August 3, 2009

Focus on Real Oppression

To the Editor:

In "Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship" (The Chronicle Review, online edition, June 29), Christina Hoff Sommers writes: "The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights. False depictions of the United States as an oppressive 'patriarchy' are a ludicrous distraction. If American women are as oppressed as Ugandan women, then American feminists would