OPINIONSrnMoving Beyond Mythsrnby Christine Haynesrn”The difficulty in life is the choice.”rn-George MoorernWho Stole Feminism? How WomenrnHave Betrayed Womenrnhy Christina Hoff SommersrnNew York: Simon & Schuster;rn320 pp., $23.00rnPlease excuse the personal anecdotes scatteredrnthroughout this essay. As a woman,rn1 found it difficult to write a standardrnthird-person review and instead drew onrnmy own experiences and emotions in respondingrnto this book. Rejecting rationality,rnlogic, and “vertical” thinking, 1 recognizedrnthat my female status alone qualifiesrnme to pontificate on women’s issues. For-rnChristine Haynes was the assistantrneditor of Chronicles. She is now arngraduate student at the University ofrnChicago, where she is trying to avoidrnthe gender feminists and get a seriousrneducation in European history.rntunately, Chilton Williamson was sensitivernto this particular tenet of the new feministrnepistemology, even if his interest in upholdingrnthe male power structure led himrnto delete all fem-speak from my piece.rnWhile visiting college campusesrnlast spring in an effort to decidernon a graduate program in history, I encounteredrnwhat Christina Hoff Sommersrnterms “gender feminism.” At New YorkrnUniversity, for example, a French socialrnhistorian asked whether I was interestedrnin gender issues and showed surprisernwhen I replied that I was not. At thernUniversity of Chicago, I heard a graduaternstudent berate female classmates whornrefused to identify themselves as feminists:rnthey were “ungrateful,” she said, tornthe activists who had paved the way forrntheir accomplishments; she implied thatrnany woman in academia who does notrnsubscribe to Ms. magazine is undeservingrnof the meager gains her predecessorsrnwon for her.rnWho Stole Feminism? is the muchtalked-rnabout book that explodes a varietyrnof feminist myths. Sommers, an associaternprofessor of philosophy at Clark University,rnhas done extensive fact-checkingrnto disprove a number of “noble lies” toldrnby activists and journalists to advancernthe feminist cause. This is the book thatrndisproves the statistic that 150,000 girlsrnand women die from anorexia each year;rnthat refutes the myth that domestic violencernincreases by 40 percent on SuperrnBowl Sunday; that shows that the Marchrnof Dimes never published a study listingrnbattery of pregnant women as the leadingrncause of birth defects; that provesrnthat the expression “rule of thumb” didrnnot come from a medieval law allowingrnmen to beat their wives with a rod nornbigger around than the thumb. Sommersrnalso analyzes inflated rape statisticsrnand the “backlash” myth in her effort tornshow how gender feminists (anti-Estab-rn28/CHRONICLESrnrnrn