From: hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: RE: Paglia (was: Cross-Writing)
Date: 6 Jan 93 23:25:22 GMT
Organization: Clark University

I wrote:

>>While I disagree with some of [Paglia's statements], I don't find them
>>misogynistic. 

Mike Godwin wrote:

>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. 

By *some* of her critics.  Many of her critics don't make this mistake.

>>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. 

It seems to me like she's talking about herself (I remember the cancelled
preface as being very personal in nature) and extrapolating her experiences
to women in general.  I don't happen to have her problem with "hormonal
identity", but I'm considerably younger than she is.

>>     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. 

I don't think so, because it would throw off her entire argument: it would
imply that there was some possibility that civilization could have been left
to the women (that it was not driven by men's biology).  I think she's
overstating in her typical Paglia furious-Italian manner.

>>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. 

Not really.  Not in the same Rousseauist terms that I'm thinking of.

>>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. 

No, but she doesn't say anywhere that women can't learn to play by men's
rules.  

>>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). 

In this discussion, you were the one who lumped her with them.  That's why
we're talking about her right now.  

I think the only similarities between her arguments and those of misogynistic
critics is that they are both disliked by doctrinaire feminists.

>>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. 

I don't see that.  The latter proposition refutes the former.

>You are correct in your restatement of her view in 
>the second proposition. A misogynistic critic would say that both 
>propositions are true. 

You're welcome to cite any misogynist critics who believe in the second
proposition.  

Heather
HHENDERSON@vax.clarku.edu