Author questions motives of prof.'s scornful book review

English Professor Nina Auerbach said she was "just being honest" in her review of Who Stole Feminism in the June 12 edition of the New York Times Book Review. In the review, Auerbach described the new book on feminism as "so overwrought and underargued that it is unlikely to amuse or persuade." But Christina Hoff Sommers, the author of the book and a philosophy instructor at Clark University, claims that Auerbach's review was nothing but a "temper tantrum." Sommers said Auerbach recognized herself as one of the parodied panelists in a feminist conference referred to in the opening of the book, and wrote a "disgruntled" review in retaliation. Auerbach, however, is not mentioned by name in the book. Sommers said she did not mention her name because it would have been "inappropriate" in the context of the rest of the chapter. Book Review Editor Rebecca Sinkler said there was no apparent conflict when Auerbach was assigned to review the book. "She's not in the book," Sinkler said. "If we had seen [Auerbach's] name in the book, we never would have assigned it to her." Auerbach added that she would have preferred if she had been mentioned by name because "I would have liked an excuse not to review the book." "If I would have known how much I would dislike the book I wouldn't have agreed to review it," she said. A frequent reviewer for the Book Review since 1982, Auerbach said Who Stole Feminism? is "very misinformed." "[Sommers] talks about books she seems not to have read," Auerbach said. "She tried to quote Kate Millet's Sexual Politics and quoted the back cover instead." But Sommers doubts whether Auerbach actually read her book. "She says my discussion of rape centers on a defense of [Gone With The Wind character] Rhett Butler," she said. "Rhett Butler comes up at the end of the book -- I had a whole chapter on rape in the middle of the book." Sommers said Auerbach "had a fantasy of a fallen feminist, and she reviewed her fantasy." But Sinkler questioned Sommer's logic. "I know Nina to be an entirely unbiased person," she said. "I know that she is fair." Sommers also said she made a direct reference to Auerbach later in the book, when she describes an English professor at the University who graded her stepson's term paper. Her stepson observed in his report on Jane Eyre that modern women have more vocational opportunities than women of Charlotte Bronte's time. His professor, whom Sommers identified in an interview this week as Auerbach, wrote "No! -- Even today women only make 59 percent of what men make" in the margin. But Auerbach said she did not recognize herself in this description because "I'm not good with numbers." Everett Dennis, executive director of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York, said he saw a "possible conflict of interest" in Auerbach's decision to review the book. "Generally full disclosure is the best rule," he said. "But [this case] is pretty minor." Dennis added, though, that "anybody who doesn't get a positive review will want to challenge that, and the easiest way to do that is [to claim] bias, ignorance or factual error."