Perhaps the confusion of language reflects confusion of object. Democratic liberalism--real tolerance for differing views--can survive only in an atmosphere of civility and responsibility. The feel-good notion that all opinions are equally valid, the liberal bias against "making judgments," invites totalitarian takeover. It is not clear that this direction can be reversed, as Sommers wishes. One is hard-pressed to think of many historical examples of successful, liberal-based revolutionary movements that, once taken over by radicals, have been recaptured by the tolerant. The latter generally lack the rage, the "fighting madness" (as Eleanor Smeal, the former president of NOW, puts it), that infuses ideological warriors. Liberal feminism was taken over by radicals because of its failure to condemn illiberals, the moderates not realizing that, as in most revolutions, they would be the first to be shot. It isn't news that all revolutions devour their own.
So the answer to the question in the book's title is, nobody stole feminism. The liberals gave it away. Their abdication of principles and cowardly fear of reprisals so ably chronicled by Sommers sealed the deal. What one wonders is, Why does she want it back?
While her arguments are engaging and her focus admirable, the implications of the Kafkaesque reality she delineates are even larger than she acknowledges. It is more important to save civilization as a whole from the predations of enforced political correctness than to save only feminism. The threat to freedom is larger than the threat to a movement that affects all of the people only some of the time. The goals of Seneca Falls have largely been accomplished, at least here, and additional progress is being made daily. The low level of acceptance of victimology feminism means that like other pointless intellectual fads, it too will pass.
But the effects of this brand of poison are long lasting. "For some time to come," writes Sommers, "the gender monitors will still be there--in the schools, in the feminist centers, in the workplace--but, increasingly, their intrusions will not be welcome." Unwelcome, perhaps, but the laws and their bureaucratic enforcers, the redefinition of knowledge in favor of political interests, and the precedents they set will remain. And everybody, from taxi dancers to aircraft mechanics, will have to pay for it.
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If gender feminists are reactionaries, where does that place equity feminists such as pioneers Elizabeth Cady Stanton ("We ask no better laws than those you have made for yourselves"), Mary Wollstonecraft ("I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body"), Maria Edgeworth ("Power is the law of man; make it yours"), and Sommers herself ("I have been moved to write this book because I am a feminist who does not like what feminism has become")?
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