Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today Ebook
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FREEFREEDOM FEMINISM: ITS SURPRISING HISTORY AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY EBOOK Christina Hoff Sommers | 127 pages | 10 Jun 2013 | American Enterprise Institute Press | 9780844772622 | English | United States A Conversation With Christiana Hoff Sommers Here at Walmart. Your email address will never be sold or distributed to a third party for any reason. Sorry, but we can't respond to individual comments. If you Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today immediate assistance, please contact Customer Care. Your feedback helps us make Walmart shopping better for millions of customers. Recent searches Clear All. Enter Location. Update location. Learn more. Report incorrect product information. Christina Hoff Sommers. Walmart Out of stock. Book Format. Select Option. Current selection is: Paperback. Delivery not available. Pickup not available. Add to list. Add to registry. More importantly, she demonstrates that a modern version of social feminism -- in which women are free to employ their equal status to pursue happiness in their own distinctive ways -- holds the key to a feminist renaissance. Women's equality is one of the great achievements of Western civilization. More importantly, she demonstrates that a modern version of conservative feminism -- in which women are free to employ their equal status to pursue happiness in their own distinctive ways -- holds the key to a feminist renaissance. About This Item. We aim to show you accurate product information. Manufacturers, suppliers and others provide what you see here, and we have not verified it. See our disclaimer. Yet most American women today do not consider themselves "feminists. Specifications Language English. Customer Reviews. 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Thank you for signing up! How was your experience with this page? Thank you. Thank you! A Conversation With Christiana Hoff Sommers Christina Hoff Sommers tells me that she used to hold irrational beliefs. I ask her to give some examples. Certain experiences in college pushed Sommers away from Marxism. As a freshman at New York University, for Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today, she participated in a large demonstration against the Vietnam War. At one point, the protesters decided to break into an office building. This horrified Sommers. It was slides of his kids! Sommers began to doubt her radical commitments. Though she still believed that the war was a terrible blunder, she felt incapable of sanctioning the virulent anti-Americanism of the campus Left. They had to say the United States was the enemy. And I started to question that. I started to drift away from radicalism. While pursuing a doctorate in philosophy at Brandeis University, she read Hume, Locke, Burke, and Mill— and the influence shows. Inshe began teaching philosophy, focusing on ethics, at Clark University, where she remained untilwhen she joined the American Enterprise Institute. She has been there since. A s it happens, Sommers has devoted her professional life to writing about gender instead of moral philosophy. Sommers accepted, but she could scarcely believe what she discovered after spending a summer reading the latest feminist literature. She felt that academic feminists saw an America that bore little relation to reality: America as white supremacist, a violent patriarchy, and so forth. She was especially appalled by the work of Alison Jaggar, then a professor at the University of Cincinnati. She called it socialist feminism. Sommers argued that feminist theorists played fast and loose with statistics on women, painting an inaccurate picture of the social world; their calls for violent revolution and the abolition of gender roles were foolish at best, irresponsible at worst. She was stunned by the reaction. I lost a friend. S ommers has written three books exploring the political and philosophical issues surrounding gender: Who Stole Feminism? She has also compiled an anthology of essays, The Science on Women in Science. Who Stole Feminism? Behind the statistical debates was the question of whether American society could be characterized as a violent patriarchy. Though filled with statistics, her book is also peppered with philosophical observations about the role of women in society. One finds, for example, a sustained reflection on how we should reckon with the exclusion of women throughout history. Sommers begins Who Stole Feminism? One way—radical feminism—is to reject our cultural inheritance as irredeemably patriarchal, and then to seek to revolutionize and destroy it. Sommers adds that the exclusion of women from high culture must be placed into context. They may be pro-life, for example, or they may deny the existence of the patriarchy or Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today severity of its consequences. In response to such beliefs, some feminist thinkers maintain that women may develop mistaken assessments of their own interests and preferences due to sexist social conditioning. Sommers interprets radical feminism as a serious challenge to the liberal-democratic ideal. This conviction explains the intensity with which she sometimes criticizes her feminist interlocutors. It chews up and digests all counterevidence, transmuting it into confirming evidence. She also regrets the scathing tone of Who Stole Feminism? From its earliest origins in the eighteenth century, Sommers claims, feminism contained a right wing and a left wing. The left-feminists were led by political philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft —a prominent figure in feminist intellectual history. The right-feminists were led by Hannah More —a figure less known but highly successful in her time. They were political opposites. Wollstonecraft championed the French Revolution; More joined her friend Edmund Burke in condemning it. Yet Sommers argues that both shared a deep concern for advancing the cause of women, even if they promoted it through different means. More believed that men and women were different, but equal. Left-feminists, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, demanded the vote by using the language of universal rights and appealing to thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. The conservative feminists succeeded where their radical sisters had failed. Thus, though the two wings of Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today sometimes considered themselves rivals, their engagement and cooperation often yielded positive results. Freedom feminism is not at war with femininity or masculinity, it does not seek to bring down capitalism, and it does not view men and women as warring tribes. Conspiracy theories about universal patriarchal oppression are nowhere in its founding documents. Put simply, freedom feminism affirms for women what it affirms Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today everyone: dignity, fairness, and liberty. W hen I interviewed Sommers at her home just outside Washington, D. As we discussed contemporary politics and the role feminism plays in it, Sommers showed a sarcasm as scathing as that found in her books. Sommers also has a lighter—and unabashedly feminine—side. She co-hosts a podcast with Danielle Crittenden called The Femsplainers. But Sommers is worried. Illiberal strains of feminism have expanded their influence over the American Left. She also worries about the effect that feminism could have on women. What good can come of telling women that they are horribly oppressed by a patriarchal society that seeks to degrade them, that they are helpless victims? Sommers sees the spread of radical feminism Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today college-educated women as particularly lamentable:. By any reasonable measure, American college women are among the safest, freest, healthiest, most opportunity-rich human beings on Earth. They are not just doing as well as men, they are surpassing them. But everywhere, they learn that they are vulnerable and in imminent danger. A new trauma-centered feminism has taken hold. Its primary focus is not equality with men—but rather protection from them. This new ethic of fear and fragility is poisonous and debilitating—it can rob young women of their capacity to reason. It narrows their worldview and turns them inward —away from a world that needs them. There are exceptions, but so many smart, talented young women writing for places like Slatethe New Yorkerthe AtlanticSalon, the Nationand New York magazine —are captive to this ethic of grievance. Christian Alejandro Gonzalez is a recent graduate from Columbia University and a research assistant at Heterodox Academy. Follow him on Twitter at xchrisgonz. Send a question or comment using the form below. This message may be routed through support staff. More detailed message would go here to provide context for the user and how to proceed. City Journal search. City Journal is a publication of Manhattan Institute. Search search. Experts Hea ther Mac Donald. Topics Hea lth Care. Close Nav Search Close Search search. The Freedom Feminist. Sommers sees the spread of radical feminism among college-educated women as particularly lamentable: By any reasonable measure, American college women are among the safest, freest, healthiest, most opportunity-rich human beings on Earth.