Christina Hoff Sommers: Difference between revisions
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'''Christina Marie Hoff Sommers''' (born 1950)<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J7CmUNr_HEgC |title=The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics |isbn=978-0-7674-2910-8 |last1=Rosenstand |first1=Nina |year=2003|publisher=McGraw-Hill }}</ref> is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in [[ethics]], she is a resident scholar at the [[American Enterprise Institute]].<ref name="AEIbio">{{Cite web |title=Christina Hoff Sommers |url=https://www.aei.org/profile/christina-hoff-sommers/ |access-date=2023-04-08 |website=American Enterprise Institute - AEI |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gordon |first1=Dane R. |last2=Niżnik |first2=Józef |title=Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy |date=1998 |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=90-420-0368-5 |pages=56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j34ARAWhd1cC&pg=PA56 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Nussbaum |first1=Martha C. |title=Sex and Social Justice |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535501-7 |pages=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7zoaKIolT9oC&pg=PA130 |language=en}}</ref> Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary [[feminism]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/feministwriters00shel |url-access=registration |title=Feminist Writers |editor1-first=Pamela |editor1-last=Kester-Shelton |editor2-first=Ashley A. |editor2-last=Shelton |editor3-first=Margaret |editor3-last=Mazurkiewicz |location=Detroit |publisher=St. James Press |date=September 17, 1996 |chapter=Christina Hoff Sommers |quote=Philosopher and educator Christina Hoff Sommers's principal work, Who Stole Feminism?, is an edgy invective against contemporary feminism as the author perceives it. |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministwriters00shel/page/444 444]–446 |isbn=978-1-55862-217-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url-access=subscription |work=Contemporary Authors Online |publisher=Detroit: Gale |date=2005 |title=Biography in Context |access-date=February 29, 2016 |quote=Christina Hoff Sommers attracted wide attention for her controversial 1994 book, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women, an indictment of the contemporary feminist movement. |url=https://www.gale.com/}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/118430/independent-womens-forum-challenges-one-five-statistic |title=Independent Women's Forum Challenges One In Five Statistic |author=Taylor Malmsheimer |date=June 27, 2014 |magazine=New Republic |quote="Christina Hoff Sommers, a former philosophy professor best known for her critiques of late-twentieth-century feminism."}}</ref> Her work includes the books ''[[Who Stole Feminism?]]'' (1994) and ''The War Against Boys'' (2000). She also hosts a video blog called ''The Factual Feminist''. |
'''Christina Marie Hoff Sommers''' (born 1950)<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J7CmUNr_HEgC |title=The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics |isbn=978-0-7674-2910-8 |last1=Rosenstand |first1=Nina |year=2003|publisher=McGraw-Hill }}</ref> is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in [[ethics]], she is a resident scholar at the [[American Enterprise Institute]].<ref name="AEIbio">{{Cite web |title=Christina Hoff Sommers |url=https://www.aei.org/profile/christina-hoff-sommers/ |access-date=2023-04-08 |website=American Enterprise Institute - AEI |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gordon |first1=Dane R. |last2=Niżnik |first2=Józef |title=Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy |date=1998 |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=90-420-0368-5 |pages=56 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j34ARAWhd1cC&pg=PA56 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Nussbaum |first1=Martha C. |title=Sex and Social Justice |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535501-7 |pages=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7zoaKIolT9oC&pg=PA130 |language=en}}</ref> Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary [[feminism]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/feministwriters00shel |url-access=registration |title=Feminist Writers |editor1-first=Pamela |editor1-last=Kester-Shelton |editor2-first=Ashley A. |editor2-last=Shelton |editor3-first=Margaret |editor3-last=Mazurkiewicz |location=Detroit |publisher=St. James Press |date=September 17, 1996 |chapter=Christina Hoff Sommers |quote=Philosopher and educator Christina Hoff Sommers's principal work, Who Stole Feminism?, is an edgy invective against contemporary feminism as the author perceives it. |pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministwriters00shel/page/444 444]–446 |isbn=978-1-55862-217-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url-access=subscription |work=Contemporary Authors Online |publisher=Detroit: Gale |date=2005 |title=Biography in Context |access-date=February 29, 2016 |quote=Christina Hoff Sommers attracted wide attention for her controversial 1994 book, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women, an indictment of the contemporary feminist movement. |url=https://www.gale.com/}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/118430/independent-womens-forum-challenges-one-five-statistic |title=Independent Women's Forum Challenges One In Five Statistic |author=Taylor Malmsheimer |date=June 27, 2014 |magazine=New Republic |quote="Christina Hoff Sommers, a former philosophy professor best known for her critiques of late-twentieth-century feminism."}}</ref> Her work includes the books ''[[Who Stole Feminism?]]'' (1994) and ''The War Against Boys'' (2000). She also hosts a video blog called ''The Factual Feminist''. |
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Sommers' positions and writing have been characterized by the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' as "[[equity feminism]]", a [[classical liberalism|classical]]-[[liberal feminist|liberal]] or [[libertarian]] feminist perspective holding that the main political role of feminism is to ensure that the right against coercive interference is not infringed.<ref name="Baehr 2021"/> Sommers has contrasted equity feminism with what she terms ''[[victim feminism]]'' and ''gender feminism'',<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-RCMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA693 |page=693 |title=Handbook of Construtionist Research |chapter=35: Feminism and Constructionism (in Part VI: Continuing Challenges) |first=Barbara L. |last=Marshal |year=2013 |publisher=Guilford Publications |isbn=978-1-4625-1481-6 |editor1-first=James A. |editor1-last=Holstein |editor2-first=Jaber F. |editor2-last=Gubrium |quote=Christina Hoff Sommers (1994) coined the term ''gender feminism'' in opposition to ''equity feminism''.}}</ref><ref name="speech">{{cite web |author=Christina Hoff Sommers |access-date=November 16, 2014 |website=AEI.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090117085529/http://aei.org/docLib/20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf |archive-date=January 17, 2009 |url=http://aei.org/docLib/20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf |title=What's Wrong and What's Right with Contemporary Feminism? |quote=The dominant philosophy of today’s women’s movement is not equity feminism--but "victim feminism."}} Hamilton College speech, 19 November 2008.</ref> arguing that modern feminist thought often contains an "irrational [[misandry|hostility to men]]" and possesses an "inability to take seriously the possibility that the sexes are equal but different".<ref name="speech"/>{{third party inline|date=December 2022}} Several writers have described Sommers as [[anti-feminist]] |
Sommers' positions and writing have been characterized by the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' as "[[equity feminism]]", a [[classical liberalism|classical]]-[[liberal feminist|liberal]] or [[libertarian]] feminist perspective holding that the main political role of feminism is to ensure that the right against coercive interference is not infringed.<ref name="Baehr 2021"/> Sommers has contrasted equity feminism with what she terms ''[[victim feminism]]'' and ''gender feminism'',<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-RCMAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA693 |page=693 |title=Handbook of Construtionist Research |chapter=35: Feminism and Constructionism (in Part VI: Continuing Challenges) |first=Barbara L. |last=Marshal |year=2013 |publisher=Guilford Publications |isbn=978-1-4625-1481-6 |editor1-first=James A. |editor1-last=Holstein |editor2-first=Jaber F. |editor2-last=Gubrium |quote=Christina Hoff Sommers (1994) coined the term ''gender feminism'' in opposition to ''equity feminism''.}}</ref><ref name="speech">{{cite web |author=Christina Hoff Sommers |access-date=November 16, 2014 |website=AEI.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090117085529/http://aei.org/docLib/20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf |archive-date=January 17, 2009 |url=http://aei.org/docLib/20090108_ContemporaryFeminism.pdf |title=What's Wrong and What's Right with Contemporary Feminism? |quote=The dominant philosophy of today’s women’s movement is not equity feminism--but "victim feminism."}} Hamilton College speech, 19 November 2008.</ref> arguing that modern feminist thought often contains an "irrational [[misandry|hostility to men]]" and possesses an "inability to take seriously the possibility that the sexes are equal but different".<ref name="speech"/>{{third party inline|date=December 2022}} Several writers have described Sommers as [[anti-feminist]].<ref name="Mendlesohn2010" /><ref name="Projansky2001" /><ref name="Anderson2014" /> |
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==Early life== |
==Early life== |
Revision as of 19:30, 18 April 2024
Christina Hoff Sommers | |
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Born | Christina Marie Hoff 1950 (age 73–74) Sonoma County, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Author, philosopher, university professor, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute |
Political party | Democratic |
Education | New York University (BA) Brandeis University (MA, PhD) |
Notable works | Who Stole Feminism?, The War Against Boys, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life |
Spouse | Frederic Tamler Sommers (d. 2014) |
Website | |
Official website |
Christina Marie Hoff Sommers (born 1950)[1] is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.[2][3][4] Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary feminism.[5][6][7] Her work includes the books Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War Against Boys (2000). She also hosts a video blog called The Factual Feminist.
Sommers' positions and writing have been characterized by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as "equity feminism", a classical-liberal or libertarian feminist perspective holding that the main political role of feminism is to ensure that the right against coercive interference is not infringed.[8] Sommers has contrasted equity feminism with what she terms victim feminism and gender feminism,[9][10] arguing that modern feminist thought often contains an "irrational hostility to men" and possesses an "inability to take seriously the possibility that the sexes are equal but different".[10][third-party source needed] Several writers have described Sommers as anti-feminist.[11][12][13]
Early life
Sommers was born in 1950 to Kenneth and Dolores Hoff.[14] She attended the University of Paris, earned a BA degree at New York University in 1971, and earned a PhD degree in philosophy from Brandeis University in 1979.[15][16]
Career
Ideas and views
Sommers said in 2014 that she is a registered Democrat "with libertarian leanings".[17] She has described herself as an equity feminist,[18][19][20] equality feminist,[21][22] and liberal feminist[23][24] and defines equity feminism as the struggle, based upon Enlightenment principles of individual justice,[25] for equal legal and civil rights for women—the original goals of first-wave feminism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy categorizes equity feminism as libertarian or classically liberal.[8] In 2019, Sommers endorsed Andrew Yang's campaign during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.[26]
Several authors have called Sommers' positions antifeminist.[11][12][13] The feminist philosopher Alison Jaggar wrote in 2006 that, in rejecting the theoretical distinction between sex as a set of physiological traits and gender as a set of social identities, "Sommers rejected one of the distinctive conceptual innovations of second wave Western feminism," arguing that as the concept of gender is allegedly relied on by "virtually all" modern feminists, "the conclusion that Sommers is an anti-feminist instead of a feminist is difficult to avoid".[24] Sommers has denied that she is an anti-feminist, calling such criticisms "excommunication from a religion I didn't know existed."[27][non-primary source needed] Sommers views developments of second-wave feminism and later as incoherent and products of a reversion to a coddling culture of outrage, stemming from middle-class upbringing of later feminists.[27][non-primary source needed] Her criticism mostly focuses on what she sees as anti-male and victimhood positions of modern feminism, with other critics, such as Camile Paglia and Nancy Friday, criticising more regularly what they see as puritanical or anti-sex positions of modern feminism.[28][29]
Sommers is a longtime critic of women's studies departments and of university curricula in general.[citation needed] In a 1995 interview with freelance journalist Scott London, Sommers said, "The perspective now, from my point of view, is that the better things get for women, the angrier the women's studies professors seem to be, the more depressed Gloria Steinem seems to get."[30] According to The Nation, Sommers would tell her students that "statistically challenged" feminists in women's studies departments engage in "bad scholarship to advance their liberal agenda" and are peddling a skewed and incendiary message: "Women are from Venus, men are from Hell."[31]
Sommers has denied the existence of a gender pay gap.[32]
Sommers has defended the Gamergate harassment campaign, saying that its members were "just defending a hobby they love." This advocacy in favor of Gamergate earned her praise from members of the men's rights movement, inspiring fan art and the nickname "Based Mom", which Sommers embraced.[32] During Gamergate, Sommers appeared at several events with far-right political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.[32]
Early work
From 1978 to 1980, Sommers was an instructor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.[33] In 1980, she became an assistant professor of philosophy at Clark University and was promoted to associate professor in 1986. Sommers remained at Clark until 1997, when she became the W.H. Brady fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.[15] During the mid-1980s, Sommers edited two philosophy textbooks on the subject of ethics: Vice & Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics (1984) and Right and Wrong: Basic Readings in Ethics (1986). Reviewing Vice and Virtue for Teaching Philosophy in 1990, Nicholas Dixon wrote that the book was "extremely well edited" and "particularly strong on the motivation for studying virtue and ethics in the first place, and on theoretical discussions of virtue and vice in general."[34]
Beginning in the late 1980s, Sommers published a series of articles in which she strongly criticized feminist philosophers and American feminism in general.[35][36] In a 1988 Public Affairs Quarterly article titled "Should the Academy Support Academic Feminism?", Sommers wrote that "the intellectual and moral credentials of academic feminism badly want scrutiny" and asserted that "the tactics used by academic feminists have all been employed at one time or another to further other forms of academic imperialism."[37] In articles titled "The Feminist Revelation" and "Philosophers Against the Family," which she published during the early 1990s, Sommers argued that many academic feminists were "radical philosophers" who sought dramatic social and cultural change—such as the abolition of the nuclear family—and thus revealed their contempt for the actual wishes of the "average woman."[38][39][40] These articles would form the basis for Who Stole Feminism?[40]
Other work
Sommers is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.[41][third-party source needed] She has served on the national advisory board of the Independent Women's Forum[42] and the Center of the American Experiment.[43] Sommers has written articles for Time,[44] The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.[45] She hosts a video blog called The Factual Feminist on YouTube.[46][47] Sommers created a video "course" for the conservative website PragerU.[48]
Sommers has also appeared on Red Ice's white nationalist podcast Radio 3Fourteen.[32] Sommers later clarified that she did not know about the podcast prior to her appearance.[32]
Who Stole Feminism?
In Who Stole Feminism, Sommers outlines her distinction between gender feminism,[a] which she regards as being the dominant contemporary approach to feminism, and equity feminism, which she presents as more akin to first-wave feminism. She uses the work to argue that contemporary feminism is too radical and disconnected from the lives of typical American women, presenting her equity feminism alternative as a better match for their needs.[50] She characterizes gender feminism as having transcended the liberalism of early feminists so that instead of focusing on rights for all, gender feminists view society through the sex/gender prism and focus on recruiting women to join the struggle against patriarchy.[51] Reason reviewed Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women and characterized gender feminism as the action of accenting the differences of genders in order to create what Sommers believes is privilege for women in academia, government, industry, or the advancement of personal agendas.[52][53]
In criticizing contemporary feminism, Sommers writes that an often-mentioned March of Dimes study, which says that "domestic violence is the leading cause of birth defects,” does not exist and that violence against women does not peak during the Super Bowl, which she describes as an urban legend. She argues that such statements about domestic violence helped shape the Violence Against Women Act, which initially allocated $1.6 billion a year in federal funds for ending domestic violence against women. Similarly, she argues[54] that feminists assert that approximately 150,000 women die each year from anorexia, an apparent distortion of the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association Archived March 2, 2020, at the Wayback Machine's figure that 150,000 females have some degree of anorexia.[55][56]
Laura Flanders of the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), panned Sommers's book as being "filled with the same kind of errors, unsubstantiated charges and citations of 'advocacy research' that she claims to find in the work of the feminists she takes to task ..."[55] Sommers responded to FAIR's criticisms in a letter to the editor of FAIR's monthly magazine, EXTRA![57]
The War Against Boys
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In 2000, Sommers published The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men. In the book, Sommers challenged what she called the "myth of shortchanged girls" and the "new and equally corrosive fiction" that "boys as a group are disturbed."[58] Criticizing programs that had been set up in the 1980s to encourage girls and young women, largely in response to studies that had suggested that girls "suffered through neglect in the classroom and the indifference of male-dominated society,"[59] Sommers argued in The War Against Boys that such programs were based on flawed research. She asserted that reality was quite the opposite: boys were a year and a half behind girls in reading and writing, and they were less likely to go to college.
She blamed Carol Gilligan as well as organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW)[59] for creating a situation in which "boys are resented, both as the unfairly privileged sex and as obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls." According to Sommers, "a review of the facts shows boys, not girls, on the weak side of an education gender gap."[15][60]
The book received mixed reviews. In conservative publications such as the National Review and Commentary, The War Against Boys was praised for its "stinging indictment of an anti-male movement that has had a pervasive influence on the nation's schools"[61] and for identifying "a problem in urgent need of redress."[62] Writing in The New York Times, opinion columnist Richard Bernstein called it a "thoughtful, provocative book" and suggested that Sommers had made her arguments "persuasively and unflinchingly, and with plenty of data to support them."[63] Joy Summers, in The Journal of School Choice, said that "Sommers’ book and her public voice are in themselves a small antidote to the junk science girding our typically commonsense-free, utterly ideological national debate on 'women's issues'."[64] Publishers Weekly suggested that Sommers' conclusions were "compelling" and "deserve an unbiased hearing," while also noting that Sommers "descends into pettiness when she indulges in mudslinging at her opponents."[58] Similarly, a review in Booklist suggested that while Sommers "argues cogently that boys are having major problems in school," the book was unlikely to convince all readers "that these problems are caused by the American Association of University Women, Carol Gilligan, Mary Pipher, and William S. Pollack," all of whom were strongly criticized in the book. Ultimately, the review suggested, "Sommers is as much of a crisismonger as those she critiques."[65]
In a review of The War Against Boys for The New York Times, child psychiatrist Robert Coles wrote that Sommers "speaks of our children, yet hasn't sought them out; instead she attends those who have, in fact, worked with boys and girls—and in so doing is quick to look askance at Carol Gilligan's ideas about girls, [William] Pollack's about boys." Much of the book, according to Coles, "comes across as Sommers's strongly felt war against those two prominent psychologists, who have spent years trying to learn how young men and women grow to adulthood in the United States."[15][66] Reviewing the book for The New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann wrote that Sommers "sets the research bar considerably higher for the people she is attacking than she does for herself," using an "odd, ambushing style of refutation, in which she demands that data be provided to her and questions answered, and then, when the flummoxed person on the other end of the line stammers helplessly, triumphantly reports that she got 'em." Lemann faulted Sommers for accusing Gilligan of using anecdotal argument when her own book "rests on an anecdotal base" and for making numerous assertions that were not supported by the footnotes in her book.[67]
Writing in The Washington Post, E. Anthony Rotundo stated that "in the end, Sommers ... 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." Sommers's title, according to Rotundo, "is not just wrong but inexcusably misleading... a work of neither dispassionate social science nor reflective scholarship; it is a conservative polemic."[68]
In the updated and revised edition published in 2013, Sommers responded to her critics by changing the subtitle of the book from How misguided feminism harms our young men to How misguided policies harm our young men, and provided new and updated statistics that position her earlier work, in her view, as prophetic.[69] When asked by MacLean's Magazine whether her work is still controversial, Sommers responded:
It was when I first wrote the book. At the time, women’s groups promoted the idea that girls were second-class citizens in our schools. [...] David Sadker claimed that when boys call out answers in school, teachers are respectful and interested—whereas when girls do it, they are told to be quiet. [...] This became a showcase factoid of the shortchanged girl movement. But it turned out that the research behind the claim was nowhere to be found. It was a baseless myth: the result of advocacy research. I have looked at U.S. Department of Education data on more conventional measures: grades, college matriculation, school engagement, test scores. Now more than ever, you find that boys are on the wrong side of the gender gap.[70]
Awards
The Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) awarded Sommers with one of its twelve 2013 Exceptional Merit in Media Awards[71] for her The New York Times article “The Boys at the Back.”[72] In their description of the winners, NWPC states, "Author Christina Sommers asks whether we should allow girls to reap the advantages of a new knowledge based service economy and take the mantle from boys, or should we acknowledge the roots of feminism and strive for equal education for all?"[71]
Personal life
Sommers married Fred Sommers, the Harry A. Wolfson Chair in Philosophy at Brandeis University, in 1981.[15][73] He died in 2014.[74] The marriage provided her a stepson, Tamler Sommers, who is a philosopher and podcast host.[75][15][76][77]
See also
Selected works
Books
- (1984). (ed.). Vice & Virtue in Everyday Life: Introductory Readings in Ethics. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Co-edited with Robert J. Fogelin for the 2nd and 3rd editions, and with Fred Sommers for the 4th and subsequent editions. ISBN 0-15-594890-3
- (1986) (ed.). Right and Wrong: Basic Readings in Ethics. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Co-edited with Robert J. Fogelin. ISBN 0-15-577110-8
- (1994). Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-84956-0
- (2000 and 2013). The War Against Boys. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84956-9 and ISBN 978-1-451-64418-0
- (2005). (with Sally Satel, M.D.). One Nation Under Therapy. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-30444-7
- (2009). The Science on Women in Science. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press. ISBN 978-0-8447-4281-6
- (2013). Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today. Washington, D.C.: AEI Press. ISBN 978-0-844-77262-2
Articles
- (1988). "Should the Academy Support Academic Feminism?". Public Affairs Quarterly. 2: 97–120.
- (1990). "The Feminist Revelation". Social Philosophy and Policy. 8(1): 152–157.
- (1990). "Do These feminists Like Women?". Journal of Social Philosophy. 21(2) (Fall): 66–74.
Notes
References
- ^ Rosenstand, Nina (2003). The Moral of the Story: An Introduction to Ethics. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-7674-2910-8.
- ^ "Christina Hoff Sommers". American Enterprise Institute - AEI. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
- ^ Gordon, Dane R.; Niżnik, Józef (1998). Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy. Rodopi. p. 56. ISBN 90-420-0368-5.
- ^ Nussbaum, Martha C. (1999). Sex and Social Justice. Oxford University Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-19-535501-7.
- ^ Kester-Shelton, Pamela; Shelton, Ashley A.; Mazurkiewicz, Margaret, eds. (September 17, 1996). "Christina Hoff Sommers". Feminist Writers. Detroit: St. James Press. pp. 444–446. ISBN 978-1-55862-217-3.
Philosopher and educator Christina Hoff Sommers's principal work, Who Stole Feminism?, is an edgy invective against contemporary feminism as the author perceives it.
- ^ "Biography in Context". Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale. 2005. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
Christina Hoff Sommers attracted wide attention for her controversial 1994 book, Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women, an indictment of the contemporary feminist movement.
- ^ Taylor Malmsheimer (June 27, 2014). "Independent Women's Forum Challenges One In Five Statistic". New Republic.
Christina Hoff Sommers, a former philosophy professor best known for her critiques of late-twentieth-century feminism.
- ^ a b Baehr, Amy R. (October 18, 2007). "Liberal Feminism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
- ^ Marshal, Barbara L. (2013). "35: Feminism and Constructionism (in Part VI: Continuing Challenges)". In Holstein, James A.; Gubrium, Jaber F. (eds.). Handbook of Construtionist Research. Guilford Publications. p. 693. ISBN 978-1-4625-1481-6.
Christina Hoff Sommers (1994) coined the term gender feminism in opposition to equity feminism.
- ^ a b Christina Hoff Sommers. "What's Wrong and What's Right with Contemporary Feminism?" (PDF). AEI.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 17, 2009. Retrieved November 16, 2014.
The dominant philosophy of today's women's movement is not equity feminism--but "victim feminism."
Hamilton College speech, 19 November 2008. - ^ a b Vint, Sherryl (2010). "6: Joanna Russ's The Two of Them in an Age of Third-wave Feminism". In Mendlesohn, Farah (ed.). On Joanna Russ. Wesleyan University Press. pp. 142ff. ISBN 978-0-8195-6968-4.
[W]hat is disquieting is how easily some third-wave concerns can be translated into a distinctly antifeminist agenda such as that put forward by Roiphe or by Hoff Sommers, all the while retaining the feminist name.
- ^ a b Projansky, Sarah (2001). "2: The Postfeminist Context: Popular Redefinitions of Feminism, 1980-Present". Watching Rape: Film and Television in Postfeminist Culture. NYU Press. pp. 71ff. ISBN 978-0-8147-6690-3. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
antifeminist (self-defined) feminists such as Shahrazad Ali, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Wendy Kaminer, Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, Katie Roiphe, Christina Hoff Sommers, and Naomi Wolf
- ^ a b Anderson, Kristin J. (2014). "4: The End of Men and the Boy Crisis". Modern Misogyny: Anti-Feminism in a Post-Feminist Era. Oxford University Press. pp. 74ff. ISBN 978-0-19-932817-8. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
Anti-feminist boy-crisis trailblazer Christina Hoff Sommers
- ^ Peacock, Scot (2001). Contemporary Authors: A Biobibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields. New revision series. Gale Group Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7876-4604-2.
- ^ a b c d e f "Christina Hoff Sommers." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Biography in Context. Web. February 29, 2016.
- ^ Shelton, Pamela L.; Kester-Shelton, Pamela (1996). Feminist writers. St. James Press. ISBN 978-1-55862-217-3.
- ^ Christina Sommers [@CHSommers] (September 17, 2014). "Some critics denounce me as "right-winger."Fact: Former Sixties flower-child/socialist.Now (registered) Democrat--with libertarian leanings" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ Scatamburlo, Valerie L. (1998). Soldiers of Misfortune: The New Right's Culture War and the Politics of Political Correctness. New York: Lang. p. 129. ISBN 0-8204-3012-9.
- ^ Nussbaum, Martha (1999). "American Women: Preferences, Feminism, Democracy". Sex and Social Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 132. ISBN 0-19-511032-3.
- ^ Gring-Pemble, Lisa M.; Blair, Diane M. (September 1, 2000). "Best-selling feminisms: The rhetorical production of popular press feminists' romantic quest". Communication Quarterly. 48 (4): 360–379. doi:10.1080/01463370009385604. ISSN 0146-3373. S2CID 143536256.
- ^ McKenna, Erin; Pratt, Scott L. (2015). American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 308. ISBN 978-1-44-118375-0.
- ^ Meloy, Michelle L.; Miller, Susan L. (2010). The Victimization of Women: Law, Policies, and Politics. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-19-976510-2.
- ^ Loptson, Peter (2006). Theories of Human Nature (3rd ed.). Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-46-040203-0.
- ^ a b Jaggar, Alison M. (2006). "Whose Politics? Who's Correct?". In Burns, Lynda (ed.). Feminist Alliances. Amsterdam: Rodopi. p. 20. ISBN 978-9-04-201728-3.
- ^ Who Stole Feminism?, p. 22.
- ^ Sommers, Christina Hoff [@chsommers] (September 24, 2019). "I donated to his campaign. Our best hope. #YangGang Join Andrew Yang and his campaign of ideas" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
- ^ a b "Paglia: "Young People Have Given Up on Freedom" - YouTube (1 min. 46 sec.)". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
- ^ Friday, Nancy. (1998). My secret garden : women's sexual fantasies (25th anniversary ed.). New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-01987-2. OCLC 39210834.
- ^ Paglia, Camille (2018). Provocations : collected essays (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-1-5247-4689-6. OCLC 1019883092.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "The Future of Feminism: An Interview with Christina Hoff Sommers". scott.london. 1995.
- ^ Houppert, Karen (November 7, 2002). "Wanted: a Few Good Girls". The Nation. Archived from the original on March 25, 2013. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e Amend, Alex (March 8, 2018). "Christina Hoff Sommers can't take a single line of criticism". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
- ^ University of Massachusetts Boston, "The Spectator - Vol. 02, No. 02 - October 20, 1978" (1978). 1978-1979, Spectator. 11.
- ^ Nicholas Dixon, Book Review, Teaching Philosophy 13 No. 1 (March 1990): 47.
- ^ Tom Digby, "Political Correctness and the Fear of Feminism." The Humanist 52, no. 2 (March 1992), 7.
- Digby describes Sommers as "quite notorious among philosophers" as "the author of several articles... attacking feminism generally and certain feminist philosophers in particular."
- ^ Marilyn Friedman "The Lived Happily Ever After: Sommers on Women and Marriage." Journal of Social Philosophy 21, Issue 2-3 (September 1990): 57–58.
- "In a series of papers... Christina Sommers mounts a campaign against feminist philosopher and 'American feminism' in general."
- ^ Sommers, Christina. "Should the Academy Support Academic Feminism?". Public Affairs Quarterly2.3 (1988): 97–120.
- ^ Christina Sommers, "The Feminist Revelation," Social Philosophy and Policy, 8, 1 (Autumn 1990): 141-58.
- ^ Christina Sommers, "Philosophers against the Family," in Virtue and Vice in Everyday Life, edited by Christina Sommers and Fred Sommers, 3rd ed. (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace).
- ^ a b Dwyer, Susan. "Who's Afraid of Feminism?" Dialogue 35.2 (Spring 1996): 327-342.
- ^ "Advisors". Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Archived from the original on December 19, 2009. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
- ^ Schreiber, Ronnee (2008). Righting Feminism. Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-19-533181-3.
- ^ "Christina Hoff Sommers." The Writers Directory. Detroit: St. James Press, 2015. Biography in Context. Web. Accessed March 3, 2016.
- ^ Stewart, Matthew (June 2016). "The Campus 'Rape Crisis' as Moral Panic". Academic Questions. 29 (2): 179. doi:10.1007/s12129-016-9560-1 (inactive March 21, 2024). S2CID 148276923.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of March 2024 (link) - ^ "77 North Washington Street". The Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 285, no. 5. Boston. May 2000. p. 6. Archived from the original on August 16, 2000.
- ^ Noyes, Jenny (September 18, 2018). "Roxane Gay to face off with feminism critic in upcoming Australian tour". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- ^ "Christina Hoff Sommers – Bad feminism or factual feminism?". Radio New Zealand. September 22, 2018.
- ^ Tritten, Travis J. (August 12, 2015) "Viral video about Civil War's cause puts West Point close to right-wing group", Stars and Stripes. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ Menzies, Robert (2007). "Virtual Backlash". In Chunn, D.E.; Boyd, S.; Lessard, H. (eds.). Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law, and Social Change. Vancouver: UBC Press. p. 91, note 8. ISBN 978-0-77-481411-9.
- ^ Kinahan, Anne-Marie. (2001). "Women Who Run from the Wolves: Feminist Critique as Post-Feminism", Canadian Review of American Studies 32:2. p. 33.
- ^ Who Stole Feminism?, p. 23.
- ^ Tama Starr, "Reactionary Feminism", Review of Christina Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women, Reason magazine, October 1994.
- ^ Mary Lefkowitz, "Review of Christina Hoff Sommers Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women", National Review, July 11, 1994.
- ^ Christina Hoff Sommers (1995). Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. Simon and Schuster. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0-684-80156-8.
- ^ a b Flanders, Laura (Autumn 1994). "The 'Stolen Feminism' Hoax: Anti-Feminist Attack Based on Error-Filled Anecdotes". fair.org. Archived from the original on February 5, 2005.
September/October 1994
"The 'Stolen Feminism' Hoax". September 1, 1994. Archived from the original on February 21, 2013.Sep 01 1994
- ^ McElroy, Wendy. "Prostitution: Reconsidering Research". originally printed in SpinTech magazine, reprinted at WendyMcElroy.com on 12 November 1999.
- ^ Christina Hoff Sommers (March 15, 1995). "Reply to FAIR". Debunker.com. Archived from the original on March 5, 2001.
Christina Hoff Sommers' reply to charges disseminated by the left wing media watchdog group FAIR
letter to Mr. Jim Naureckas, Editor, EXTRA!, FAIR Editorial Office - ^ a b "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men." Publishers Weekly, 26 June 2000: 59.
- ^ a b Bell-Russel, D. (2000). The war against boys: How misguided feminism is harming our young men. Library Journal, 125(11), 102.
- ^ Christina Hoff Sommers (May 2000). "The War Against Boys". TheAtlantic.Com. Archived from the original on August 19, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
How did we come to believe in a picture of American boys and girls that is the opposite of the truth? .. The answer has much to do with one of the American academy's most celebrated women—Carol Gilligan
- ^ Richard Lowry, "The Male Eunuch," National Review, July 3, 2000
- ^ Finn, Chester E.,, Jr. (2000, 09). Puppy-dogs' tails. Commentary, 110, 68-71.
- ^ Richard Bernstein, Books of the Times: Boys, Not Girls, as Society's Victims, nytimes.com, July 31, 2000.
- ^ Pullman, Journal of School Choice 2004, 337-339.
- ^ Carroll, Mary. "The War against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men." Booklist 1 May 2000: 1587.
- ^ Robert Coles, Boys to Men, Two views of what it's like to be young and male in the United States today, The New York Times, June 25, 2000.
- ^ Nicholas Lemann, "The Battle Over Boys," The New Yorker Vol 76 Issue 18 (July 10, 2000), 79.
- ^ Rotundo, E. Anthony (July 2, 2000). "Review of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men". Washingtonpost.com.
- ^ Sommers, Christina Hoff (February 20, 2014). The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies are Harming Our Young Men (in Swedish). Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9781439126585. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
{{cite book}}
:|website=
ignored (help)[permanent dead link] - ^ "Christina Hoff Sommers on public schools and the 'war against boys' - Macleans.ca". www.macleans.ca. September 17, 2013. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
- ^ a b 2013 Exceptional Merit in Media Awards (EMMAs) Winners, National Women's Political Caucus Archived December 4, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Christina Hoff Sommers, "The Boys at the Back", nytimes.com, February 2, 2013.
- ^ Kester-Shelton, Pamela; Shelton, Ashley A.; Mazurkiewicz, Margaret, eds. (1996). "Christina Hoff Sommers". Feminist Writers. Detroit: St. James Press. pp. 444–446. ISBN 978-1-55862-217-3.
- ^ Andreas Teuber, Fred Sommers — A Tribute Archived March 7, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, October 23, 2014.
- ^ "In Memoriam: Fred Sommers (1923-2014)". Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
- ^ "77 North Washington Street". The Atlantic. May 1, 2000.
- ^ Christina Hoff Sommers (October 4, 2016). Christina Hoff Sommers @ CSULA (Video, found at 9:30). CSULA, Los Angeles: YAFTV. Retrieved October 5, 2016.
I am a white Jewish, cisgendered, hetero-normative, age-enhanced, middle-class female.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- Christina Hoff Sommers on X
- Is the future of feminism conservative? – a discussion of Sommers in the Harvard Law Record
- Appearances Archived October 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine on C-SPAN
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