SOURCE: English, Deirdre. “Their Own Worst Enemies.” Washington Post Book World 24, no. 29 (17 July 1994): 1, 11.

In the following review, English asserts that the greatest strength of Who Stole Feminism? is Sommers's critical reporting, commenting that her analysis of feminism is unconvincing.

Christine Hoff Sommers, a philosophy professor at Clark University and well-published conservative, is itching for a fight. One will be necessary, she tells us, in order to combat the current crop of feminist leaders, the doctrinaire “gender feminists,” and replace them with fair-minded “equity feminists” like herself.

Sommers's voice is brashly confrontational; her approach is both investigative and polemical. The investigative part ought to stimulate an invigorating debate, provoking passionate defenses as well as some retractions and rethinking. In contrast, her analysis of how things went wrong is breathless and overwrought. But one need not accept her politics to appreciate the best of her book: its critical reporting.

According...