276: Christina Hoff Sommers

My guest today is Christina Hoff Sommers - former Philosophy professor at Clark University in the US and currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Find her on twitter @CHSommers

Her work mainly focuses on gender politics, feminism and free speech in universities.

She’s out in Australia for the #feminist events with Roxanne Gay - Sydney Friday 29th and Melbourne Sunday 31st.

Now I know she’s a divisive figure, and I personally don’t agree with some of the things that she said in our conversation, but I get where she’s coming from and why she’s coming at those topics from those angles.

I felt it was important to have a conversation with someone that I might disagree with on some part of their message - but at the same time find places that we may connect.

You’ll hear a few times that we do indeed find some resonance, but the larger focus on the conversation for me was figuring out what it is to be her.

To be someone who’s shouted down in universities, to be excommunicated from an academic faculty that she’d been a part of for so long for questioning a status quo.

Even though Christina does question the value of trigger warnings in this conversation - I’ll tell you right now, one of her big topics that she covers is sexual assault on campuses - so if that’s an issue for you, perhaps you’ll want to check back in for the next episode come Monday.

If you want to reach out to her she’s very active on twitter: @CHSommers

That being said, come with me to Erskineville in inner-western Sydney and sit down for a conversation with Christina Hoff Sommers.

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