If
you are unfamiliar with Camille Paglia she is progressive
feminist icon
who is thoughtful and respectful of opposing
viewpoints.
Most recently
her criticism of Hillary Clinton has made the
news, even though they go
back to her days as First Lady,
which she explains in following story.
But,
the interview is an important message about feminism
and Hillary is
only small part. Paglia is a deep thinker,
who open doors in our minds.
She was interviewed in London
and demonstrates feminism can exist in
harmony with men.
She is also a renowned author...you may be interested
in
some of her works. Share this with others, especially young
women just starting out, consider passing along to daughters.
The interview.
‘In order to run for president of the United States, you have
to spend two or three years of your life out on the road
constantly asking
for money and most women find that life too
harsh, too draining,’ Paglia
argues. ‘That is why we haven’t
had a woman president in the United
States — not because we
haven’t been ready for one, for heaven’s sakes,
for a very
long time…’ Hillary hasn’t suffered because she is a woman.
She has shamelessly exploited the fact: ‘It’s an outrage how
she’s played the gender card. A woman without accomplishment.
“I sponsored or co-sponsored 400 bills.” Oh really? These were
bills to
rename bridges and so forth. And the things she has
accomplished have
been like the destabilization of North Africa,
causing refugees to flood
into Italy… The woman is a disaster!’
Paglia voted for
Bill Clinton twice before becoming revolted by
the treatment meted out
to Monica Lewinsky: ‘My
jaundiced view
of her is entirely the result of observing her behavior.
And
last election, I voted for Jill Stein’s Green party. So I have
already voted for a woman president.’
As far as most feminists are concerned, such a view is
unconscionable.
Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright made it their
business to
castigate American girls who wanted Bernie Sanders, while
Madonna
has promised a blowjob for every Clinton vote.
Paglia
does not seem to mind much if she makes herself violently
unpopular with
her contemporaries — she’s an expert at it.
Paglia’s feminism has always been concerned with issues far beyond
her own navel and the Hillary verdict is typical of her attitude —
which
is more in touch with women in the real world than most
feminists’ (a
majority of Americans, for example, have an
‘unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton’ according to recent polling).
‘My philosophy of feminism,’ Paglia explains,‘I call street-smart
Amazon feminism. I’m from an immigrant family. The
way I was
brought up was: the world is a dangerous place; you must learn
to
defend yourself. You can’t be a fool. You have to stay alert.’
Today, middle-class girls are being reared in a precisely
contrary
fashion: cosseted, indulged and protected from every evil, they
become helpless victims when confronted by adversity. ‘We are
rocketing backwards here to the Victorian period with this belief
that women are
not capable of making decisions on their own. This
is not feminism —
which is to achieve independent thought and action.
There will never be
equality of the sexes if we think that women are
so handicapped they can’t look after themselves.’
Paglia traces the roots of this belief system to American campus
culture
and the cult of women’s studies. This ‘poison’ — as she calls it
— has
spread worldwide. ‘In London, you now have this plague of female
journalists who don’t seem to have made a deep study of anything…’
She never moans about ‘the patriarchy’ but freely
asserts that man
made capitalism has enabled her to write her books.
As for male/female relations, she says that they are far more complex
than most feminists insist. ‘I wrote a date-rape essay in 1991 in which
I called for women to stand up for themselves and learn how to handle
men. But now you have this shibboleth, “No means no.” Well, no.
Sometimes “No” means “Not yet”. Sometimes “No” means “Too soon”.
Or,
“No” means “Keep trying and maybe yes”. You can see it with
the pigeons
on the grass. The male pursues the female and she turns
away, and turns
away, and he looks a fool but he keeps on pursuing her.
And maybe she’s
testing his persistence; the strength of his genes… It’s
a pattern in
the animal kingdom — a courtship pattern…’ But for
pointing such things
out, Paglia adds, she has been ‘defamed, attacked
and viciously maligned’
— so, no, she is not in the least surprised that
wolf-whistling has now
been designated a hate crime in Birmingham.
Girls would be far better advised to revert to the brave feminist
approach
of her generation — when women were encouraged to fight all
their battles
by themselves, and win. ‘Germaine Greer was once in this
famous debate
with Norman Mailer at Town Hall. Mailer was formidable,
enormously
famous and powerful. She just laid into him: “I was
expecting a hard,
nuggety sort of man and he was positively blousy…” Now
that shows a power
of speech that cuts men up. And this is the way
women should be dealing
with men — finding their weaknesses and
susceptibilities… not bringing in
an army of pseudo, proxy parents to
put them down for you so you can
preserve your perfect girlishness.’
In an hour’s non-stop talking, Professor Paglia is only lost when
asked
which younger feminists she would pass the baton to. ‘I would love
to
inspire dissident young feminists to realize that this brand of
feminism
is not all feminism…’ she says, before citing Germaine Greer as
the woman
she admires most alive, and Amelia Earhart and Katharine
Hepburn as
heroines alas dead.
As with Greer, it is Paglia’s power of speech that utterly
devastates. Her collected works read like a dictionary of vicious
quotations. (Leaving sex
to the feminists? ‘Like letting your dog
vacation at the taxidermist.’ Lena
Dunham? ‘She’s a big pile of
pudding.’)
Paglia is pro-liberty, pro–pornography, pro-prostitutes and
anti- any and
all special treatment when it comes to women in power: ‘I
do not believe
in quotas of any kind. Scandinavian countries are going
in that direction
and it’s an insult to women — the idea that you need a
quota.’
Which brings us back to Hillary and the so-called victory her
re-entering
the White House would represent: ‘If Hillary wins, nothing
will change.
She knows the bureaucracy, all the offices of government
and that’s what
she likes to do, sit behind the scenes and manipulate
the levers of power.’
Paglia says she has absolutely no idea how the election will go: ‘But
people
want change and they’re sick of the establishment — so you get
this great
popular surge, like you had one as well…
This idea that Trump
represents such a threat to western civilization —
it’s often predicted
about presidents and nothing ever happens — yet if
Trump wins it will
be an amazing moment of change because it would
destroy the power
structure of the Republican party,the power structure
of the Democratic
party and destroy the power of the media. It would be
an incredible
release of energy… at a moment of international tension
and crisis.’
All of a sudden, the professor seems excited. Perhaps, like all
radicals in
pursuit of the truth, Paglia is still hoping the revolution
will come.
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