SOURCE: Manne, Anne. “Liberal Versus Illiberal Feminism.” Quadrant 39, no. 4 (April 1995): 82-5.

In the following review, Manne asserts that Who Stole Feminism? is an important book, and that Sommers is an important voice in liberal feminism. Manne, however, argues that Sommers's distinction between “equity feminism” and “gender feminism” is overly simplistic.

If the Chinese communists' route to political revolution was via The Long March, in my more mischievous moments I sometimes think that feminism's path to social revolution might be described as The Long Whinge. As a young and politically curious student (I had surveyed the lot of women under the ancien regime of gender relations and found that it did not entirely appeal) I once attended a women's liberation conference. I sat through session after session where speakers displayed their new-found rage to foot-stamping approval and where dissidents were howled down. A sociologist I knew had unwisely ventured...