SPLC Thinks ‘Factual Feminist’ Christina Hoff Sommers Legitimizes ‘Male Supremacy’ Movement
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), known for targeting right-leaning thinkers and organizations, included Factual Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers in its report on male supremacy, which the group describes as “a hateful ideology advocating for the subjugation of women.”
They contend Hoff Sommers legitimizes “male supremacy.”
The SPLC wrote (emphasis mine):
The men’s rights movement has a dedicated international following, including in the United Kingdom and in Australia. Women, too, have helped give the men’s rights movement a veneer of even-handedness. Prominent MRAs [Men’s Right Activists] also include anti-feminist female voices, such as popular Canadian YouTube personality Karen Straughan, American psychologist Helen Smith, and the former head of a domestic-violence shelter for women, the British Erin Pizzey. Men’s rights issues also overlap with the rhetoric of equity feminists like Christina Hoff Sommers, who give a mainstream and respectable face to some MRA concerns.
Sommers has a PhD in philosophy, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and hosts the video blog, The Factual Feminist. Yes, Sommers is a feminist, but I guess the left hates her so much because she takes an unbiased approach to issues radical feminists think exist here in America.
She spoke to The Weekly Standard about her inclusion in the report:
“I completely reject that,” Sommers said. “This is a group I used to admire. They once went after Klan members and Nazis and now… [they go after] people like Ben Carson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It’s absurd.” She adds that the SPLC has no evidence for the suggestion that she “gives mainstream and respectable face” to “male supremacy”:. “They’re blacklisting in place of engaging with arguments. They blacklist you, rather than try to refute you.”Sommers thinks that “they’re talking about … some of the work that I’ve done on ‘boys.’ I wrote an article for the New York Times a few years ago called The Boys at the Back—and it won an award from a feminist organization.”The AEI scholar finds herself in a precarious position: “There’s a men’s rights activist group, A Voice for Men, and they’ve made videos attacking me, calling me a ‘crypto-misandrist,’ or something of the sort. So I’m attacked by this MRA group for being a female supremacist, and then I’m attacked by the Southern Poverty Law Center for being a Male Supremacist. I don’t take either seriously.”
Sommers has extensively debunked the supposed gender wage gap. She also argues men have struggles we shouldn’t ignore. From PJMedia:
In this, she has not neglected the struggles of men. She noted that 78 percent of those who commit suicide are male, that 93 percent of federal inmates are male, that 60 percent of the homeless are male and that men receive 63 percent longer prison sentences for the same crime. Men live five years less than women, on average.”Men have to be the only oppressor class in history who are less educated, more victimized and have shorter lives than those they oppress,” Hoff Sommers quipped.
Sommers uses her Twitter account to bring attention to countries like Iran and China that treat women like second-class citizens.
Today, Ian Bremmer tweeted out that China has many companies that have women on the founding team and board of directors. Sommers wasted no time reminding him that one should not use China as a shining example of gender equality:
SPLC’s crazy theories can damage a person’s career or organization. Essentially, making the SPLC list is a death sentence. Back in July, Professor Jacobson blogged about how the mainstream media uses SPLC lists to smear organizations. It happened to the successful religious liberty law group Alliance Defending Freedom (SDF).
Here are a few more posts by Professor Jacobson on the tyranny of the SPLC:
- Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness (regarding SPLC attack on Sarah Palin)
- Confirmed – SPLC Exaggerated About Klan In Rhode Island
- Neo-Nazis in Rhode Island? SPLC exaggerates again
- SPLC’s hatewatch gives cover to hate
- SPLC Demonizes Supporters of Traditional Marriage
- Southern Poverty Law Center Still Peddling Lie That Giffords Shooter Was Right-Winger
As if that weren’t bad enough, YouTube has secretly used the SPLC to police videos on the website.
It’s only a matter of time before they target Sommers’ series. Here is one of my favorite videos:
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