Who Stole Feminism? Fooled Ya!

My title is taken from Christina Hoff Sommers' 1994 book, in which she questioned mainstream research that girls were at risk and being shortchanged in American culture. She is perhaps most famous for analyzing rape statistics, showing they were manufactured. I read the book when it came out and it struck a cord. It confirmed what I was experiencing, both with young women and with the statistics I was being fed. She became a minor hero for me in the mid-90's and I quoted her to friends, recommending her book. After a long pause (of about 20 years), I mentioned her research in a recent paper, which caused me to return and read her books again. This time I bought and read her follow-up book from 2000, The War Against Boys. While her research and arguments again start out looking good, this time I began to notice something lacking. My suspicion was raised by the back cover, where the book is praised by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. I asked myself why these spook mouthpieces would be praising arguments that were undercutting one of their main projects. It didn't make sense.

To say it a different way, Sommers was sold as counter-mainstream back then, so why would mainstream sources be selling her? You will tell me the US market is open to all opinion, this being a free country, but in most ways that simply isn't true. If the Washington Post is promoting Sommers, you can be sure they aren't doing it as a matter of equal time, fairness, or to prove the freedom of the press. The Post has been called the CIA's own newspaper, and the CIA does not promote its own opposition—except in the case that it has manufactured that opposition.   (more...)

Who Stole Feminism?