Who Stole Feminism?

May 2, 1994
Despite its author's claims to the contrary, this book reads like a right-wing, antifeminist call to arms. The feminist movement, announces Sommers, who teaches philosophy at Clark University, has been ``stolen'' by radical extremists, whom she dubs ``gender feminists,'' whose ranks include Susan Faludi, Catharine MacKinnon, Naomi Wolf and Gloria Steinem. As Sommers would have it, gender feminists hate men, believe women are systematically oppressed by American culture and have waged a highly successful campaign to effect harmful changes in society, from weakening university curricula to censoring dissent to their agenda. She distinguishes them from ``equity feminists''--like Sommers herself--who care about women's issues but refuse to acknowledge ideological oppression of women. One of the greatest flaws in her polemic is the simplistic assertion that feminists can be slotted neatly into two camps. Nowhere does she seriously consider why gender feminists are so angry, nor does she offer an agenda of her own except in the vaguest terms. Sommers convincingly accuses some feminist scholars of shoddy research and distorted reporting of statistical data, but she too slings statistics around in an equally suspicious manner, and her prose is so sensationalized that sophisticated readers will take much of it with a grain of salt. First serial to Allure magazine; BOMC and QPB alternates; author tour.