Christina Hoff Sommers Quotations

I think the fallacy is to think that Women's Liberation meant that men and women would become interchangeable. That has not happened, and most men and women would not want it to happen.

We are turning against boys and forgetting a simple truth: that the energy, competitiveness, and corporal daring of normal, decent males is responsible for much of what is right in the world.

I think the rules will change and I think more and more young women are going to decide that having a family and taking care of a home is not a bad choice, but how do we subsidize it - not necessarily European-style socialism. It'll have to be a new more creative, dynamic and local solution.

Girls are more academically powerful. They make the grades, they run the student activities, they are the valedictorians.

Toy companies aren't interested in ideology, they want to sell toys. If they would sell a toy that both boys and girls would buy, it doubles profits.

I don't think anyone will deny that girls are academically superior as a group.

Boy's natural play is rough and tumble play, it's the universal play of little boys. And it's very different from aggression. And we are a society that's failing to understand the distinction.

Any child may go through periods during which they become less outspoken with their parents or teachers. But girls, like boys, live in many different worlds - they have their friends and their classroom and their parents - and within these different domains, they may have different levels of expressiveness.

It's good to raise awareness that men and boys are struggling, at least many of them are. But why say men are finished? It's too harsh, too sweeping, and it happens to not be true.

We must have moral education in the schools, anti-bullying programs, but this does not mean programs to feminize boys.

I'm concerned that boys have become politically incorrect, that we are a society in the process of turning against its male children.

In reality, American girls are among the most outspoken, ambitious, successful girls in the history of the human race.

Harvard produces leaders. People with Harvard degrees go on to become administrators in high-level positions in state educational departments and in public schools around the country.

I think it's ill-advised to attribute pathologies to healthy people. It doesn't help normal, healthy, thriving children to be viewed as pitiable and fragile.

You have to be literate in today's world. We're not going to get away with not teaching boys to read.

The serious work for feminism in the 21st century is across the globe. Instead of retreating into "safe spaces" and focusing on their own imagined oppression, today's feminists should be reaching out to women's groups in the developing world.

Even the most independent and spirited young women can become humorless, self-absorbed, and fearful. It's a terrible preparation for life.

So far there has been little discussion among gender scholars about the need to engage with skeptics. They tend to view skeptics and dissenters as cranks.

Trigger warnings and safe spaces are an infantilizing setback for feminism - and for women.

There is a theory behind the culture of victimhood: It's called "intersectionality." This theory posits that racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc. are interconnected, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing. Together they form a "matrix of oppression."

"Marginalized others" have access to other ways of knowing, and therefore to deeper, more authentic truths about human reality. They can share that knowledge by speaking about their lived experience while in a safe space. But to provide this kind of safety, members of privileged groups, i.e. white, able-bodied, cis-gendered middle class men, must keep quiet.

It's no wonder there is a mad scramble for victim status on many campuses today. It confers authority and prestige.

Of course, intersectionality theory is a confused muddle. It fights racism and sexism by classifying everyone according to race and sex. It views race and gender privilege as the root of all evil, while ignoring the role played by dogmatic ideologies held by all genders. And it is unfalsifiable - to its adherents, criticism and rejection of the theory actually demonstrate its truth, by showing how deeply we all have internalized our oppression.

Young women at our elite colleges are among the safest, most privileged and most empowered of any group on the planet. Yet, from the moment they get to campus - and now, even earlier - an endless stream of propaganda tells them otherwise. They are offered safe spaces and healing circles to help them cope with the ravages of a phantom patriarchy.

We reject creationism because there is no evidence to support it. By contrast, the notion that biology is at least partially the basis of gender is an empirically supportable, and even well-supported, proposition. The gender scholars reject it on ideological, not evidentiary, grounds.

Hillary Clinton appears to believe in a form of stoicism - which is a tried and true life philosophy.

Many feminists in the academy and in the major women's groups are knocking down open doors. It's 2016, not 1950. But you wouldn't know that if you looked through a typical women's studies textbook or website.

Truth brought to public light recruits the best of us to work for change. On the other hand, even the best-intentioned "noble lie" ultimately discredits the finest of causes.

A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.

There is too much ideological conformity in gender studies. The true-believers fashion the theories, write the textbooks and teach the students. When journalists, policymakers, and legislators address topics such as the wage gap, gender and education, or women's health, they turn to these experts for enlightenment. For the most part, they peddle misinformation, victim politics, and sophistry. They claim that their teachings represent the academic consensus, but that is only because they have excluded all dissenters.

Now you ask a group of young women on the college campus, 'How many of you are feminists?' Very few will raise their hands, because young women don't want to be associated with it anymore because they know it means male-bashing, it means being a victim, and it means being bitter and angry.

Women are not children. We are not fragile little birds who can't cope with jokes, works of art, or controversial speakers.

There are a lot of homely women in women's studies. Preaching these anti-male, anti-sex sermons is a way for them to compensate for various heartaches--they're just mad at the beautiful girls.