BOOK REVIEW

Sommers, Christina Hoff (1994) Who Stole Feminism? Simon and Schuster, New York.

Reviewed by Phoebe Prosky

As is abundantly clear, the woman's movement has made an enormous contribution to the rebalancing of perspective in this and other countries. In spite of the enormous transformation which it has brought about, I have heard women say that they find themselves in the strange position of being unable to identify with it. Often they are unable to put their finger on the problem but know they are uncomfortable being identified as a feminist. I, too, have had this problem, despite being the third generation of working women in my family and therefore a staunch supporter of equal rights for women. It has been difficult to describe my concern or to express it without being dismissed.

So when a female client recently recommended Christina Hoff Sommers' book Who Stole Feminism?, I was intrigued. The author gives an historical overview of the feminist movement and conceptualizes the difficulties which have emerged in a way that was clarifying for me and may be for others who find themselves troubled by the tenor of the movement.

 In its historical exploration, the book identifies two main elements in the feminist movement—equity feminists and gender feminists. It describes the original feminists as "equity" feminists, fighting against clearly defined inequities, such as women's right to vote, or equal pay for equal work. Over time "gender" feminists emerged and have held sway in the movement. Gender feminists view all of society through a sex/gender prism. This new feminism is marked by resentment and the rejection of things male. All male references are transformed into female forms, going so far as, for example, to convert the word "seminar" into "ovenar." This type of activity indeed generates a kind of sexism of its own. It is perhaps in this transition from equity feminism to gender feminism that I have found myself estranged from the movement.

The first two chapters of the book explore the effects of gender feminism on the feminist movement. They talk about the ways in which gender feminists, in their ardor, have distorted facts and figures, often boldly ignoring inaccuracies in a means-justifies-the-end kind of position. According to Ms. Sommers, the movement often has captured audiences through misrepresentation of the subject being presented and through the manipulation and misrepresentation of statistics. For example, she states that the figure for how many women in the United States were anorexic or bulimic was widely misrepresented as the figure for the number of women who had died of these conditions in that year, and the resulting carnage compared to the Holocaust. Another example is the statement, quoted in Time Magazine, that a March of Dimes report found that domestic violence is responsible for more birth defects than all other causes combined. This statement incited floods of alarmed calls to legislators and the Health Department. The March of Dimes had not made such a statement, and Time was supposed to publish a retraction, but never did. Ms. Sommers points out that such statements, unretracted, leave strong erroneous images in the minds of the general public. In her view, gender feminists, in the rush to advance their cause, are too ready to find inflammatory statements and imagery and pay too little attention to the accuracy of what is reported.

In the next four chapters, Ms. Sommers explores the impact of gender feminism on our educational system. She states that gender feminists have established a stronghold in educational institutions at all levels with the stated mission of transforming them into gynecentric institutions. Dubbed "transformationists," these feminists view the traditional role of education—promoting creative and critical thought and transmitting of knowledge—as a male dominated agenda. Ms. Sommers offers a host of examples in which women's issues have come to dominate curricula, usually at the expense of a variety of core subjects. She states that, increasingly, on college campuses today, transformationist feminist rhetoric replaces honest debate. As a result, the breadth of educational experience has been compromised, and accordingly, the educational system seriously weakened. Any opposition to this development is silenced through the mechanism of "if you are not with us, you're against us." This same mood has pervaded educational administrative decisions. According to Ms. Sommers: To be a faculty member and to criticize feminist ideology can be cause for dismissal. This has serious implications for the value of freedom of thought and speech in our educational system.

A social worker myself by original training, I have had an up-close look at the effects of transformationist agenda on social work education, thanks to an opportunity I had to mentor a colleague through her MSW program a few years back. I was shocked and astonished at what had happened to the curriculum. Gone was almost all the history of social work and the development of psychological theory. Very sparse was any understanding of the nature of psychological difficulty. Absent was instruction on the tools of a social worker's presence with clients. Course after course reiterated the themes of women's issues and diversity. The redundancy and concomitant lack of breadth was striking. My experience with my colleague's education was, as far as I knew, a singularity. Who Stole Feminism? suggests that this tendency in education is in fact the rule.

The later chapters in the book offer critiques of various studies and reports conducted and issued by gender feminists. These chapters analyze ways in which information was misused, events exaggerated, and imagery borrowed to heighten the drama of information reported. The author notes that the gender feminists liken their cause in intellectual scope and import to developments of the scale of the Copernican revolution.

Ms. Sommers asks whether American women need to be saved by anyone. She questions the gender feminist assumption that men are collectively engaged in keeping women down. She sees this assumption as responsible for feminist bonding in a resentful community, creating self-protective enclaves. She feels that the "us vs. them" positioning of gender feminists has caused many women to be alienated from what should rightfully be their own movement. Women in general want to be treated fairly, but many do not feel it is appropriate to attempt to replace all that is male with all that is female. They prefer instead to give each gender its due.

The statements in Ms. Sommer's book are all thoroughly documented. They help shed light on both why it has been so hard for some women to identify with a movement reputedly on their own behalf, and why it has been so hard for those women and many men to gain a fair hearing for legitimate opinions which run counter to the point of view of gender feminism.

Who Stole Feminism? serves as a counterpoint to the voice of gender feminists. It helps to identify a conceptual platform for those women (and men) to stand on who wish to make their focus issues of equality for women.

Perhaps the most important clinical implication of this book for family therapists is the difficulty of maintaining a systemic perspective with families from a gender feminist stance. A position adversarial to things male cannot help but bring bias into the therapy room in the same way that male chauvinism historically has. As family therapists we presumably wish to be free of bias against, among other things, anything a client cannot change, such as sex or race.

Phoebe Prosky, MSW is Director of Training at A Center for the Awareness of Pattern, a family therapy training center and clinic in Freeport Maine, and she has a private practice at the same site. She is coordinator of the International Training Consortium Division of the International Family Therapy Association, and Immediate Past President of the Family Therapy Practice Academy of the Clinical Social Work Federation. Phoebe is a Charter Member of AFTA as well as a Fellow with Ortho and AAMFT, where she is also an Approved Supervisor. Phoebe teaches internationally, is the author of numerous articles and chapters and is presently co-editing a book with David Keith, MD on the difficult intersection of family systems work and psychotropic medication, to be published by Brunner-Routledge.