1.
We must have moral education in the schools, anti-bullying programs, but this does not mean programs to feminize boys.
Christina Hoff Sommers
2.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
3.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
4.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
5.
I'm concerned that boys have become politically incorrect, that we are a society in the process of turning against its male children.
Christina Hoff Sommers
6.
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."
Christina Hoff Sommers
7.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
8.
Women are not children. We are not fragile little birds who can't cope with jokes, works of art, or controversial speakers.
Christina Hoff Sommers
9.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
10.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
11.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
12.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
13.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
14.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
15.
A fair and just society offers equality of opportunity to all. But it cannot promise, and should not try to enforce, sameness.
Christina Hoff Sommers
16.
Trigger warnings and safe spaces are an infantilizing setback for feminism - and for women.
Christina Hoff Sommers
17.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
18.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
19.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
20.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
21.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
22.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
23.
Even the most independent and spirited young women can become humorless, self-absorbed, and fearful. It's a terrible preparation for life.
Christina Hoff Sommers
24.
It's no wonder there is a mad scramble for victim status on many campuses today. It confers authority and prestige.
Christina Hoff Sommers
25.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
26.
You have to be literate in today's world. We're not going to get away with not teaching boys to read.
Christina Hoff Sommers
27.
Girls are more academically powerful. They make the grades, they run the student activities, they are the valedictorians.
Christina Hoff Sommers
28.
In reality, American girls are among the most outspoken, ambitious, successful girls in the history of the human race.
Christina Hoff Sommers
29.
Hillary Clinton appears to believe in a form of stoicism - which is a tried and true life philosophy.
Christina Hoff Sommers
30.
"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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
31.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers
32.
I don't think anyone will deny that girls are academically superior as a group.
Christina Hoff Sommers
33.
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.
Christina Hoff Sommers