ANYONE who has ever watched a stubborn child attempt to climb up a downward escalator knows how pathetic the sight of an individual struggling vainly against progress can be. Courtesy of the Network of Enlightened Women, U.Va. students were treated to such a display on Thursday night as lecturer Christina Hoff Sommers embarrassed herself with her shrill and reactionary diatribe, "Sex, Lies, and the Vagina Monologues."
Sommers is an author and former philosophy professor who travels the country repeating the same vitriolic invective against Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues" (which was performed at the University this past weekend) at college campuses; last week she was the guest of NEW, a recently founded organization for conservative women at the University, the College Republicans and the Studies of Women and Gender Department.
The sentence with which Sommers began her lecture was perhaps the most telling feature of the entire speech. Speaking of her initial reaction to the popularity of the Vagina Monologues, Sommers said that she originally approached it with the attitude that "I'm just hoping it will all go away." She was speaking of her reaction to the incredible influence Eve Ensler's play has had on women all over the world in speaking out about their sexuality, but she may as well have been speaking about her feelings on the issue of sexual assault itself. In her raging critique of a culture that promotes openness and understanding about the issues of sexual awareness and sexual violence, Sommers seems to be advocating the same head-in-the-sand approach that has devastated survivors for centuries. Let's not talk about it, let's just "hope it will all go away."
Sommers claims that talking about sexual violence on Valentine's Day destroys one of America's "most charming and hopeful holidays," and we should all envy her blessed life that allows her to pick and choose which days she can think about the issue. But survivors, like 4th year student and AWAKE Vice President Nikki Whitmire, don't have that luxury. "I think about my rape every day -- there is no 'day-off' where I can just pretend it doesn't exist," she said, and Sommers' coarse dismissal of experiences like Whitmire's as Valentine's Day mood-killers victimize women far more severely than any play ever could.
Though the Vagina Monologues may be Sommers' cause du jour, her real agenda became increasingly apparent as she fielded questions. After ranting about the "man-hating" nature of the Vagina Monologues, she derided and mocked a young man who suggested that the embrace of women's sexual body parts may have a place in university climates that are comfortable with talking about male sexual body parts. Perhaps we can infer from the disconnect between Sommers' words and her actions that "man hating" is all right as long as it is directed at men who disagree with her.
It also took very little prodding for Sommers, who calls herself an "equity feminist" (which sounds suspiciously like what the rest of the feminist community calls a liberal feminist, but one could imagine Hoff Sommers' horror of calling herself the "l" word), to expand the target of her tirade from Eve Ensler to Women's Studies programs across the country. She claims that most of these departments promote an "ideology that is stridently anti-male" and completely intolerant of opposing views. To which accusation two SWAG professorsreminded Sommers that they had, indeed, sponsored her "opposing view" that evening.
It is nothing short of disheartening to realize that with all the progress that has been made for survivors of sexual violence and for women in general, there are still women like Sommers who would prefer to see us return to silence rather than profane archaic notions of romance with the reality of women's lives. It is nothing short of depressing that there are young women at this University who are held in such thrall of her regressive ideas that they would bring her to our Grounds.
But pause though we may to feel slightly sorry for the immaturity of Sommers -- a woman who must shout about the shame of college girls publicly appreciating their bodies while she whispers and blushes at the idea herself -- that pity should be short lived. Sommers spoke one true sentence Thursday night, and it was that our generation of women is the luckiest yet, in terms of opportunity and freedom. She is absolutely right. We are luckier than our mothers, who were luckier than their mothers, and our daughters will be luckier still. For this we may thank the women who paused for a moment to pity those members of society who fight progress tooth and nail -- but who did not pause for long.
Katie Cristol's column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kcristol@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
EDITORIAL: Carla Williams deserves her seat at the table
By Editorial Board | 5 hours agoLooking beyond basketball and football reveals that Virginia Athletics is, in many ways, thriving.
UPADHYAYA: The Great and not-so-Good sides of U.Va.’s 2030 housing plan
By Apal Upadhyaya | 2 days agoInstead of improving the dire state of existing infrastructure, however, the University has shifted attention away from it and chosen to expand.
EDITORIAL: Support low-barrier shelters in Charlottesville
By Editorial Board | 3 days agoInvesting in low-barrier shelters now will pay off in increased stability for the homeless, which will undoubtedly improve the safety of shelters and the community writ large.
