By Matt RadlerThe Daily Northwestern

The feminist movement needs a new direction, American Enterprise Institute scholar Christina Sommers said to a group of about 70 people in Harris Hall on Tuesday. She criticized parts of the movement from gender studies classes to “The Vagina Monologues.”

The speech was hosted by the College Republicans.

“At the heart of campus feminism is propaganda,” she said. “When you have twisted facts and an angry point of view, that’s zealotry.”

Sommers began her speech describing her own involvement in the feminist movement, which ended in 1994 with the publication of her book, “Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women” Since she began questioning mainstream feminism, she said, she has become an outcast among feminist intellectuals, or what she calls an “equity feminist” against a national community of “victim” or “gender” feminists.

Sommers said feminist movements at schools and in the national media have ceased seeking equality and moved toward demonizing men and exaggerating female oppression in society.

Sommers said feminism’s insistence that women are oppressed is ridiculous in light of the progress they have made recently.

“Equity feminism is the great American success story,” Sommers said. “The major battles have already been fought, and in large part, they’ve been won.”

Much of her criticism centered on the play “The Vagina Monologues,” which she said is performed annually on more than 600 college campuses to highlight feminists’ view of men.

“As a gender feminist message, it’s all about the ravages of patriarchy and evils of all things masculine,” she said. “This play is poisonously anti-male. … It’s a rogues’ gallery of brutes, sadists, child molesters, genital mutilators, gang-rapists and a group of vicious little boys. The message of the play is that women are from Venus and men are from hell.”

Sommers said this anti-male bias has become common to feminism and now exists throughout the American educational system, which explains poor academic performance among boys.

Sommers condemned feminist groups’ misuse of facts and figures, citing examples ranging from rates of evidence of spousal abuse in emergency rooms to information about the gender wage gap. The gap, Sommers said, can be attributed to the differences between the jobs men and women pursue and the impact of childbirth and child rearing on women’s careers.

Rather than focus on issues of gender and identity, Sommers said, feminists should look to the oppressed women of the Muslim world.

Carrie Hall, a College Feminists executive board member and SESP sophomore, said Sommers seemed out of touch with modern campus feminism and content to stop the achievements of feminism where they stand.

“I think she confused what’s being taught in gender studies classes with the actual opinions of female students on campus,” Hall said. “She is still on the first wave of feminism. In other ideologies, it would be considered foolish to make it only so far and then stop.”

Many in the crowd agreed with Sommers, however, and echoed Will Upton, an Associated Student Government senator for College Republicans.

“I didn’t have a lot of interest in feminism until tonight, really,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “I think she has a very interesting point of view.

Reach Matt Radler at [email protected].