SOURCE: “Whose Feminism?” Christianity Today (24 October 1994): 102-05.

In the following review, Van Leeuwen evaluates Sommers's Who Stole Feminism? from a Christian feminist perspective.

Philosopher and feminist scholar Christina Hoff Sommers, who teaches ethics at Clark University, is no stranger to the pages of CT [Christianity Today]. In her article “How to Teach Right and Wrong: A Blueprint for Moral Education in a Pluralistic Age” (CT, Dec. 13, 1993, pp. 33-37), Sommers made a timely plea to resurrect the teaching of personal or “virtue” ethics alongside the more standard curriculum of “applied” ethics. While the latter focuses heavily on moral dilemmas concerning issues such as euthanasia, capital punishment, DNA research, business practices, and gender relations, virtue ethics draws on classical, medieval, and other traditions that analyze the character traits—courage, temperance, humility, compassion, honesty, and so on—deemed essential to a mature, moral person. Sommers's point was that only if personal...