Yes, the sun is now the moon, cows are spherical, and ice cream is a health food.
In the 1970 and VERY early eighties, I was a feminist. This was when feminism was supporting equal pay for equal work, which I thought was important.
At the point where feminists started screaming “All men are rapists“* (current article, not another link to either an Andrea Dworkin quote or to a statement that Andrea Dworkin denied saying it,) and claiming that women who murder their own children are “victims,” my response was, “You’re a bunch of fuck-headed morons. I’m outta here.”
Anyway, I found myself agreeing with a great deal that Paglia said. Not everything. But a lot.
She hasn’t (even remotely) convinced me to consider myself a feminist again. But she did give me some hope that somewhere out there, women who call themselves feminists have not all lost their minds.
LITTLE SIDE NOTE: Classing men as de facto rapists is the same as saying that someone who copies a movie onto a disk is a pirate. Pirates have ships and guns and kill people, and rapists use force without consent and rape people.
“feminism” still means “the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes”. Just because some people do idiotic things and call themselves feminists doesn’t mean they can just steal the word, in my not-so-humble opinion. If a fascist claims he’s supporting democracy when he’s really supporting fascism, that doesn’t mean we stop using “democracy” for what it really means.
Quite right.
Interesting article. She made some good points and like you, Holly, I can agree with some of what she said. Having lived through all (well, a lot of) what she talks about, albeit in a fairly closed and sheltered environment, the interview made for an interesting take from a different viewpoint. How can we know what we think unless we listen in a rational way to what others think? Something modern feminists seem incapable of!
A very interesting interview. I agree with you that women should read this. Of course, she’s going to be castigated for her position because it deviates so severely from the strident anti-male attitude that has become so prevalent. I stopped reading MS Magazine over 20 years ago when I realized that what the editors of that magazine really wanted was for the government to be their daddy. They weren’t mature enough, or woman enough, to take care of themselves, so they wanted government to come in and fix things for them like their daddies used to do when they were children. I guess that means that most feminists have never truly grown up and learned to be adults in the real world. How sad.
Forgot to say, thenation.com column is by Katha Pollitt and it’s part of the 10/23 issue.
For an opposing point of about Hugh Hefner, I highly recommend an article posted on thenation.com called “Feminism Not Hugh Hefner Liberated Sex”. I’d give you the link but I haven’t figured out how to do that on my phone.
IMO, Hefner was only interested in liberating men sexually. He never cared about women’s wants/needs only that they were accessible. That’s not sexy & sophisticated, that’s just selfish.
BTW — I’ve forgotten who she was talking to, but someone on the order of John Stossel. (I have the interview stashed here somewhere.) Anyway, when asked about her movement, Gloria Steinem replied, “It’s not about liberation; it’s about power.”
By amazing coincidence — this week’s conversation between Dr.Jordan Peterson (possibly the most important philosopher of our era) and Camille Paglia, who talks even more than Dr.P. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-hIVnmUdXM