Christina Hoff Sommers, a philosophy professor at Clark University, proves in her book that feminism is out of control. She is a feminist who is upset that the feminist movement has turned into male-bashing.
Sommers uncovers how feminists have manipulated studies concerning women. For example, she discusses the false claim of Deborah Louis, president of the National Women’s Studies Association, that March of Dimes reported, “Domestic violence is now responsible for more birth defects than all other causes combined.” March of Dimes actually said, “We screen for battery far less than we screen birth defects.”
Sommers also discusses the hoax feminists created about Super Bowl Sunday being the most violent day for women. It turned out that every study that supported the claim turned out to be false. Ken Ringle, a Washington Post reporter, was the first person to unmask the hoax.
She writes that feminists intentionally manipulated the Harris/Commonwealth survey so it seems that 20.7 million women are verbally and emotionally abused each year. The same case was true when a survey claimed that young girls have lower self-esteem than young boys. When she reviewed the survey, she discovered that boys wanted to be rock stars and famous more than girls and that’s how feminists could claim the self-esteem gap.
The Gender Equity in Education Act was created because the study on girls’ self-esteem at first showed female students were getting unequal education to male students. This act used $360 million of our taxes. The act established the Office of Women’s Equity in the Department of Education, who organizes women’s equity policies, programs, activities and initiatives in all federal education programs and offices.
While Sommers writes about serious issues, she has quite a sense of humor. She tells about University of Michigan student Shawn Brown’s experience when he handed in his political science paper to a feminist graduate assistant with the following excerpt. “Let’s say Dave [the] Stud is entertaining three beautiful ladies in his penthouse when the phone rings. A pollster on the other end wants to know if we should eliminate the capital gains tax. Now Dave is a knowledgeable businessperson who cares a lot about this issue. But since Dave is “tied up” at the moment, he tells the pollster to “bother” someone else.”
Graduate assistant Deborah Meizlish wrote on his paper that she was encouraged by Professor Rosenstone to take this comment as sexual harassment, but she warned if he tried anything like that again, she would press charges of sexual harassment.
Some of the changes Sommers says she doesn’t like is that men are no longer welcome in the feminist movement. For example, Raphael Atlas, a feminist, attended a gathering at Mills College and some women were offended by his presence. Rita from City College of San Francisco was one of those women. “Raphael said he was a male feminist. That is an oxymoron. My deep belief is that men cannot be feminists. They have no place in women-centered spheres. Raphael is a womb envier and a feminist wanna be- a poseur in our midst. Let him take his voice into an all male forum.”
Another change Sommers says she has noticed is that feminists are determined to make women believe men will do anything to oppress them. Historian Gerda Lerner said, “We have long known that rape has been a way of terrorizing us and keeping us in subjection. Now we also know that we have participated, although unwittingly, in the rape of our minds.”
Sadly women like Carole J. Sheffield, author of Women: A Feminist Perspective believe the male oppression theory. She was “victimized” at the laundromat. She was alone at the laundromat and she was so scared that she frantically threw her clothes in the washer, ran to her car, locked the doors, closed the windows, and waited for the wash to finish. She followed the same steps to dry her clothes. Sheffield said, “Although I was not victimized in a direct, physical way, or by objective or measurable standards, I felt victimized. It was, for me, a terrifying experience.”
Sommers writes about some of the most shocking aspects about feminism. Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women is a warning flag that feminism must change if it wants to survive.
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Articles by Christina Hoff Sommers
Researching the Rape Culture of America
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