Disturbed about Feminism

Great Debates
1

I am currently in the middle of a book titled “Who Stole Feminism?” written by Christina Hoff Sommers. In it she makes various claims that many gender based studies which are popularly reported by the media are badly done and are presented by some feminists as truth for political gain. In addition she also states that feminist activists are gaining a lot of momentum in unfairly changing educational curriculum. For the sake of clarification Christina Hoff Sommers essentially refers to two kinds of feminists, equity feminists and gender feminists. From my perception of Christinas writings equity feminists refer to people who believe in the social, economic and political equality of men and women. From my perspective Christina defines gender feminists as those people who believe that all American institutions from the state to the family to the grade schools perpetuate male dominance. The following statistics are derived from Christinas book and I’m presenting them as the book presents them. Having stated this let me recount some of the things in this book for public consumption.

  1. The Super Bowl hoax

Just prior to Super Bowl 1993 a news conference was called in Pasadena, CA by a coalition of women’s groups. News conference reporters were told that significant anecdotal evidence suggested that Super Bowl Sunday is “the biggest day of the year for violence against women.”. They cited a study conducted at Virginias Old Dominion University 3 years prior, saying that it found that police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia rose 40% after games won by the Redskins during the 1988-89 season.

Christina states that the media bandwagon with the exception of one reporter reported it as fact without verifying the accuracy of the study. In this case, one Ken Ringle, took the time to check the sources on the story. He called Old Dominion and spoke with one of the authors of the study who said “Thats not what we found at all.” Instead, the author told Ringle they had found that an increase in emergency room admissions “was not associated with the occurrence of football games in general”.

  1. Anorexia exaggerated

The figure of 150,000 fatalities per year due to complications from anorexia and bulimia is, to many, an accepted statistic. This figure was reported in the book “Revolution from Within” by popular feminist Gloria Steinem. This statistic has shown up in college textbooks as well as a column by Ann Landers.

Christina states that according to the Center for Disease Control there were 101 deaths from anorexia in 1983, 67 in 1988 and 54 in 1991. Some have said that most anorexia deaths are listed under suicide or heart problems as the listed cause. Christina countered by calling the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) to learn just how many women between 15 and 24 (the prime anorexia years) are dying of heart failure. For 1991 the figure is 19. As for suicide, the 1991 figure is 649. Of these young women, how many are likely to have been dangerously emaciated and have had doctors who mistakenly reported the cause of death as suicide rather than anorexia?

  1. Academic subversion

State provided funds are being used by feminist groups to rewrite women into history. This is being done in innocuous ways which, while factual, do not give a correct portrayal of history. Some examples include:

  • High school history texts now lavish attention on minor female figures. 16 year old Sybil Ludington who alerted colonial soldiers in a failed attempt to cut off the escape of a British raiding party, gets more space in “America: Its People and Its Values” than Paul Reve.

  • In the same textbook, Maria Mitchell, a 19th century astronomer who discovered a comet, gets more attention than Albert Einstein.

  • In another text book there are 3 pictures of Civil War nurses but none of General Sherman or General Grant.

In essence some feminists believe that History should be taught with equal amounts of time spent on men and women. There is a major problem with this. Most of America’s history is male-dominated, in part because in most states women were not allowed to vote in federal elections or hold office until the twentieth century. This is regrettable but it is still a fact. In order to get equal representation in history between genders authors must resort to writing “filler feminism”.

Perhaps most disturbing is the view that the scientific method, logic and reason are merely products of the “male hegemony” and should therefore be replaced by a “womans logic” (described as more intuitive, based on feelings, etc.).
There was quite a bit more well documented information in the book but I think I’ve already typed too much. I don’t want to minimize the importance of many ills of society today, not the least of which are crimes perpetuated against women. Certainly there are still issues of gender equality in our society that need to be addressed. However I was upset enough by this book to desire some additional input as to its accuracy (both consenting and dissenting). Any and all information regarding studies and documentation pertinent to this subject would be appreciated.

Grim Beaker
(you know… the evil muppet who comes for your soul when you die!)

To the world you might be one person but to one person you might be the
world.

2

Do not be deceived by Christina Hoff Sommers she is totally right wing. Sommers writes for the National Review and speaks for the Independent Woman’s Forum. Some feminist thinking is fuzzy and I was glad to hear Sommers and Paglia try and correct some of this, but as time went on I came to realize they were phony. Whenever you hear them speak it’s always against women and they support the right in almost every case. Someone needs to clean up the silly excesses of some feminists but Sommers is not the one.

3

Just curious Icerigger, which of the above examples do you take issue with?

I haven’t read the book in question, but this is certainly not the first time I’ve heard examples such as the above discussed as evidence that feminism has veered off the track. Especially the Super Bowl hoax, and the curriculum revisions.

In the interest of this Forum (which is, after all, Great Debates), I would be interested in your evidence that the points in the OP are incorrect. Or at the very least, why you feel they have been mis-represented by Sommers.

You’ve brought up a very good point in relating Sommers’ political leanings (although she might take issue with your interpretation). But this in and of itself does not negate her findings, or the interpretation of the findings of others.

4

Just a subjective impression, but- seems to me that this problem was actually a lot more common about 10-15 years ago. The worst practioners of this sort of BS have lost credibility with the public and a large part of the media. It may take a little time, but I think the problem is self-correcting.

5

Oh, heck, just for the fun of picking some holes in the thesis, and to point out that data can be “spun” either way . . .

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Again, these are not mutually exclusive. A survey for anorexia-related deaths might yield many more “victims” than one for death-by-actual-anorexia. It depends on what is or is not considered an “anorexia-related complication.” Unfortunately, my aunt just died of emphysema, her death caused in part by her body’s inability to fight the disease due to low-body weight and muscle mass, and years of struggling with anorexia. Did she die of anorexia? No. Did she die of an anorexia-related complication? Yes.

This is sort of ironic, since Revere himself was a very minor Revolutionary figure who never even accomplished the task he is most famous for (riding to Lexington to warn that “the British are coming!”) – he was stopped by the British before he could do so, and the news was actually carried by someone else. He is a “major” figure in American history thanks almost entirely to the poem by Longfellow. Why would the deeds of the girl you speak of (whom I’ve frankly never heard of) be of less value than the deeds of Paul Revere?

My point is that history is largely a matter of perspective. I really see nothing wrong with trying to focus a little more on women’s contributions thoughout history, but I’m certainly not in favor of wholesale revisionism.

My experience with feminism, like most politicized topics, is that it often boils down to one side attacking or attempting to minimize the “data” of the other. Frankly, I prefer arguments based on why a position is right, as opposed to arguments based on why the opposition is wrong. It seems to me that this woman’s book should contain all the studies you need proving the validity of her position (especially the thing about feminism wanting to do away with the scientific method, which strikes me as baloney). If it’s her thesis, ask her to prove it.

Jodi

Fiat Justitia

6

What I find most depressing is that the women who are in such a position to do good for feminism - like Steinem - far too often become complete hypocrits. The point of feminism is supposed to be gender equality - equal rights, equal responsibilities, equal opportunities. From my own subjective point of view, too many feminist advocates get caught up in their own rhetoric and pet theories. They stop asking questions and listening objectively to answers from the different sides of the debate, and do the political equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “La la la! I’m right and you’re wrong! La la la! Nope, can’t change my mind! All women are oppressed, all men are pigs! La la la!”

Case in point: during a John Stossel special on gender differences, Gloria Steinem basically said that she’s against funding for research that might disprove her theories. With that assertion, she lost all of my previous respect.

7

As a grad student, I can assure you that “the problem” is alive and well at the university level. I’ve heard several professors quote the Super Bowl Sunday myth (and the one about the origin of the phrase “rule of thumb”) in the past three or four years. Feminist groups on college campuses are also notoriously cavalier about statistics. (At the first and last Take Back the Night march I attended, the organizers copied all of their information from a pamphlet of stats published by NOW eight years earlier – which in turn did not cite its sources.) Worse yet, the climate in women’s group meetings and women’s studies classrooms is usually intensely hostile to anybody who questions the party line.

At freshman orientation at my undergraduate institution in 1994, a counselor from the campus rape crisis center offered these two “facts” almost in the same breath:

  1. One woman in five is raped during her lifetime.

  2. One woman in four is raped during her college years.

If these figures are both accurate, going to college must be only slightly less dangerous than living in a war zone. Not one of my classmates perceived this discrepancy. (I got several hostile stares when I ventured to question these statistics.) Incidentally, this happened at a public college in the South – not at all a hotbed of liberalism.

Those are a few of the reasons why I am no longer active in campus women’s groups, and why I no longer call myself a feminist, at least in the classroom. (I have a whole 'nother rant on feminist literary criticism, but trust me, you don’t want to read that one.) It seems to me that intellectual dishonesty has compromised what was inherently a worthy cause, certainly beyond the point where I want to be associated with it.

8

Grim_Beaker wrote that Sommers wrote:

And we all know what a stickler for accuracy Ann Landers is. :rolleyes:

I support whatever attributes of feminism increase my personal chances of getting laid.

9

I remember reading Hoff-Summers book years ago and being profoundly affected. She has some very good points, but she is as guilty of cooking her numbers and choosing her ancedotes as the worst of the “hard core feminists acedemics.”

As has been pointed out, numbers can be spun either direction. For instance, in the case of rape, it depends on your definition of rape. Often, campus women define rape as “sex you’d rather not have had.” If rape is only violent sexual penetration by a stranger, rape stats go way down. Personally, I think the definition of rape lies somewhere in the middle, with the threat of violence being enough and date rape and spousal rape being valid, but with some responsiblity on the part of the woman to say no and try to leave the situation.

There are a lot of free-thinking, non-“party” line feminists out there, including pro-life women - and including Christina Hoff-Summers and Camille Pagilia. NOW does not have the copyright on the term feminist. Feminists vary from the McKinnions - porn is the devil, to the Susie Brights.

Radical feminists serve a valid purpose, they make the middle look reasonable - a very good thing. We’d never have gotten the vote without Alice Paul and her radical sisterhood.

Personally, I like Rebecca West’s definition of feminism “I, myself, have never been able to find out precisely what feminisim is. I only know people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that distingush me from a doormat or a prostitute.” (Its telling that most “party line” feminists leave off the prostitute part).

10

Men can be feminists too, why no writing about that?

You want Feminism? Try this author:
Andrea Dworkin.

To Quote:“A human being has a body that is inviolate; and when it is violated, it is abused.
A woman has a body that is penetrated in intercourse: permeable, its corporeal
solidness a lie. The discourse of male truth–literature, science, philosophy,
pornography–calls that penetration violation.”

11

Yep- I got pilloried for trying to debunk this one in women’s studies class at the midwestern university I attended. I ended up with a C+ in the class, and wished I had never signed up for it. :rolleyes:

I worked as an overnight supervisor in a battered women’s shelter during my college years. (I answered phones, did paperwork, arranged transport for women to the shelter, etc.) I never noticed that the number of calls increased on Super Bowl Sunday.

However, I did notice a slight increase in calls after Husker games. I attribute this more to an increase in drinking on the abusers’ part rather than blaming it on sports per se.

Prairie Rose

If you’re not part of the solution you’re just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.

12

I’m shocked!

Agendized groups fudging numbers!

How can this be!

Oh, the pain, the pain!

13

In response to Jodi:

It is certainly true that the data can be interpreted in different ways. In regards to your earlier post I just have a few more comments:

The following by Christina Hoff Sommers I found whilst doing a search on the web:

IN Revolution from Within, Gloria Steinem informs her readers that “in this country alone . . . about 150,000 females die of anorexia each year.” That is more than three times the annual number of fatalities from car accidents for the total population. Miss Steinem refers readers to Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth, where one again finds the statistic, along with the author’s outrage. “How,” she asks, “would America react to the mass self-immolation by hunger of its favorite sons?” Although “nothing justifies comparison with the Holocaust,” she cannot refrain from making one anyway. “When confronted with a vast number of emaciated bodies starved not by nature but by men, one must notice a certain resemblance.”
Where did Miss Wolf get her figures? Her source is Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease by Joan Brumberg, a historian and former director of women’s studies at Cornell University. She, too, is fully aware of the political significance of the startling statistic. She points out that the women who study eating problems “seek to demonstrate that these disorders are an inevitable consequence of a misogynistic society that demeans women . . . by objectifying their bodies.” Professor Brumberg, in turn, attributes the figure to the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association.
I called the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association and spoke to Dr. Diane Mickley, its president. “We were misquoted,” she said. In a 1985 newsletter the association had referred to 150,000 to 200,000 sufferers (not fatalities) of anorexia nervosa.

So it certainly looks like anorexia is fairly widespread. The figure was actually misquoted as fatalities as opposed to sufferers. While this statistic may have been caused by a miscommunication the inflated fatality figure does give ammunition for some feminists (150,000 deaths per year is more than the number of deaths caused by vehicle accidents).

You are certainly correct about the information presented in the “Super Bowl Hoax”. The two statements were not mutually exclusive. It appears it may be more accurate to say “If there is an increase in emergency room admissions on some days it isn’t related in general to football games”. I very much dislike being given stilted data, either for or against feminist activities. I’ll keep that in mind as I read the rest of the book, however it also seems to me that the linkage between domestic violence and the Super Bowl was only established to further political gain by some feminists.

You are also correct that Paul Reveres role in the revolutionary war was fairly minor. Truly, this is a trivial example. Perhaps more disturbing is the one regarding Maria Mitchell and Einstein. In any case Christina did say that there definitely does need to be more mention of women in history but said that 30% representation would probably be too much and that 50% would definitely be misleading.

Last but not least, yes the book is very well documented regarding its sources and statistics. More of what I was looking for here was perhaps some studies which supported the “Gender feminists” findings. Definitely one cannot form a balanced opinion until one has heard the evidence from both sides. I’m making the assumption that Christina Sommers indeed has a thesis to prove and may have inadvertently ommitted information which gave a more balanced perspective between the one portrayed in her book and the position taken by “Gender feminists”. Regards.

Grim Beaker

To the world you might be one person but to one person you might be the
world.

14

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) did a sendup of Sommers. You can judge for yourself, but I think their response is weak. They try to get too much milage out of the fact that Sommers was funded by a conservative think tank, rather than objecting to Sommers’ arguments directly. They also nitpick about an embarrassing mistake she made in getting a date wrong, as though that made her argument invalid. To harp so hard on trivialities reeks of despiration.
http://www.fair.org/extra/9409/stolen-feminism-hoax.html

For the record, Naomi Wolf has sort of unofficially recanted her book The Beauty Myth. That is, in her book Fire with Fire she’s makes it clear that now against that type of victimist rhetoric, but she doesn’t quite admit that she was once a major popularizer of it.

15

I consider myself to be a feminist, in that I am for equal rights for women in all things. However, you can have too much of a good thing. A lot of these “gender feminists” strike me as victims in search of a crime. They are so convinced that the male-dominated society is oppressing them in every possible way, that they become unable to solve any real problems, because they no longer know what they are. Yes, there is gender discrimination afoot in the world, yes, there is rape, there are battered women, all of this is deplorable, but for all our sakes, stop looking for a scapegoat!

Heck is where you go when you don’t believe in Gosh.

16

I have never read the book in question, but often question women who fall into the leftist version of feminism. Most of which take the persona “whoa is me” attitude.

I find many feminist organizations tend towards the “victim”, always a victim first and never looks to personal responsibility first.

It is very sad when a woman enters into a violent relationship, or finds herself slowing killing herself because of anorexia or bulemia etc…But it is her attitude, her lack of self esteem that gets a woman in these circumstances in the first place. I have seen it in my own life.

One of my best friends continually gets herself involved in violent relationships but as her self esteem has grown over the years so has the level of violence she experiences has dropped. She may go from man to man but as time goes on she is gaining enough esteem that the men she chooses are less likely to harm her.

If most feminist organizations were to work within the factual reasoning behind the problems women experience I believe that more women would be pro active rather than claiming the “gender” card. It’s counter productive to claim gender in most situations. Women have equal rights for the most part but are shooting themselves in the foot when it becomes an issue of victim of gender bias rather than working within the community to better it.

As for rape. It is agreed, I think by most individuals that rape is a violent and unfair act that is primarily a force of a man against a woman. I also agree that it is an unfair advantage for most women because physically we are not as strong as a man. We can’t, as women, predict when a man may rape us. We can’t as women, take responsibility if the act of rape is under the context of I said “No” and he forced himself on us, this is where the issue becomes a victim of violent crime.

That said, all women should take reasonable responsibility to not get themselves in a situation where she may become a victim of rape. In other words, if you are out drinking with your buddies, you don’t go home with a man you don’t know (happens at college campuses and in the rest of the world.) You always make a pact with your friends that you leave with whom you came with. If you are that drunk you can’t make that decision then your friends (as friends) must do everything they can to help you avoid a potentially dangerous situation. If you are that drunk and can’t control yourself then maybe you need to rethink your drinking and stop it.

I am not saying that a woman should be raped if she goes “home” while drunk with a man she doesn’t know, but this is personal responsibility at its finest. You must decide before hand that you will be in control and if you don’t take that responsibility you have to understand that with that lack of control could be the end effect of being raped, becoming pregnant, etc. because you didn’t take that upon yourself to be in control. If your drinking or taking drugs ends in a rape, most likely under sober circumstances you would not end up in that position to begin with because you were in control.

Although, it is never right for a man to force himself on a woman either, so it is also up to men to be in control of himself as well. It goes both ways.

In the workplace, yes, there are times when things are inappropriate but I think many women are so wrapped up in the meaning behind anything (and this goes for many politically correct issues not just gender) they don’t look to that it is just fun.

I have worked around men most of my working life. I have rarely found off color jokes to be inappropriate, in fact have told a few of my own. I take things for the context they are in and if I disagree I take the initiative to state my view immediately.

Yes, there are inappropriate things to say and do as far as employment goes, but I think many women don’t stand up early enough in the “game” and let it become such a problem that all parties involved end up with bitter feelings.

In addition, there has never been a time where I felt that I was being sexually harrassed, mainly because most men I deal with know upfront, from my actions, that I am there for business. They also, once they get to know me, understand that I am not a wuss when it comes to sexual jokes, I got a few of my own to counter theirs.

I believe that people who claim the victim role all the time are those that deserve to be left behind, they have essentially stated that they can’t be responsible for their lives. If one feels unfairly treated, fine get to the facts and fight for it but it is never productive to do otherwise.

17

The issues are not about whose numbers are correct or exaggerated all kinds of urban legends and false data are about. The question is what are the goals of those involved. Steinem et al. have nutty ideas at times but the core idea, that all women and men should be treated equally is correct and noble. Sommers, Dr. Laura, Rush etc. have a different goal, separated spheres for men and women where one does not intrude on the other. Sommers research is funded by right wing think tanks with one goal in mind to “prove” women deficient in fields conservatives don’t believe they belong.

18

A common occurence in any debate that becomes widespread is the tendency of the proponents to engage in propaganda. Indeed, one could argue that in the current political climate, actual social change is impossible without resorting to propaganda.

I have observed to my sadness that most people find rational analysis very difficult. I can’t fault them for this: Rationality is a late addition to human mind.

I really don’t know what to do about it. When the debate reaches a certain heat, I remove myself from it.

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.

19

neuro-trash grrrl wrote:

A lot of feminist thinking seems to involve what I call teliological comspiracy theories. They interpret everything in the culture as though it must, in the end, provide for the belief in an evil design. When I was younger I was more sympathetic to such theories, but I was always bothered by the fact that if someone asked me if I thought somebody out there was actually intentionally planning magazine ads with the idea of keeping women from succeeding in the workplace, I’d have to say `no.’ It didn’t seem to be the Inference to the Best Explanation. Eventually I decided that the people who create ads in magazines are just trying to sell products.

techchick68 wrote:

It’s useful to make a distinction here, especially for people who aren’t in academia. Most people these days will espouse what I call classical feminism, which is the view that the principles that make up classical liberalism apply to women as well as to men. When people express misgivings about feminism, they are talking about professional feminists. Professional feminists have jobs in academia or in feminist organizations that give them the luxury of immersing themselves into philosophies that the very women they claim to be speaking for do not have the training to understand and which do not help women deal with the less philosophical issues they deal with as women. For this reason, women who are not professional feminists often have very different opinions about what they need.

Unfortunately, while much feminist rhetoric focuses on women’s voices, and how society silences them, many women feel that feminists don’t listen to them either. Professional feminists explain away dissenting opinions by patroninzing (as it were) their subjects, saying that they’ve co-opted the voice of the oppressor. This is not completely baseless; there is such a thing as a `sambo.’ But if a professional feminist tells you that your opinions are not your own just because they’re not hers, is that any less silencing?

Further, it is true that great strides have been made for women, and most of it would never have happened without the women’s movement. But the women’s movement created a lot of professional feminist jobs, which are not bad jobs if you can get them. It it against the professional feminist’s best interest to ever admit that things are getting better. On the other hand, there are many incentives for professional feminists to create more needs for their services by raising alarms about rape, anorexia, domestic abuse, and so on, often with greater intensity than accuracy.

Lest you think I’m just pushing another teliological conspiracy theory, let me say I don’t think any feminist ever sits around and thinks, “I’d better come up with some scary statistics that will keep me from having to get a real job.” But I do think that there is no amount of progress on women’s issues what will make a feminist say, “Well, we don’t need a women’s movement anymore.”

Icerigger wrote:

There is much going on in feminism that well beyond this foundation, and some that is even antagonistic toward it to the point that this is by no means the `core idea’ of feminism.

I can’t imagine what you mean by `separated spheres for men and women,’ here, because that expression could equally apply to certain feminists views. I don’t know from Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh, but Sommers is not a sepratist.

I’m going to limit myself to saying here that you clearly haven’t read Sommers’ book, and that others who have not read the book should give no credence to your claims about it. She doesn’t attempt to “prove women deficient” at anything, and if her conclusions are compromised by the fact that she was funded by a political group, then all of feminism is equally suspect.

20

If I am any kind of feminist, then please review this site and you will have a better understanding of where I come from:

http://www.ifeminist.com/