From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 6 Jan 93 22:08:23 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

In article <6JAN93.16594170@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:

>The cancelled preface is exactly that: it didn't appear in SP.

I wouldn't say Paglia has repudiated it, though.

>While I disagree with some of them, I don't find them misogynistic.

Now that I think about it, I have to agree with you on this. Paglia is
taken by her critics, however, to be anti-woman.

>For the record, I admire Paglia personally and think she makes some
>interesting points, but I disagree with a lot of what she has to say.

As do I. I have recommended SEXUAL PERSONAE here on more than one
occasion.

>        "At midlife, I now accept that there are fundamental sex differences
>        based on hormones.... There is no masculine power or privilege I
>        did not covet. But slowly, step by step, decade by decade, I was
>        forced to acknowledge that even a woman of abnormal will cannot
>        escape her hormonal identity.
>
>I guess it all depends on what you mean by "hormonal identity".  Maybe
>Paglia's big childhood ambition was to break Roger Maris' home run record.

Seems as if she's talking about women in general, and not herself in
particular, in this passage.

>Of course, males and females are not the same biologically.  But they should
>be given equal opportunity under the law.  Nothing misogynist about that.
>Sounds downright feminist to me.

I agree entirely.

>        If
>        civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living
>        in grass huts.  A contemporary woman clapping on a hard hat merely
>        enters a conceptual system invented by men.
>
>I agree with this, more or less.  The grass huts line is hyperbole, of course,
>designed to get people's attention (and it works).

To be honest, Heather, I think Paglia means for this to be taken literally
rather than as hyperbole.

>However, I find it less
>disagreeable than, for example, the claim of some feminists that women are
>naturally more nurturing, kind, and loving than men.

Actually, Paglia seems to subscribe to this view as well.

>She goes over the top in order to
>counter the belief of some feminists that the oppressive "patriarchal"
>civilization results only in evil.

I agree with your interpretation here.

>I don't see her saying that women are
>unable to invent antibiotics or design bridges; just that, if women choose to
>do so, they will be entering fields created by men.

But not here--Paglia's not merely saying that men got there first.

>It's incorrect to imply, as you do, a similarity between Paglia and the
>authors and literary critics who have demeaned women's contributions to
>literature.

Well, I think it's safe to say that Paglia, whom I like and admire, is
making arguments that are very similar to those made by misogynistic critics
(hence Paglia is often lumped with those critics, mistakenly).

>The latter are attempting to show that women writers are
>inferior because of their "femaleness", and their inability to "write like
>men". Paglia's claim would be that *all* women who write are "writing
>like men".

Logically, these two propositions are not inconsistent, Heather. Paglia
would not agree with the first proposition, of course--she touts her own
book as an exception. You are correct in your restatement of her view in
the second proposition. A misogynistic critic would say that both
propositions are true.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
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