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Emma Teitel on any thing and ev ery thing. Follow Emma on Twitter: @emmaroseteitel
Camille Paglia was in Toronto this week for the Munk Debate (Be it Resolv ed: Men are Obsolete). The
dissident feminist championed the reign of man alongside British journalist Caitlin Moran.
Opponents Hanna Rosin and Maureen Dowd didn’t laud the obsolescence of men, or lord it ov er any one,
they merely acknowledged it. (Rosin cited stats from her bestseller The End of Men and made the v ery
astute observ ation that men–à la Anthony Weiner–are now as meticulous about personal body hair upkeep
as women.)
Ev ery one was thoughtful and hilarious but it was obv ious they didn’t really disagree. Each woman seemed
to affirm Rosin’s thesis that a changing economy is leav ing working-class men behind. Each woman tried to
work a nuanced argument into the framework of a sensational, facetious debate topic. I had a feeling the
same might be so when I sat down with Paglia. The Glittering Images author and long-time univ ersity
professor had nothing particularly damning to say about her opponents’ perspectiv e, though she did hav e
something to say about Rob Ford.
Do y ou agree with Hanna Rosin’s thesis in The End of Men, that wom en are now the
dom inating sex ?
A: She’s absolutely right about this transition from the old manufacturing economy to a white-
collar economy [and the negativ e consequences this has on men], but I think her book is a bit
unfair to working-class men. I listen to a lot of sports radio—the only place in the world where
y ou can hear working- class v oices—and I feel there’s a disconnect in the way I understand
working-class men and the way they ’re portray ed in The End of Men and Susan Faludi’s Stiffed.
My grandfather worked in a shoe factory —he was an Italian immigrant. My father was the first
to go to college in the family . There’s a directness and a robustness about working-class men–a
v itality and authenticity that is not coming across in these feminist books. The more women
succeed and rise up into positions of power, the more remote they become from actual
masculine energy . I’m concerned as a college teacher about the romantic and sex ual futures of
highly successful career women.
Why ?
A: Women are being told “y ou are future leaders.” Meanwhile, we are more than our jobs. One
reason Sex and the City was such an enormous hit is that it ex pressed something that feminism
won’t admit: we don’t know what we want. We don’t know if we want children or not. My
generation produced the sex ual rev olution and y our generation is stuck figuring out how it’s
going to work. I want y oung women when they ’re 1 4 to start thinking about what they want
ov er the course of their liv es. I think it’s criminal—child abuse—that they ’re not told to do this
[in school]. Right now it’s just sex education and putting condoms on bananas. Girls should be
asked to think about what they want in their liv es when they ’re 50, 60 and 7 0.What’s been
imposed on women is a male model of professional study and achiev ement.
A: If colleges and univ ersities are really concerned about women’s rights, then they must
adjust to a far more flex ible structure to allow y oung women students to take leav es of absence
if they want to hav e children early . Schools should say , “y ou can be married and hav e children.
We’ll hav e day care centres for y ou. Y ou can take 1 0 y ears to finish y our degree—husbands,
too.” The presence of married women and men in the classroom would rev olutionize gender
studies. It would bring reality into the classroom.
What are y our thoughts on the phenom enon of “rape culture” as it’s reported in the m edia
and talked about on college cam puses today ?
A: It’s ridiculous. The one place we should be worried about is India. Why American feminists
hav en’t mobilized against gang rapes in India is an absolute outrage. This obsession with rape
[in North America] is neurotic. There are attacks on men also. This priv ileging of the female
v ictim is a distortion. To see the world in terms of rape is absurd. Throughout history there
hav e been atrocities of ev ery kind. Throughout history honourable men don’t rape.
A: Feminism is dead. The mov ement is absolutely dead. The women’s mov ement tried to
suppress dissident v oices for way too long. There’s no room for dissent. It’s just like Mean
Girls. If they had listened to me they could hav e gotten the ship steered in the right direction.
My wing of feminism—the pro-sex wing—was silenced. I was practically ly nched for endorsing
The Rolling Stones. Susan Faludi is still say ing I’m not a feminist. Who made her pope? Feminist
ideology is like a new religion for a lot of neurotic women. Y ou can’t talk to them about
any thing.
Hav e y ou seen that new lesbian m ov ie, Blue is the Warm est Color?
A: No I hav en’t. But I adored Desert Hearts—starring one of y our fine Canadian actresses. I
think that all mov ies made by lesbians for lesbians hav e been really dreary with no sense of
sty le. Lesbians are boring. It was a lot more interesting when lesbianism was ev il and perv erse.
Now ev ery thing is so accepting and all the heat has gone out. It’s all about Ellen Degeneres and
Portia De Rossi. It’s banal.
A: Real Housew ives! My fav ourite is Housew ives of Orange County, but I watch all of them
[ev ery series within the franchise]. It’s the only thing I watch on TV besides Turner Classic
Mov ies. I feel Real Housew ives captures in a v ery intensified degree, the way women are with
each other. Nev er before has the camera captured this so accurately .
A: Once y ou hav e become the centre of a conflict in a complex gov ernmental enterprise y ou
hav e the obligation to resign. Why are all the energies of one of the world’s great cities being
absorbed in the psy chodrama of an adolescent personality ? I think an honourable man would
resign. It’s like a reality show. I think it’s terrible for the city of Toronto and Canada. I’v e heard
some anti-Canadian things [in the States], some mocking things about Canada. I don’t think
people are say ing, ‘oh what a wonderful rollicking place! What a fun place!’ There’s a sense of
‘how is this happening in a major city ’? It seems like chaos, like a reductiv e lowering. It’s v ery
debasing.
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285 comments 1
Which is ironic because some feminists will claim that not all feminists
are the same and then go on to be dismissive or disparage anyone who
doesn’t agree with them.
66 2 • Reply • Share ›
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
8 • Reply • Share ›
The truth of the matter, as you know, is that there are many types of feminists, and
misogynists revel in pretending they are all the same, all shrill harridans. At the same
time, there ARE feminists like Mary Daly (some of whose books are terrific), who
refused to allow men into her college courses, or Andrea Dworkin, who certainly had
'issues' with men and who thought it was dandy to attempt to turn back the First
Amendment and allow women to police what men could read by binarizing things into
"pornography". As Paglia put it so well, when talking about how feminists and the
religious Right agreed on this one issue, that it was "an illuminating alliance of
contemporary Puritans". Bingo.
17 1 • Reply • Share ›
As to feminism ...well I was told when I was a kid that I was a suffragette....just
born too late....but I knew it would come again, because all we got the first time
was the vote....and we needed a culture change. And when it did....in the 60s...I
did my bit to help it along.
4 6 • Reply • Share ›
Tom In K ans as EmilyOne • 15 days ago
Well, we're pretty much 100% eye-to-eye on this. The true goals of
feminism -- AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT PAGLIA SAYS AS WELL --
should be the complete removal of legal strictures that prevent their
advancement. Secondarily, and also what Paglia says, society needs to
come to terms with the simple fact that women will often wish to have
children, an important societal goal that cannot simply be shunted off to
Care Agencies so that women can work on a "level playing field" with
men. Knowing how the legal system needs to intervene to allow this to
happen is tricky. A working mother is going to find it hard to compete
with a single man even in the best of situations.
I'm still wondering, though, why you were so negative on Paglia. Sexual
Personae is an ***astounding*** book, one of the best of the last 50
years, IMHO. It is a grand work of synthesis: Apollonian and Dionysian,
Eastern and Western, "high" and "low" in art. She makes The West...
seamless. And her positions on feminism and many other things only
seem outrageous on first encountering them; they have a lot of data to
back them up.
8 • Reply • Share ›
You and I will be long gone before the victims of your divisive ideology
really come to terms with the damage done. Today's crop of feminists
are just corporatists whose "strength" relies upon fossil fuels and global
industry for their nonstop indulgences, their political base is all about
securing their own short term self-interests, and they don't care about
geopolitics. Mindless self-indulgent hyper-individualism is the order of
the day. They've created nothing more original than copying a
masculine cultural aspect. The backlash is occuring around the world
masculine cultural aspect. The backlash is occuring around the world
and in the states, rolling back roe v. wade all over, corporations rolling
over democracy everywhere, the climate filling with pollution,
overpopulation (a women's issue if there ever was one) exploding
globally, the environment being strip-mined for their social media and
shopping addictions... and the average woman won't acknowledge
these things or even know about them- that would be unpleasant, and
break up their 24/7 party of self-indulgent good feelings.
17 1 • Reply • Share ›
Best I've achieved with this approach are replies like, "Theres no such
thing as overpopulation"... as for Roe v. Wade, the opposition's
viewpoint is sympathetically viewed... modern feminists find being
"feminine" more appealing than upholding anti-coercion laws,
apparently. "Well, maybe they have a point... shoe gaze... (insert hyper-
sentimental personal story of pregnancy here).... OK... back to the 24/7
personal fulfillment regime... lets get some sushi and forget about
politics its SOOO boring."
3 • Reply • Share ›
Probably both.
3 1 • Reply • Share ›
After seven-year battle, Frank Meyers What Google Streetview found inside the
finally surrenders his family farm Prime Minister’s office
48 comments • a day ago 17 comments • 19 hours ago
K ay 53 — Shameful actions on the part of Gerry Hawes — Pretty dammed contrived,
the government. just like everything else with this Prime
Minister.
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