Uploaded on 22 Mar 2008
This is the "infamous interview" from 1975 in its integrity... !
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Girl Writes What - You Tube Channel, Television Tropes & Idioms
Karen Straughan
Shot on location in the Patriarchal Concentration Camp (kitchen). note note
Shot on location in the Patriarchal Concentration Camp (kitchen). note note
"Now, we still expect men to put women first, and we still expect society to put women first, and we still expect men to not complain about coming in dead last every damn time. But men don't even get our admiration anymore. All they get in return is to hear about what assholes they are. Is it any wonder they’re starting to get pissed off?"
—Girl Writes What, in her video Feminism and the Disposable Male.
Karen Straughan (better known by her screen name, girlwriteswhat) is a Canadian men's rights activist, and divorced mother of three, who is most famous for her videos on YouTube. While much of her work is controversial to a degree, she refuses to pull punches and has no problem speaking her mind.
She also hosts a blog called Owning Your Shit
, where she makes posts related to her activism. The primary focus of her work is about how she believes that feminism (or at least mainstream feminism) has failed to address the discrimination faced by men in society (and, occasionally, has created new problems, exacerbated existing problems, or prevented others from attempting to solve issues that men face) and therefore cannot be about true equality.Among the arguments she makes to support her claims are that feminism has done little to free men from the burdens placed upon them as it has done with women, and the fact that men are still overlooked and ignored in areas that have been much improved for women. In short, she believes the current world we live in treats women too much like children and men too much like assholes, by victimising women while vilifying men. Her channel can be found here
.Tropes that apply to her or her videos:
- Ad Hominem: Men's rights activists are regularly dismissed merely on the grounds of their affiliation with the men's rights movement, without any regard to the content behind their position.
- The only reason she started making videos at all, she says
- The only reason she started making videos at all, she says
- Animated Credits Opening: A butterfly flies over a pink and white title, and shortly bursts into flames and dies.
- The Lad-ette: She claims to smoke like a chimney and drink like a fish, has short hair, and isn't afraid of using offensive language.
- Men Are Generic, Women Are Special: She has herself stated that her men's rights videos are more popular, many times over, than her male counterparts', due largely to this trope.
- Non-Indicative Name: She's a middle-aged woman, not a girl, and she posts videos where she talks instead of writing (unless you count her blog).note However, she titles her videos with exactly what she'll be talking about.
- Precision F-Strike: Often used for emphasis on subjects she considers particularly jarring. Most notable in a video she made dealing with youtube users who unjustly flagged her videos, which she titled "You F***ing Cowards"
- Pretty Butterflies: Used and subverted. The butterfly burns to death in the title credits.
- Shout Out: A National Coalition For Men sticker is prominently displayed on her fridge in most of her videos.
- More generally, she mentions and make videos in reply/connection to other men's rights vloggers.
- Take That: She does this, too. A lot.
- Title Only Opening
- Stay in the Kitchen: Several commenters apparently have the need to point out that most of her videos take place in her kitchen. She is aware of this, naturally.
- Averted by her, though.
Tropes that she deals with:
- Abomination Accusation Attack: has regularly discussed the mainstream's erroneous perception of the men's rights movement. She lists examples of the charges made against men's rights activists in this video
- All Abusers are Male: Examined, disproved, and rejected in many of her videos, especially "Systemic Gendered Violence?"
- All Men Are Rapists: See previous bullet.
- Conscription: "Why Do MRAs Bring Up the Draft?"
- The Baby Trap: Played straight.
- Black Comedy Rape: She believes that rape is not off limits.
- But We Used a Condom: Mentioned in her series of videos about legal paternal surrender.[1]
- Circumcision Angst: Averted.
- Comes Great Responsibility: She states that feminists and feminist organisations have abused their position of power, especially with regard to men's rights, and maintains that this has created new gender inequalities and exacerbated existing problems that men face. She even provides examples of feminist organisations actively preventing others from attempting to solve problems that men face.
- The overarching theme of her very first video
- The overarching theme of her very first video
- Date Rape: Deconstructed. She discusses the unfortunate legal situation that currently exists in many countries, where men - even though they, too, may be inebriated - are often solely legally responsible for sex initiated during inebriation. She believes that both parties should be held accountable, and that both the man and the woman should be held individually responsible for their own sobriety and state of mind.
- Depraved Homosexual: Lampshaded in this video
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Deconstructed, and thereby averted.
- Double Standard Rape: Male on Male: See previous bullet.
- Dogged Nice Guy: In "Look out! It's a nice guy! DESTROY HIM!"
- Fate Worse than Death: Deconstructed and averted, specifically as it relates to rape.
- Gendercide: She states that some radical feminists believe this is a positive thing.
- Fetus Terrible: In "Those privileged blue bundles of joy"
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Played with, as she sees feminism as treating women in this way.
- Just Fine Without You: Averted. It is an important premise of hers that men are vital to the functioning of society, and that if they are not commensurately rewarded for their service to that society they will abandon it. A society of only women will not last long.
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: She believes feminists and feminist organisations have cherry-picked and otherwise twisted statistics to their own benefit.
- She discredits the "1-in-4" rape myth
- Ditto for the "77 cents to every dollar" myth
- She explains domestic violence statistics
- Logic Bomb: Lampshaded by her in this videoPreventing you from doing censorship is doing censorship against you... (dumbfound silence) Up is Down. Black is White. Inside is Outside. Left is Right.
- Macho Masochism: Deconstructed.
- Man Child: Discussed in a specific context in "Men not marrying. How deep does 'the problem' go?"
- Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: She subscribes to this theory, after a fashion. Although she believes men and women are generally inherently different, she recognises that gender is a spectrum and not a switch and that there are outliers.
- Men Act, Women Are: "The Tyranny of Female Hypoagency"
- Men Are Generic, Women Are Special:
- Deconstructed, hard.
- Also averted, in that she treats both sexes equally.
- Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: see the previous two bullets.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Discussed in many of her videos, but probably the most well known is "Feminism and the Disposable Male"
- Men Don't Cry: Deconstructed. Mentions how men are always expected to suppress their feelings and receive no sympathy, unlike women in many situations.
- Pædo Hunt: See Would Hurt a Child below.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Deconstructed and averted.
- Rated M for Manly: Deconstructed and perhaps justified within a historical, anthropological, and sociological perspective.
- Straw Feminism: People have criticised her for constructing what they believe to be straw feminists.
- No True Scotsman: a.k.a. NAFALT (Not All Feminists Are Like That).
- Directly addressed here
- Directly addressed here
- The Unfair Sex: Whoo boy...
- Woman Child: One of her main concerns is that she perceives society in general to treat women like children.
- This trope is the topic of "Neoteny!"
- This trope is the topic of "Neoteny!"
- Would Hurt a Child: Deconstructed, especially the unfortunate gender-specificity of the perpetrators.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Deconstructed, especially the bias in favour of women in the trope.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Deconstructed in her videos.
- You Keep Using That Word: In "Look out! It's a nice guy! DESTROY HIM!"
A Man's Reply to Modern Women (2 of 2)
Uploaded on 6 Sep 2009
Top Comments
anyone else think this dude nailed this hoe after the video?
·
Feminization Machine Turns Guy into Metrosexual - Funny Cartoon Comedy J...
Do you wish you could change your man? See what happens when Little Miss WomanSaver puts an unsatisfied wifes husband into our FEMINIZATION MACHINE and turns him from a macho heterosexual into a homerosexual.
Another relationship and dating cartoon comedy video brought to you by Little Miss WomanSaver of http://www.WomanSavers.com
"Feminism is the WORST thing to happen to women" - Suzanne Venker, NPR in...
Uploaded on 3 Aug 2011
"Women Against Feminism" (80 videos) http://bit.ly/oRImoi
"Feminism is the worst thing to happen to women", says Suzanne Venker in her best-selling book "The Flipside of Feminism". http://amzn.com/1935071270
MAIN POINTS:
1) Feminism did not liberate women. It has actually harmed women by placing them in a prison of negative thinking and promoted dead-end promiscuity.
2) Studies show that women today are LESS happy under modern Feminist assumptions and cultural practices.
3) Women today do not owe feminists for everything. Feminism did NOT give women the right to vote or go to college. Those rights existed BEFORE the "Second Wave Feminism" of the 60's.
4) The Women's Suffrage Movement was NOT a "feminist" movement: the "Suffragettes" were actually Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Conservative women. (Today's Feminists would reject them, ironically.)
5) Feminism has robbed women of placing family and marriage at the center of their lives, as the most meaningful part of their existence. Instead, it shames women into believing that career materialism should be placed at the center.
6) Women should ignore the institutionalized, Feminist cultural prescriptions that demean motherhood and marriage. They should sequence their lives in a way that place family as the most central, meaningful experience of their lives.
7) Feminism is a finished movement in America.
THE FLIPSIDE OF FEMINISM (AMAZON)
http://amzn.com/1935071270
BOOK EXCERPT
http://radioboston.wbur.org/files/201...
OFFICIAL BOOK WEB SITE
http://www.theflipsideoffeminism.com
SUZANNE VENKER
http://www.suzannevenker.com
LISTEN TO THE FULL RADIO INTERVIEW (NPR Boston - 90.9 WBUR)
http://radioboston.wbur.org/2011/03/1...
WATCH C-SPAN BOOKTV DISCUSSION (44 minutes)
http://www.booktv.org/Program/12308/T...
"Feminism is the worst thing to happen to women", says Suzanne Venker in her best-selling book "The Flipside of Feminism". http://amzn.com/1935071270
MAIN POINTS:
1) Feminism did not liberate women. It has actually harmed women by placing them in a prison of negative thinking and promoted dead-end promiscuity.
2) Studies show that women today are LESS happy under modern Feminist assumptions and cultural practices.
3) Women today do not owe feminists for everything. Feminism did NOT give women the right to vote or go to college. Those rights existed BEFORE the "Second Wave Feminism" of the 60's.
4) The Women's Suffrage Movement was NOT a "feminist" movement: the "Suffragettes" were actually Pro-Life, Pro-Family and Conservative women. (Today's Feminists would reject them, ironically.)
5) Feminism has robbed women of placing family and marriage at the center of their lives, as the most meaningful part of their existence. Instead, it shames women into believing that career materialism should be placed at the center.
6) Women should ignore the institutionalized, Feminist cultural prescriptions that demean motherhood and marriage. They should sequence their lives in a way that place family as the most central, meaningful experience of their lives.
7) Feminism is a finished movement in America.
THE FLIPSIDE OF FEMINISM (AMAZON)
http://amzn.com/1935071270
BOOK EXCERPT
http://radioboston.wbur.org/files/201...
OFFICIAL BOOK WEB SITE
http://www.theflipsideoffeminism.com
SUZANNE VENKER
http://www.suzannevenker.com
LISTEN TO THE FULL RADIO INTERVIEW (NPR Boston - 90.9 WBUR)
http://radioboston.wbur.org/2011/03/1...
WATCH C-SPAN BOOKTV DISCUSSION (44 minutes)
http://www.booktv.org/Program/12308/T...
Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Men not marrying? How deep does "the problem" go? - by girlwriteswhat
Is it just the risks of Marriage 2.0 preventing men from rushing to the altar? Is it merely a function of the women available to the average man? Is it the divorce rate? The spectre of lifetime alimony and every-other-weekend-dad status? Or is it a deeper problem than even that?
http://www.nationalreview.com/home-fr...
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2012/0...
http://www.genderratic.com/?p=1140
http://www.nationalreview.com/home-fr...
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2012/0...
http://www.genderratic.com/?p=1140
What's with women today? ... hotalphafemale.com
jennelli17·64 videosBlog: http://www.hotalphafemale.com
Let's face it, some women are really scary, crazy, and a little manipulative. In this video I want to talk about "what is really up with women today!"
What's with women today? ... hotalphafemale.com
jennelli17·64 videosBlog: http://www.hotalphafemale.com
Let's face it, some women are really scary, crazy, and a little manipulative. In this video I want to talk about "what is really up with women today!"
Christina Hoff Sommers - Views on feminism
Christina Hoff Sommers - Views on feminism
Sommers uses the terms "equity feminism" and "gender feminism" to differentiate what she sees as acceptable and non-acceptable forms of feminism. She describes equity feminism as the struggle based upon "Enlightenment principles of individual justice"[15] for equal legal and civil rights and many of the original goals of the early feminists, as in the first wave of the women's movement. She describes "gender feminism" as having "transcended the liberalism" of early feminists. Instead of focusing on rights for all, gender feminists view society through the "sex/gender prism" and focus on recruiting women to join the "struggle against patriarchy."[16] A reviewer of Who Stole Feminism characterized gender feminism as the action of accenting the differences of genders in order to create what Sommers believes is privilege for women in academia, government, industry, or the advancement of personal agendas.[17][18]
Sommers wrote in The Atlantic, about her own book The War Against Boys, that misguided school curriculum, based on flawed research, is a likely cause for many problems in education including the falling reading scores of lower-school boys. Sommers writes that there is an achievement gap between boys and girls in school, and that girls in some areas are achieving more than boys. She writes, "Growing evidence that the scales are tipped not against girls but against boys is beginning to inspire a quiet revisionism. Some educators will admit that boys are on the wrong side of the gender gap."[19] Writing for The New York Times, Richard Bernstein wrote of The War Against Boys, "Observations like that lift Ms. Sommers's book from polemic to entreaty. There is a cry in the wilderness quality to her book, a sense that certain simple truths have been lost sight of in the smoky quarrelsomeness of American life. One may agree with Ms. Sommers or one may disagree, but it is hard not to credit her with a moral urgency that comes both from the head and from the heart."[20] Her main thesis for the book deals with the inherent differences of boys and girls, and how we should not suppress them. Christina Hoff Sommers criticizes Carol Gilligan's claim that “young women suffer in a male dominated society," as well as William Pollack's contention that “young men are oppressed by cultural ideals of masculinity.”[21]
Sommers writes in Who Stole Feminism that an often-mentioned March of Dimes study which says that "domestic violence is the leading cause of birth defects," does not, in fact, exist. This claim has been refuted by the scholar Nancy K.D. Lemon in the Chronicle of Higher Education, noting that the study "Battering During Pregnancy: Intervention Strategies," by Anne Stewart Helton and Frances Gobble Snodgrass funded by a grant by March of Dimes, appears in the September 1987 issue of the journal Birth.[22] Sommers writes that violence against women does not peak during the Super Bowl, which she describes as another popular urban legend. Sommers also writes that these statements about domestic violence were used in shaping the Violence Against Women Act, which allocates $1.6 billion a year in federal funds for ending domestic violence. Sommers writes that feminists assert, and the media report, that approximately 150,000 women die each year from anorexia, an apparent distortion of the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association's figure that 150,000 females have some degree of anorexia.[17][18][23][24] A Reason magazine review stated that "the answer to the question in the book's title is, nobody stole feminism. The liberals gave it away. Their abdication of principles and cowardly fear of reprisals so ably chronicled by Sommers sealed the deal."[17]
Sommers is a longtime critic of Women's Studies departments, and of university curricula in general. In an interview with Scott London, Sommers said, "The perspective now, from my point of view, is that the better things get for women, the angrier the women's studies professors seem to be, the more depressed Gloria Steinem seems to get. So there is something askew here, something amiss."[25] According to The Nation, "Hoff Sommers carefully explains to the students that much of the fault for this unfortunate phenomenon [of "pathologizing maleness"] lies with women's studies departments. There, 'statistically challenged' feminists engage in bad scholarship to advance their liberal agenda. As her preliminary analysis of women's studies textbooks has shown, these professors are peddling a skewed and incendiary message: 'Women are from Venus, men are from Hell'.[26] In a book review in the conservative magazine National Review, Mary Lefkowitz writes of Who Stole Feminism that "[Sommers] provides clear guidelines on how to distinguish indoctrination from education. That alone is a major service to all of us who are struggling to distinguish fact from fiction in today's troubled academic world."[18]
Sommers has also written about Title IX and the shortage of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. She opposes recent efforts to apply Title IX to the sciences[27] because "Science is not a sport. In science, men and women play on the same teams...There are many brilliant women in the top ranks of every field of science and technology, and no one doubts their ability to compete on equal terms."[28] Title IX programs in the sciences could easily "stigmatize" women and cheapen their hard-earned achievements. Moreover, Sommers points to research that indicates that personal preferences, not sexist discrimination, plays a role in women's career choices.[29] Not only do women favor fields like biology, psychology, and veterinary medicine over physics and mathematics, but they also seek out more family-friendly careers. Sommers writes that "the real problem most women scientists confront is the challenge of combining motherhood with a high-powered science career" – not discrimination.[28]
Sommers uses the terms "equity feminism" and "gender feminism" to differentiate what she sees as acceptable and non-acceptable forms of feminism. She describes equity feminism as the struggle based upon "Enlightenment principles of individual justice"[15] for equal legal and civil rights and many of the original goals of the early feminists, as in the first wave of the women's movement. She describes "gender feminism" as having "transcended the liberalism" of early feminists. Instead of focusing on rights for all, gender feminists view society through the "sex/gender prism" and focus on recruiting women to join the "struggle against patriarchy."[16] A reviewer of Who Stole Feminism characterized gender feminism as the action of accenting the differences of genders in order to create what Sommers believes is privilege for women in academia, government, industry, or the advancement of personal agendas.[17][18]
Sommers wrote in The Atlantic, about her own book The War Against Boys, that misguided school curriculum, based on flawed research, is a likely cause for many problems in education including the falling reading scores of lower-school boys. Sommers writes that there is an achievement gap between boys and girls in school, and that girls in some areas are achieving more than boys. She writes, "Growing evidence that the scales are tipped not against girls but against boys is beginning to inspire a quiet revisionism. Some educators will admit that boys are on the wrong side of the gender gap."[19] Writing for The New York Times, Richard Bernstein wrote of The War Against Boys, "Observations like that lift Ms. Sommers's book from polemic to entreaty. There is a cry in the wilderness quality to her book, a sense that certain simple truths have been lost sight of in the smoky quarrelsomeness of American life. One may agree with Ms. Sommers or one may disagree, but it is hard not to credit her with a moral urgency that comes both from the head and from the heart."[20] Her main thesis for the book deals with the inherent differences of boys and girls, and how we should not suppress them. Christina Hoff Sommers criticizes Carol Gilligan's claim that “young women suffer in a male dominated society," as well as William Pollack's contention that “young men are oppressed by cultural ideals of masculinity.”[21]
Sommers writes in Who Stole Feminism that an often-mentioned March of Dimes study which says that "domestic violence is the leading cause of birth defects," does not, in fact, exist. This claim has been refuted by the scholar Nancy K.D. Lemon in the Chronicle of Higher Education, noting that the study "Battering During Pregnancy: Intervention Strategies," by Anne Stewart Helton and Frances Gobble Snodgrass funded by a grant by March of Dimes, appears in the September 1987 issue of the journal Birth.[22] Sommers writes that violence against women does not peak during the Super Bowl, which she describes as another popular urban legend. Sommers also writes that these statements about domestic violence were used in shaping the Violence Against Women Act, which allocates $1.6 billion a year in federal funds for ending domestic violence. Sommers writes that feminists assert, and the media report, that approximately 150,000 women die each year from anorexia, an apparent distortion of the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association's figure that 150,000 females have some degree of anorexia.[17][18][23][24] A Reason magazine review stated that "the answer to the question in the book's title is, nobody stole feminism. The liberals gave it away. Their abdication of principles and cowardly fear of reprisals so ably chronicled by Sommers sealed the deal."[17]
Sommers is a longtime critic of Women's Studies departments, and of university curricula in general. In an interview with Scott London, Sommers said, "The perspective now, from my point of view, is that the better things get for women, the angrier the women's studies professors seem to be, the more depressed Gloria Steinem seems to get. So there is something askew here, something amiss."[25] According to The Nation, "Hoff Sommers carefully explains to the students that much of the fault for this unfortunate phenomenon [of "pathologizing maleness"] lies with women's studies departments. There, 'statistically challenged' feminists engage in bad scholarship to advance their liberal agenda. As her preliminary analysis of women's studies textbooks has shown, these professors are peddling a skewed and incendiary message: 'Women are from Venus, men are from Hell'.[26] In a book review in the conservative magazine National Review, Mary Lefkowitz writes of Who Stole Feminism that "[Sommers] provides clear guidelines on how to distinguish indoctrination from education. That alone is a major service to all of us who are struggling to distinguish fact from fiction in today's troubled academic world."[18]
Sommers has also written about Title IX and the shortage of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers. She opposes recent efforts to apply Title IX to the sciences[27] because "Science is not a sport. In science, men and women play on the same teams...There are many brilliant women in the top ranks of every field of science and technology, and no one doubts their ability to compete on equal terms."[28] Title IX programs in the sciences could easily "stigmatize" women and cheapen their hard-earned achievements. Moreover, Sommers points to research that indicates that personal preferences, not sexist discrimination, plays a role in women's career choices.[29] Not only do women favor fields like biology, psychology, and veterinary medicine over physics and mathematics, but they also seek out more family-friendly careers. Sommers writes that "the real problem most women scientists confront is the challenge of combining motherhood with a high-powered science career" – not discrimination.[28]
Camille Paglia - and feminism
Paglia and feminism
Some feminist critics have characterized Paglia as an "anti-feminist feminist", critical of central features of much contemporary feminism but holding out "her own special variety of feminist affirmation".[39] Elaine Showalter notes Paglia's admiration for Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex ("the supreme work of modern feminism... its deep learning and massive argument are unsurpassed") as well as Germaine Greer,[9] but Martha Duffy observes that Paglia "does not hesitate to hurl brazen insults" at several feminists including Greer, whom Paglia accused of becoming "a drone in three years" as a result of her early success; Paglia also called Diana Fuss' output "just junk – appalling!"[2] Showalter calls Paglia "unique in the hyperbole and virulence of her hostility to virtually all the prominent feminist activists, public figures, writers and scholars of her generation", mentioning Carolyn Heilbrun, Judith Butler, Carol Gilligan, Marilyn French, Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Susan Thomases, and Hillary Clinton as targets of her criticism.[9]
Paglia has accused Kate Millett of starting "the repressive, Stalinist style in feminist criticism..."[40] Paglia has repeatedly criticized Patricia Ireland, former president of the National Organization for Women, calling her a "sanctimonious", unappealing role model for women[41] whose "smug, arrogant" attitude is accompanied by "painfully limited processes of thought".[42] Paglia contends that under Ireland's leadership, NOW "damaged and marginalized the women's movement".[43] Paglia has called feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum a "PC diva", and accused her of borrowing her ideas without acknowledgement. She further contends that Nussbaum's "preparation or instinct for sex analysis is dubious at best".[44]
Many feminists have criticized Paglia; Christina Hoff Sommers calls her "Perhaps the most conspicuous target of feminist opprobrium", noting that the Women's Review of Books described Sexual Personae as a work of "crackpot extremism", "an apologia for a new post-Cold War fascism", and patriarchy's "counter-assault on feminism". Sommers relates that when Paglia appeared at a Brown University forum, feminists signed a petition censuring her and demanding an investigation into procedures for inviting speakers to the campus.[45]
Naomi Wolf traded a series of sometimes personal attacks with Paglia throughout the early 1990s. In The New Republic, Wolf labeled Paglia, "the nipple-pierced person's Phyllis Schlafly who poses as a sexual renegade but is in fact the most dutiful of patriarchal daughters" and characterized Paglia's writing as "full of howling intellectual dishonesty".[46][47][48][49] In 1991, Paglia referred to Wolf as a "twit".[50]
Gloria Steinem said of Paglia that, "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like a Nazi saying they're not anti-Semitic."[51] Paglia said that Steinem, whom she accused of not having read her, had compared her to Hitler and Sexual Personae to Mein Kampf.[52] Paglia called Steinem "the Stalin of feminism."[5]
Katha Pollitt has characterized Paglia as one of a "seemingly endless parade of social critics [who] have achieved celebrity by portraying not sexism but feminism as the problem". Pollitt writes that Paglia has glorified "male dominance", and has been able to get away with calling the Spur Posse California high school date-rape gang "beautiful", among other things "that might make even Rush Limbaugh blanch", because she is a woman.[53]
Paglia's view that rape is sexually motivated has been endorsed by evolutionary psychologists Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer; they comment that "Paglia... urges women to be skeptical toward the feminist 'party line' on the subject, to become better informed about risk factors, and to use the information to lower their risk of rape."[54]
Some feminist critics have characterized Paglia as an "anti-feminist feminist", critical of central features of much contemporary feminism but holding out "her own special variety of feminist affirmation".[39] Elaine Showalter notes Paglia's admiration for Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex ("the supreme work of modern feminism... its deep learning and massive argument are unsurpassed") as well as Germaine Greer,[9] but Martha Duffy observes that Paglia "does not hesitate to hurl brazen insults" at several feminists including Greer, whom Paglia accused of becoming "a drone in three years" as a result of her early success; Paglia also called Diana Fuss' output "just junk – appalling!"[2] Showalter calls Paglia "unique in the hyperbole and virulence of her hostility to virtually all the prominent feminist activists, public figures, writers and scholars of her generation", mentioning Carolyn Heilbrun, Judith Butler, Carol Gilligan, Marilyn French, Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Susan Thomases, and Hillary Clinton as targets of her criticism.[9]
Paglia has accused Kate Millett of starting "the repressive, Stalinist style in feminist criticism..."[40] Paglia has repeatedly criticized Patricia Ireland, former president of the National Organization for Women, calling her a "sanctimonious", unappealing role model for women[41] whose "smug, arrogant" attitude is accompanied by "painfully limited processes of thought".[42] Paglia contends that under Ireland's leadership, NOW "damaged and marginalized the women's movement".[43] Paglia has called feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum a "PC diva", and accused her of borrowing her ideas without acknowledgement. She further contends that Nussbaum's "preparation or instinct for sex analysis is dubious at best".[44]
Many feminists have criticized Paglia; Christina Hoff Sommers calls her "Perhaps the most conspicuous target of feminist opprobrium", noting that the Women's Review of Books described Sexual Personae as a work of "crackpot extremism", "an apologia for a new post-Cold War fascism", and patriarchy's "counter-assault on feminism". Sommers relates that when Paglia appeared at a Brown University forum, feminists signed a petition censuring her and demanding an investigation into procedures for inviting speakers to the campus.[45]
Naomi Wolf traded a series of sometimes personal attacks with Paglia throughout the early 1990s. In The New Republic, Wolf labeled Paglia, "the nipple-pierced person's Phyllis Schlafly who poses as a sexual renegade but is in fact the most dutiful of patriarchal daughters" and characterized Paglia's writing as "full of howling intellectual dishonesty".[46][47][48][49] In 1991, Paglia referred to Wolf as a "twit".[50]
Gloria Steinem said of Paglia that, "Her calling herself a feminist is sort of like a Nazi saying they're not anti-Semitic."[51] Paglia said that Steinem, whom she accused of not having read her, had compared her to Hitler and Sexual Personae to Mein Kampf.[52] Paglia called Steinem "the Stalin of feminism."[5]
Katha Pollitt has characterized Paglia as one of a "seemingly endless parade of social critics [who] have achieved celebrity by portraying not sexism but feminism as the problem". Pollitt writes that Paglia has glorified "male dominance", and has been able to get away with calling the Spur Posse California high school date-rape gang "beautiful", among other things "that might make even Rush Limbaugh blanch", because she is a woman.[53]
Paglia's view that rape is sexually motivated has been endorsed by evolutionary psychologists Randy Thornhill and Craig T. Palmer; they comment that "Paglia... urges women to be skeptical toward the feminist 'party line' on the subject, to become better informed about risk factors, and to use the information to lower their risk of rape."[54]
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