In reponse to Stephen Black's citing an article by Christina Hoff Sommers,
Paul Brandon wrote:
>...and slightly right wing, though she often makes good points.
Dare I suggest that Hoff Sommer's work should be treated on its merits,
regardless of whether her socio-political views are right or left of centre!
As Hoff Sommers notes, there are certainly what she calls "serious scholars" in
feminist studies, but, apart from her own *Who Stole Feminism?" (1994), Patai &
Koertge's *Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's
Studies* (2003) highlights numerous causes for concern about academic standards
in women's studies. I've had my own brush with an example of this in the person
of Senta Troemel-Ploetz, a linguist who came to prominence in 1990 when the
sensational claims that Einstein's first wife made substantive contributions to
his epoch-making 1905 papers first surfaced:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12517061.700.html
Many of the erroneous assertions in Troemel-Ploetz's woefully unscholarly
article "Mileva Einstein-Maric: The Woman Who Did Einstein's Mathematics" are
uncritically recyled, including on "Women in Science" websites, and notoriously
on the PBS co-produced "Einstein's Wife" documentary. Howes and Herzenberg's
book *Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project* (1999) even lists
Mileva Maric among five women who were "Founding Mothers" in nuclear science.
(Unsurprisingly, Troemel-Ploetz is referenced for this section.)
I have no direct information about whether Troemel-Ploetz is right wing
or left wing, but I regard that as irrelevant to a consideration of the
accuracy of her contentions. (Her denunciation of what she calls "the cultural
imperialism of the U.S. academic establishment" perhaps gives a clue, or maybe
not.)
References
"Mileva Einstein-Maric: The Woman Who Did Einstein's mathematics",
Women's
Studies International Forum, Vol. 13, Issue 5, 1990, pp. 415-432
http://tinyurl.com/http-www-sciencedirect-com-s
Exchanges with Troemel-Ploetz on MSNBC's "Cosmic Log":
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/11/27/15908.aspx
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2006/11/20/15370.aspx
Critique of Troemel-Ploetz (1990):
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=218
Allen
Esterson
Former
lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
http://www.esterson.org
*******************************************************
Michael Smith
Fri, 03 Jul 2009
19:19:13 -0700
..I guess that will balance the slightly left wing
That reminds me, I still have to read her book The War Against Boys
--Mike
On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Paul Brandon <[email protected]> wrote:
> .... and slightly right wing, though she often makes good points.
>
> On Jul 3, 2009, at 2:59 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>
> The admirable and incisive Christina Hoff Sommers is at it again on the
>> myths and fake statistics propagated by certain feminist authors (for
>> example, the old "rule of thumb" canard), Shame on them for giving
>> scholarship a bad name.
>>
>> http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i40/40sommers.htm
>>
>> Stephen
>>
> Paul Brandon
> 10 Crown Hill Lane
> Mankato, MN 56001
> [email protected]
________________________________________________________________________
Don't let your email address define you - Define yourself at
http://www.tunome.com today!
---
To make changes to your subscription contact:
Bill Southerly ([email protected])
