Young, who reviewed it in Commentary) were not challenged at all for being "biased" reviewers?

The presentation of Sommers as the victim of gender feminists (another irony for someone who opposes seeing women as victims) has been widely promoted by conservatives and the media, who in some cases resort to pure invention to support it. New York Times journalist Richard Bernstein reports in his new book Dictatorship of Virtue: "The APA Proceedings, in two issues, published a total of 44 pages of responses to Sommers's letter, every page negative. There was not a single word of support for Sommers. Forty-four pages of hostile responses to Sommers's letter, from writers who claimed that nobody did exactly what, in writing those letters, they were doing!"(l20) In fact, during the span of two years, the APA Proceedings printed 21 letters (32 pages) from Sommers and her supporters, versus 17 letters (31 pages) from Sommers's critics. Bernstein's conspiracy of feminists is the product of an overly vivid imagination which apparently impairs his ability to count.

It is time for serious debate about feminism to take place in the mainstream, as feminists have been doing among themselves for years. This discussion about Who Stole Feminism?should continue. It will be unfortunate, however, if intellectual debate is sidetracked by absurd charges of censorship and efforts to vilify critics rather than respond to them."

Wanted: A Few Good Girls

It's hard to tell whether Christina Hoff Sommers, stumping for the Young America's Foundation and its kid sister, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, is the darling of the far right or whether she is doing penance for some great sin committed against her conservative brethren...

...She deftly twists and turns her narrative to weave in the big conservative Talking Points: ...school vouchers, school uniforms, school discipline, schools with sex-segregated classrooms...a return to the three Rs...deification of standardized tests; and finally, as she winds down, a call to celebrate the obvious triumph of nature over nurture...

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