Should We Teach Camille Paglia?

PAGE 2 OF 3

 
On Mon, 17 Apr 1995, Virginia Elwood wrote:
> It seems to me that one should teach Paglia in Women Studies classes
> precisely BECAUSE she is controversial. [rest of quotation omitted]
 
I wouldn't say that Paglia (or anyone) is controversial because of taking
what might be considered an anti-feminist line. I agree that we
shouldn't _not_ teach Paglia. I think we absolutely should. But not as
controversial. Her views about masculinity, femininity, sex etc, are
hardly new. It seems to me that what _is_ new is how what is understood
as feminist discourse _includes_ Paglia. I've heard people say 'Paglia's
a feminist (because she's 'strong-willed') and she says...' as a way of
presenting reactionary views _as_ feminist. So.. Paglia should be taught
because her views, her speech etc, are perceived as part of feminism,_are_
part of feminist discourse. We can't afford to pretend that's not the case.
 
Out of interest, the only Paglia work I liked, or found vaguely amusing
was her U.K. Channel Four 'one-woman presentation' of Lady Diana (I can't
remember the name of the program) as the ultimate in camp fag style.
Paglia showed a series of pictures of Diana in 'classic' fag cruising
poses, complete with self-conscious avoidance of the camera. A new way to
interpret Diana's adored bashfulness, particularly in light of the
British public's production of her as the archetypal shy young innocent
girl.. anyone else see that?
 
Clare Hemmings
fac64  @  mhc.mtholyoke.edu

 
>On 4/18, Theresa wrote:
>There is a mistaken belief
>among us, often including myself, that any opinion is valid.  This isn't
>really so.  This belief perpetuates much violence against women, much
>violence against men of color, much hatred and nationalism, and permits
>Congress to cut funding to teenage mothers and dependent children.
 
It seems that what's at stake in this discussion is really what we want to
teach our students. Do we really only want them to "think critically" or do
we have an activist agenda, as Theresa implies? I certainly want my students
to think critically, but I also believe and hope that such criticism will be
directed against shoddy writers like Paglia. That is, I work on the
presumption that thoughtful criticism will direct students toward a
progressive agenda. Yet I find in my classrooms that if I make this agenda
explicit, students dismiss my arguments because I'm a feminist and therefore
"biased." So I end up using other criterion to enforce this agenda; I
insist, for example, that all opinions be supported with evidence which
prevents students from making the kind of blanket generalizations Paglia uses.
 
Stephanie
UCLA

 
I have been following the conversation on Paglia with some interest and not
a little trepidation because while a consider myself to be a feminist, I
also find Paglia's views to be highly stimulating and delightfully
refreshing as well as extremely infuriating at times.  And I like this.
I like the contrariness as well as the extravagance in her cant.  and I
like to "teach" Paglia because this extremeism which is felt in her
wildly conservative/radical viewpoint and profession/denouncement of
feminism is useful when teaching students to think both critically and
 creatively.  I have had several women students who were somewhat
anti-feminist when they entered my classroom leave it embracing a
feminism which they identified with in Paglia:  staunch supporters of the
empowerment of women in politics and society while at the same time
embracing the kind of sexual energy/tension which exists between the sexes
as a creative force that must be reckoned with rather than nullified.  In
other words, whereas they had been turned off by what they perceived to
be a feminism which attempted to smother all sexual differences, they
were turned on by a feminism that admitted and even encouraged sexual
difference in some areas (provocative dress, flirtation, the flaunting of
feminine power) while denying and eliminating it in other areas
(intellectual, emotional,economical, political).  Is this kind of feminism
to be discouraged if it is the kind needed to awaken some women to the
necessity of working toward sexual equality in society and politics? Is
it possible to admit that sexual equality and sexual difference can occur
at the very same time?  Is there room in Feminism for extreme and even
contrary voices as long as the final objective is to equalize the power
between the sexes?  i consider myself to be a feminist and I am didicated
to the promotion of feminism and yet I realize that I stand at perhaps
the far right (or would it be left?) of what has come to be known as
"conventional" feminism.  I do not like much of what Paglia has to say,
but I believe she has some worthwhile things to say, things that would
bring a lot of young women into the "fold," even while it might be the
far right (left?) of that fold.  for this reason, I think it is
worthwhile to "teach" Paglia, even while pointing out her "extravagances."
 
Deborah
dbrasket  @  oboe.aix.calpoly.edu

 
>  I have had several women students who were somewhat
>anti-feminist when they entered my classroom leave it embracing a
>feminism which they identified with in Paglia:  staunch supporters of the
>empowerment of women in politics and society while at the same time
>embracing the kind of sexual energy/tension which exists between the sexes
>as a creative force that must be reckoned with rather than nullified.  In
>other words, whereas they had been turned off by what they perceived to
>be a feminism which attempted to smother all sexual differences, they
>were turned on by a feminism that admitted and even encouraged sexual
>difference in some areas (provocative dress, flirtation, the flaunting of
>feminine power) while denying and eliminating it in other areas
>(intellectual, emotional,economical, political).
 
 
I, too, have seen this, not in my students but in reading our campus
computer bulletin board.  Students who had been hostile to feminism
before they encountered Paglia are willing to be labeled as feminist
using her definitions.  However, knowing these students, I would be
reluctant to call them "feminists."
 
Arnie Kahn   kahnas  @  vax1.acs.jmu.edu
             kahnas  @  jmuvax

 
        [Quotes Arnie Kahn's message (above)]
 
Just some additional thoughts on this subject.  I see a problem with the
idea of sexual difference being used synonymously with "provocative dress"
and the undefined "flaunting of feminine power."  It also surprises me that
the whole history of how sex has been used against women is ignored.  There
is overwhelming evidence of long-standing biases and discrimination against
women in many sectors of life.  There is a difference between being a
sexual being and using sex to oppress and discriminate.  The evidence that
sex has been used this way and continues to be used this way is
undeniable.  One example is the practice of recruiting, forcing, or selling
females for the sole purpose of satisfying men which continues to exist.
Poor young women, children, have no choice.  The decisions are made by
others.  And what about the enduring notion, with terrible real-life
consequences, that the female "asked for it?"  I remember watching a show
which featured convicted rapists, in which a father explained why he raped
his young girl of 7: she had come up to him, sat on his lap, embraced him
and gave him a kiss.  She wanted it, he said.  One has only to talk to the
victims of sexual abuse to know the no-choice they had in the matter of
having sex.  Media studies have also shown over and over how advertisements
exploit the female body; despite the use of male bodies in recent times,
there is no comparison.  I'm not talking about the a sexy pose or nudity;
I'm talking about things, such as an ad, for example, which showed the
torso of a woman and used words to sell their product and words which
explicitly spoke about the availability of that object for use.  And so
forth and so forth.  Again, there is a difference between acknowledging
that we are sexual beings and exploitation.  While I agree that not
everything that Paglia says is antifeminist, she advocates ideas that
include the use of females for sexual purposes, and this does not seem
"feminist" to me, because for me, the many different meanings of feminism
have one thing in common--the wellbeing of females.
 
The earlier message also suggests a dichotomous idea which appears to lump
anything that is not Paglian as smothering sexual difference: "students
were turned off by what they perceived to be a feminism that smothered all
sexual differences."  How students came to perceive all other feminist
ideas as smothering sexual differences is an interesting question at
best--how would this be possible if they are indeed reading or taking
courses into which feminist ideas are incorporated?  Do these
perceptions perhaps characterize students who really have no idea of what
feminism is?  One person with whom I've talked about this
on-line conversation suggested that perhaps some students think of equality
as synonymous with smothering sexual differences, but not only equality is
only one aspect of feminism among many, but it also clearly does not mean
smothering sexual differences.  At any rate, the reference to such
misunderstandings has made us wonder about what students are learning in
Women's Studies courses or other courses.  It seems to me and some of my
colleagues that there are several threads missing here; it's hard for us to
imagine that students who are taking courses which incorporate feminist
ideas and methods can be looking so simplistically at feminism.  On the
other hand, if we are talking about the majority of students out there who
only have a vague idea of what feminist thoughts are all about, well, this
makes the generalizations more understandable.

 
I too along with ishaw of north dakota am troubled by an underlying assumption
that feminism is equated with the suppression of sex difference, that equality
means sameness.  I understand that it is not individuals on this list who are
discussing Paglia who are making this assumption, rather it seems to be a
common assumption among writers like Paglia, Summers, etc.  In fact the
feminist analysis of equality is quite complex and multi-dimensional, and does
not at all attempt to eliminate sex or gender difference. I think this is
largely an invention of anti-feminism and one we must fight constantly.
 
Some thoughts on equality: I don't understand how this concept ever came to be
equated with sameness.  In fact, as Martha Minow has argued, it implies exactly
the opposite.  If everyone were the same you wouldn't need equality.  Equality
as a concept exists to mediate difference.  Equality (almost like money, cf.
Jean-Joseph Goux, Symbolic Economies) enables us to treat things which are
different more nearly like each other (I'm saying this badly because I'm in a
hurry).  But it isn't entirely accidental that capitalism and discourse about
equality emerged at roughly the same historical period. Money provides a
mechanism by which we can equally value things which are quite different (blue
jeans, hamburgers, and tractors).  Equality provides a mechanism by which we
can equally value individuals who are different.  This does not seem to me to
erase difference any more than the use of money reduces blue jeans, tractors,
and hamburgers to the same thing (though we could argue they reduce them to the
same level of commodification).
 
Still what feminists do frequently critique is the setting of a male norm for
equality. That is women are seen as *equal to* men.   That is the problem is
that men become the standard (like money) by which difference is mediated (or
more specifically white heterosexual men, since issues like race and sexual
preference enter in as well in the norming).
 
Sorry for the ramble  but I've been mulling this over for a few days and had to
get in my 2 cents.
                                     ,,,
                                    (o o)
+-------------------------------oOOo-(_)-oOOo--------------------------------+
|        Laurie Finke, Women's and Gender Studies, Kenyon College            |
|                  Gambier, OH 43022       phone: 614-427-5276               |
|        home: 614-427-3428, P.O. Box 731     mail: FinkeL  @  Kenyon.Edu        |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
                                   ()   ()

 
Hear, hear, Laurie Finkel.  Feminism does indeed promote diversity rather
than sameness.  When I teach (which I do constantly it seems), I teach the
wide range of diverse positions that feminist philosophy has helped to
articulate in U.S. and many other world cultures.  My students also leave
the classroom embracing feminism and multiculturalism--and I never never
teach or use Paglia.  I might add, my students are often unaware that
monocultural views and racist/sexist/classist views cut against them as
well as against "just women" or "just men of color" or some "other"
group.  To be the center can be more limiting than a position on the
border, after all....and teaching can help students recognize the limits
of that central position.  My students of color and students from
less-privileged backgrounds (not exclusive categories) already know this,
and the classroom also should give them a chance to recognize their
positions as powerful.  Feminism is not about victimization; it's about
empowering people.  To equate mainstream feminism with victimization (as
Paglia does) is to go with the flow of the backlash.  Paglia needs to be
heard, perhaps, but why should we respond to her?  She represents the
"good girl" who says what makes everyone comfortable....everyone in the
center, perhaps.  There's a whole realm of experiences that occur without
any regard for dominant culture or its needs, and discussions of those
experiences help students learn both in the classroom and out of it.
 
*********************************
*Theresa Thompson               *    Out flew the web, and floated wide,
*Washington State University    *    The mirror crack'd from side to side,
*Pullman, Washington  99164     *    "The curse has come upon me!" cried
*email: ttheresa  @  wsunix.wsu.edu *    The Lady of Shalott.
*********************************

 
I do not purport to be an expert, but I felt the need to add my two cents
on a subject I take very seriously.
 
On Fri, 21 Apr 1995, STRETCH OR DROWN/ EVOLVE OR DIE wrote:
 
>   In fact the
> feminist analysis of equality is quite complex and multi-dimensional, and does
> not at all attempt to eliminate sex or gender difference. I think this is
> largely an invention of anti-feminism and one we must fight constantly.
>
 
With all due respect, I strongly disagree.
 
As a radical feminist, I believe that sex equality cannot be achieved
without the destruction of gender as a concept in its entirety (or, as
Mary Joe Frug said, women will not be equal until the concept of "woman"
no longer exists).
 
Perhaps a sensible way to address this difference in philsophy--at least
in the teaching of women's studies--is to demarcate more clearly which
"school" of feminism is being discussed.  For example, I have read posts,
on this list alone, that have resonated with ideas of "equality
feminists" (e.g. wasserstrom), "difference feminists" (carol gilligan),
"dominance feminists" (catharine mackinnon), "anti-essentialist
feminists" (martha minow), "lesbian/feminists" (for lack of a better
term), and non-feminists (camille paglia).
 
Rebecca Eisenberg
rebeca  @  netcom.com

 
> As a radical feminist, I believe that sex equality cannot be achieved
> without the destruction of gender as a concept in its entirety (or, as
> Mary Joe Frug said, women will not be equal until the concept of "woman"
> no longer exists).
 
This makes me think of a talk by Sandra Bem that I recently attended. Bem
felt that getting rid of gender is one option but that actually
magnifying gender differences is another. To magnify gender differences,
you would acknowledge that there aren't just 2 genders, but hundreds of them.
Look at it this way:
5 sexes (m, f, herm, m herm, f herm)
x 4 sexual orientations (het, queer, bi, asexual) = 20 genders
x m-f transexuals and f-m transexuals = 40 genders
x f-m transgendered and m-f transgendered = 80 genders
x masculine, feminine, and androgynous = 270 genders
and so on.
 
To me, magnifying gender differences seems like a more viable option than
eradicating them because a 2000 year history of having 2 genders isn't
likely to be easily forgotten.
 
Chris Saad
saad  @  dolphin.upenn.edu

 
Is eradicating "woman" the same as eradicating difference? Or is it about
eradicating the notion that all difference neatly splits into two categories
(one of which is defined as dominant; the other as subordinate). In
otherwords can equality require the eradication of the category "woman" but
still not be about sameness? Maybe the philosophers amongst us could help
(isn't this part of Iragaray problematic)
 
Jo VanEvery
soa00  @  cc.keele.ac.uk

 
The notion that feminists want to eliminate sex difference is not an
invention of anti-feminists. Radical feminists explicitly defined their
project in those words. See Alice Echols, _Daring to Be Bad_, for a
history of radical feminism in the United States, 1967-1975. She details
how radical feminism eventually gave way to cultural feminism, which
does indeed want to reify sex differences.
 
For primary texts, see Shulamith Firestone's _The Dialectic of Sex_,
the anthology _Radical Feminism_, ed. Anne Koedt et. al, or _Notes
From the (First, Second, or Third) Year_.
 
Nor has this project disappeared, although as someone on the list pointed
out, multiplication of gender is a different way of eradicating the gender
binary. On the academic side, see Judith Butler's _Gender Trouble_ for
theoretical work on the "radical proliferation of gender." On the more
popular side, see Kate Bornstein's _Gender Outlaw:  On Men, Women and
the Rest of Us._
 
The elimination of gender distinctions does not mean the elimination
of desire, as many of these writers point out. That seems to be the
fear, as far as I can tell from the thread on this list. It _does_
mean the end of _compulsory_ heterosexuality...hooray!
 
Julie Linden
University of Connecticut
hbladm44  @  uconnvm.uconn.edu

 
On Mon, 24 Apr 1995, J. Van Every wrote:
 
> Is eradicating "woman" the same as eradicating difference? Or is it about
> eradicating the notion that all difference neatly splits into two categories
> (one of which is defined as dominant; the other as subordinate). In
> otherwords can equality require the eradication of the category "woman" but
> still not be about sameness? Maybe the philosophers amongst us could help
> (isn't this part of Iragaray problematic)
 
I am not a philosopher.  I am an equality and sameness feminist.  And
I think you are right though I would prefer to talk about eradicating
gender and - I paraphrase Firestone - the cultural significance of
genital difference.
 
(The post to which you responded used 'sex difference', equating
its eradication with sameness-equality feminism.  I realise you did not.)
 
But I have not been able to read Irigaray's more recent work
and cannot comment there.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Judy Evans       +       Politics       +       jae2  @  york.ac.uk
---------------------------------------------------------------

 
> Is eradicating "woman" the same as eradicating difference? Or is it about
> eradicating the notion that all difference neatly splits into two categories
> (one of which is defined as dominant; the other as subordinate). In
> otherwords can equality require the eradication of the category "woman" but
> still not be about sameness? Maybe the philosophers amongst us could help
> (isn't this part of Iragaray problematic)
 
        It is certainly true that the term *equal* does not mean the
same thing as the term *identical*.  Things can be equal without being
identical it just depends how you will determine what equality means.
That's when the discussion grows complicated.
 
        Lisa Schwartz
        University of Glasgow
        Dept of Philosophy
        9317721s  @  udcf.gla.ac.uk

 
       Laurie Finke, Women's and Gender Studies, Kenyon College, writes
(around the Paglia debate) "In fact the feminist analysis of equality is
quite complex and multi-dimensional, and does not at all attempt to
eliminate sex or gender difference. I think this is largely an invention of
anti-feminism and one we must fight constantly."
 
         I find slippage between 'sex' and 'gender' very troubling. I think
feminists should be very precise about our use of these terms -- because
the argument that 'feminists don't want to eliminate sex or gender' is a
very troublesome claim.
        Gender--distinct from sex--is the social elaboration of what are
believed to be the 'natural' attributes of males and females. Feminism
contests gender. It seems to me that a central claim of feminism is that
'women are made not born,' and that the making of women occurs through
social practices (with all of their associated pyschic effects, even if not
all psyche is formed through social practices.)  Even the briefest
acquaintance with history shows just how variable and unnatural these
so-called 'natural differences' are. Gender, as socially produced
differences, IS oppressive to women (and, differently, to many men.) Gender
is thus something that feminism DOES seeks to eliminate.
        The elimination of gender as an axis of social organization will
still leave us, presumably, with some sexual difference. Exactly what
social meaning that sexual difference will or should have is a POLITICAL
question. But I can't understand how any feminist can seriously argue for
the retention of gender relations!
 
 
Susan Prentice
Margaret Laurence Chair in Women's Studies
Room 463 University College
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2
 
Phone: 204-474-6233
FAX: 204-261-0021 or 204-275-2411 (private)
EMAIL: sprenti  @  cc.umanitoba.ca

 
See also:
 
Martine Aliana Rothblatt, _The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the
Freedom of Gender_ (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1995)
ISBN 0-517-59997-X  HQ1075.R68 1995 LC 94-20941 $21.00 178pp (5" x 8")
including Epilogue, Afterword, Appendix and Index.
 
        In this short, lucid, provocative book, the author argues that
categorizing people as either male or female is discrimination as
objectionable as racial discrimination, and has as little basis in biology.
The author offers suggestions for legal and social reforms that do away
with such categorization and replace it with a continuum of sexualities.
The book might be viewed as a more political complement to Ann
Fausto-Sterling, _Myths of Gender_ (2nd ed., 1992; see also her 1994
article in _The Sciences_), which contains a much more detailed account of
the relevant biological data and theory.  The Afterword *is* best saved for
last.
 
David F. Austin <david_austin  @  ncsu.edu>
Associate Professor of Philosophy and
Assistant Head, Department of Philosophy and Religion
Winston Hall 101A
Box 8103, NCSU
Raleigh, NC  27695-8103
(919) 515-6102  FAX (919) 515-7856