Who Stole Feminism?

Rating:
Summary: So-called "feminists" of the second wave betrayed us!
Review: Many of the previous reviewers have described the general content of this book, so I will only add a few comments...This book is not an attack on authentic feminism, but a refutation of women who claim to be "feminists" though they have in many ways betrayed women. Authentic feminists will enjoy this engaging book!This book is a real page-turner. It's hard to put down. Love it or hate it, I believe you will be fascinated.A criticism: this book tends to separate philosophies of sexual identity into too few categories. Anyone who has read Prudence Allen's spectacular phlosophical and historical writings about sexual identity (in books & periodicals) will have a sure advantage when reading this book.Which leads me to recommended further reading: The Concept of Woman by Prudence Allen is probably the best summary of the history of philosophy of sexual identity available. Look for Allen's sequel around April 2001. Prolife Feminism Yesterday and Today, Pro-Life Feminism: Different Voices, and Real Choices (the last is by Frederica Matthewes-Green) will also offer insights into groups of feminists who have not betrayed women, but still work in the spirit and tradition of our feminist foremothers. This journey must go on! Who Stole Feminism? will be a helpful addition to any feminism & women's studies library.

Rating:
Summary: Well Done!
Review: Imagine a tale in which a small band of conspirators meet and a new manifesto is conceived and written. The sympathy of the public is enlisted by half-truth stories of brutalities and of innocent victims that need help. Training centers are set up where unsuspecting citizens are brainwashed by propaganda into becoming minions of the new regime. Battle plans are drawn for conquest starting with a secret war on the citadels. The training centers grow and spread to other citadels like a cancer. The invasions of the citadels are carried out from within the citadels. The minions of the new regime secretly staff centers that control the workings of the citadels. Before the elite of a citadel under attack are even aware that a war is being waged, the citadel falls into the control of the new regime. The old ruler of the citadel is deposed and a puppet ruler is put in place that will willingly speak the words placed in their mouth. Basic freedoms are taken away starting with the freedom of speech.

The citadel workers are evaluated by how well they follow the manifesto of the new regime. Those deemed resisting the new order are sent to reeducation centers code named workshops. There they are subjected to propaganda for indoctrination. In the reeducation centers open resistance is futile and codes are developed to let one another know that the resistance is alive. Those petitioning for positions must demonstrate loyalty to the party line by working for the party before being enlisted into the citadel. Fear grows as workers that adhere to the old ways of achievement, excellence and reason are severely punished for their crimes against the state. Some are even banished from the citadels and forced to wander alone in the wilderness. The other workers fall into line when they learn of the fate of those that resist. Fear and low-level hysteria rule supreme in the fallen citadels. The fallen citadels become propaganda machines to indoctrinate the masses.

The tactics, secrecy, ruthlessness and dedication to the cause of the new regime would make Hitler or Stalin green with envy. As the citadels fall one by one and the victories mount for the new regime, the leaders develop a sense of their own importance, making history and of destiny. A web of lies is woven to keep the masses in line. As is true in any conflict, to the victor(s) go the prize of writing the history book(s). The entire history a once proud nation is rewritten to suit the agendas of the new regime.

Rumors of the fate of the fallen citadels travel the land and a lone champion hears the cries of the wounded. Attempts are made to contact the workers of the fallen citadels. Fear prevents all but the bravest in the fallen citadels to respond to the attempted contact. Even these brave few refuse to use their name for fear of punishment, it is possible that they are talking to a double agent that will expose their resistance to the new order. One by one, secret meetings are set up within the fallen citadels to discover how they have fallen and what atrocities have been committed. The covert meetings are heavy with fear as spies of the new regime are everywhere and the consequences of discovery are unthinkable. Now stop imagining, this story is real.

Christina Sommers has displayed courage, honor, valor, scholarship and world-class investigative reporting skills in putting together this book. This book should be required reading in civics classes and Christina Sommers deserves the medal of honor for displaying exceptional valor under fire while defending our freedoms, constitution and way of life. The leaders of the new regime have indeed earned their place in history, however it is not the place in history that they envisioned.

Arthur Brown [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: The feminazis have tried
Review: Sommers has a gift for exposing hypocrisy, misinformation, propaganda and outright lies in a readable and often delightful manner that has made her the bête noire of gender feminists. In this carefully and exhaustively argued and generally convincing critique of the post modern movement she employs a STARTLING TECHNIQUE to embarrass the feminist fringe: SHE QUOTES THEM. Wow. She begins in the Preface with the now infamous claim by Gloria Steinem (from her Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem) and Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth) that in the United States "about 150,000 females die of anorexia each year." Hmm. Sounds scary. But it turns out that the number is less than one hundred.

This sort of distortion and falsification and just plain stupidity is typical of the totalitarian-minded feminist fringe (see Warren Farrell's The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are the Disposable Sex (1993) for more documentation). Where this is particularly egregious and harmful is in academia where gender feminists hold sway over not only their cowed and impressionable students but over a bullied and complacent faculty and administration. Sommers devotes a substantial portion of this book to detailing just how gender feminists have employed Stalinist techniques in order to twist the curriculum their way, to rewrite and distort history, and to secure greater employment for those of a similar stripe. Very revealing and sadly amusing is her report from some of the feminist conferences she has attended. The way they shout out against the truth and shout down anyone who expresses a contrary view really is something out of a storm trooper rally. Shame on a lot of people who should know better.

But feminism hasn't really been stolen. The substantial gains toward a complete social, economic and political equality are very real and very much with us. For this we can thank the real feminists, whom Sommers calls "equity feminists" for their courage, strength, hard work and level-headed intelligence. For the fringe elements, the privileged and pampered janie-come-latelies like Susan Faludi, Andrea Dworkin and the particularly obscene Catharine MacKinnon, all I can say is they couldn't even caddy for women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and later, Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer, women who really cared about women's rights and were effective in helping to secure them. What the fringe feminists have succeeded in doing with their pathological hatred of men is embarrass themselves and give comfort to the misogynists among us. Sad indeed. That whirring sound you hear is the women of the nineteenth century suffragette movement rolling over in their graves; and the sorrowful laments in the background are the cries of the really disadvantaged and victimized women world-wide in places like India and Iraq, Bangladesh and the former Soviet Union who would dearly love to deal with the discriminations American fringe feminists are whining about (even the real ones). I wonder if the likes of Faludi, Dworkin and MacKinnon would be willing to work for women's rights and against patriarchy in, say, Afghanistan or Iran...

Sommers herself is a sharp-eyed feminist of the old school, a woman who knows that distortions and brown-shirt tactics cannot do women or humans any good. Her book is an attempt to set the ship aright, a loud and somewhat stringent call for better leadership and a more diversified (and sophisticated, I might add) crew of people willing to work hard and effectively for gender equality. The spoiled little rich girl bully feminism exemplified by those targeted in this book doesn't speak for the vast majority of women struggling to find themselves as human beings, and to free themselves from the shackles and the delusions of sexism.

Rating:
Summary: An Intelligent Assesment of Affairs
Review: Written in the first half of the nineties, this book provides excellent arguments against "gender feminists." The book presents evidence of the excessively partisan and bitter methods of gender feminists through dissection and common sense. Though the book's argumentative tone may offend some readers and lead others to believe it is merely a diatribe, upon further analysis it becomes obvious that Mrs. Sommers truly cares about that which she writes and that she does present logical and cogent ideas. I highly recommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: Well written, well researched
Review: Ms. Sommers has written an excellent book. She takes all of the misinformation given by the radical feminist left and hacks away at it. She not only shows how each myth is false, but she backs up her words with facts. Here are some examples of common myths and misinformation which she refutes:

Radical Feminist Myth: 150,000 women die each year of anorexia. Ms. Sommers proves that this figure is completely false and that the truth is no where near this number (it's more in the neighborhood of about 50!)

Radical Feminist Myth: Super Bowl Sunday is the day of the year with the greatest number of domestic violence incidents reported. Ms. Sommers shows how this lie was exposed and destroyed.

And so on and so on. This book is a true eye opener.

Rating:
Summary: A book that prefers facts over populist propaganda
Review: I was introduced to the work of Christina Hoff Summers while completing my Masters in Social Psychology by one of my professors. With my background in gender studies and research methodology I could instantly realize the factual accuracy of the claims made by Hoff Sommers in this eye-opening treatise.

I refuse to call this work controversial, a label that has been appended by the "PC" cabal. Undoutedbly, this book goes against the grain as far as mainstream feminist literature is concerned. And being an avid reader of feminist works, I think this comes to closest to a pragmatic, equalitarian view of the struggle that has been hijacked by people with their personal and/or political agenda.

You don't have to agree with Hoff Summers' conclusions but its still very invigarative reading. This should be followed up with "The War Against Boys".

Rating:
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I don't have a problem with most of what Sommers says; it's what she doesn't say that bothers me. Her critique of radical feminism is written well, and makes some very useful points (particularly her argument against the idea, promulgated by some radicals, that there is something inherently "male" about scientific inquiry, and "female" about intuition and going by one's feelings). There are just too many things she leaves out. For example, she divides feminists into "equity" feminists (the good, non-radical ones) and "gender" feminists (the radicals she is attacking). She has a lot to say about the latter group, but almost nothing to say about the former. What is it that equity feminists want? What are their tactics? Most critically, do they have any goals that would offend conservatives, and are they willing to do so to achieve them? When one matches up this omission with Sommers' insistence that most of the goals of feminism have been achieved (she argues that the much-mentioned male-female pay gap is vanishing, if it ever actually existed), one begins to wonder why Sommers thinks there should be anything called "feminism" at all.

There is more in this vein, unfortunately. Sommers (like everyone else, with hindsight) ties herself to the tradition of Susan B. Anthony and her sisters, claiming that they were the original equity feminists. She also knows her history too well not to mention that they were called radical, man-haters, and lots of far worse names in their time. What I want to know from her, however, is how the people who called Anthony and her cohorts all those names are different from the people who *nowadays* call feminists all kind of nasty names. There may very well be a difference, but Sommers' book doesn't say anything about it.

Unfortunately, it becomes all too clear that Sommers' book (like Dinesh D'Souza's work on campus political correctness) is selective in this manner because of a political agenda. She wants us to think that the Democratic Party is in the thrall of radical feminism (an idea that must seem laughable to groups like NOW, who regularly, if falsely, insist that the Democrats and Republicans are carbon copies of each other). What is clearly needed is a critique of the most zealous aspects of feminism by someone within that movement, someone writing with more credibility. Wendy Kaminer, are you free these days?

Rating:
Summary: Who Stole Sommers' Brain?
Review: The focus of Sommers' anti-feminist tome, is what she claims to be the exagerrations of "gender feminists". However, in an attempt to "dispel" these myths, unfortunately, Sommers engages in her own exagerrations. She fails to provide sufficient and/or reliable sources for her "facts".

Sommers' argument that it is time for women to "get along with men" is popular with both men and women who are afraid of change. However it is a notion based on an inaccuracy. Sommers claims that women have achieved equality with men. Who are these women? White, middle- and upper-class women. Somers is not concerned with the status of women of color, poor women, etc....

I highly recommend reading Susan Faludi's articulate response to Somers and other authors of her ilk: "I'm Not a Feminist, But I Play One on TV" (Ms. Magazine, Vol. 5 No. 5, Marh-April 1995).

Rating:
Summary: YUK
Review: What a silly, badly written book. This writer could have used a sophomore-level course in statistics.

Rating:
Summary: An important book that should spark debate
Review: I'm so glad I finally read this book, after my brother gave it to me several years ago. Well-researched. One of the author's greatest contributions is showing how the media has let the public down by neglecting its watchdog role and accepting whoppers from the professional feminists with very little skepticism. That's still happening.