Christina Hoff Sommers will speak on Tuesday in Galbreath Chapel at 7:30 p.m.
Christina Hoff Sommers, regarded as a controversial figure in modern feminism, will speak at Ohio University Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in Galbreath Chapel.
The event is sponsored by the George Washington Forum, the OU College Republicans and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute and will be called “Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces and Moral Panics.”
“She does touch on really controversial and really important topics,” Anna Lippincott, President of the OU College Republicans said.
Lippincott said it was important to talk about the issues especially given the feminist presence at OU and the protests that have previously occurred on campus.
“I think it’s a conversation that needs to happen, and I think she’s the right person to spark it,” Lippincott said.
Sommers, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has written several books, including “The War on Boys,” “One Nation Under Therapy” and “Who Stole Feminism?” Sommers is also a former professor of philosophy at Clark University. She has written articles that have appeared in various publications such as the Wall Street Journal, The National Review and the Washington Post.
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Sommers, a self-described freedom feminist, has not shied away from criticizing the modern feminist movement. Freedom feminism, as Sommers put it in an article for Reason Magazine, respects personal choice, and it welcomes people from across the political spectrum.
“Put simply, freedom feminism affirms for women what it affirms for everyone: dignity, opportunity, and personal liberty,” Sommers wrote in the article.
Sommers encountered pushback from some students when she spoke at Oberlin College in Ohio last year. Before Sommers’ scheduled appearance, a number of students signed a letter submitted to the Oberlin Review called “In Response to Sommers’ Talk: A Love Letter to Ourselves,” in which she was dubbed a “rape denialist.”
Lippincott said she hasn’t heard of any pushback from students at OU and encouraged everyone to attend what she said would be an “entertaining” lecture.
“This lecture isn’t just for feminists. It’s not just for people who are politically involved — It’s for all of us,” Lippincott said. “It’s for all of us who have felt isolated by the modern feminist movement and for all of us who maybe identify as a modern feminist.”
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