Letters to the Editor
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An Embarrassing Article, On So Many Levels
First of all, Christina Hoff Sommers is a feminist. If you decree that everyone who doesn't agree with your particular agenda for feminism is not a feminist, then that gives the lie to the oft-repeated mantra that it's a pluralistic, varied cultural movement. Sommers is a gender feminist, not an equity feminist. She's said so many times.
If women's studies is "predictable, tiresome and dreary," perhaps that's because only one monotonous view is allowed, all others are silenced, and therefore one knows without asking exactly what response the program will have towards any given cultural issue.
Secondly, how on earth do you make the leap from the death of women's studies (isn't dead now? what percentage of schools in the U.S. still maintain a women's studies program?) to the death of feminism? Were there no feminists before the mid-70's?
If I understand this article, feminism only exists when deemed so by "approved" feminists, and it can only be sustained if college campuses maintain vigorous women's studies programs. If that's the case, the movement had best be put on life support ASAP.