{"id":2840,"date":"2013-12-30T13:29:11","date_gmt":"2013-12-30T18:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/?p=2840"},"modified":"2015-06-09T10:54:38","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T14:54:38","slug":"camille-paglia-ftw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/barefootandpregnant\/2013\/12\/camille-paglia-ftw.html","title":{"rendered":"Camille Paglia FTW"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019ve never read much by or about Camille Paglia before. But then I read this interview in the Wall Street Journal, and my head totally exploded.<\/p>\n

But no subject gets her going more than when I ask if she really sees a connection between society\u2019s attempts to paper over the biological distinction between men and women and the collapse of Western civilization.<\/p>\n

She starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. \u201cThe entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service\u2014hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster,\u201d she says. \u201cThese people don\u2019t think in military ways, so there\u2019s this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we\u2019re just nice and benevolent to everyone they\u2019ll be nice too. They literally don\u2019t have any sense of evil or criminality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results, she says, can be seen in everything from the dysfunction in Washington (where politicians \u201clack practical skills of analysis and construction\u201d) to what women wear. \u201cSo many women don\u2019t realize how vulnerable they are by what they\u2019re doing on the street,\u201d she says, referring to women who wear sexy clothes.<\/p>\n

When she has made this point in the past, Ms. Paglia\u2014who dresses in androgynous jackets and slacks\u2014has been told that she believes \u201cwomen are at fault for their own victimization.\u201d Nonsense, she says. \u201cI believe that every person, male and female, needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters.\u201d She calls it \u201cstreet-smart feminism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Paglia argues that the softening of modern American society begins as early as kindergarten. \u201cPrimary-school education is a crock, basically. It\u2019s oppressive to anyone with physical energy, especially guys,\u201d she says, pointing to the most obvious example: the way many schools have cut recess. \u201cThey\u2019re making a toxic environment for boys. Primary education does everything in its power to turn boys into neuters.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Read the rest here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love this article. I love what she says about everything, basically, and the way she defends men without slamming women. I\u2019m particularly taken with this line from her book Sexual Personae<\/em>: \u201cIf civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the insult that it seems to be at first glance. If you think about the history of civilization, for centuries women in their childbearing years were wholly occupied with, you know, bearing children.<\/em> We can wring our hands and whine about the injustice of it all (which I do on a regular basis, just so we\u2019re clear), but biology is biology and having kids is exhausting, all-consuming work. It\u2019s not that women aren\u2019t capable of building grand civilizations\u2026my theory is that they\u2019re just too damn tired. There are phenomenal female artists and scientists and doctors, but I think we needed men to build a world in which there could be.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s what Paglia is saying or not; I\u2019ll have to read the whole book. I do know, though, that all this childbearing and raising is really exhausting work, and while there are a thousand things I\u2019d like to do, I\u2019m way too tired to do most of them right now. I only have time to write because my husband understands how important writing is to me and believes it\u2019s a gift that shouldn\u2019t be shelved until the kids are grown. He encourages me to leave the dishes for him and write in the evenings. He makes sure I have a working laptop and leaves open articles (like this one on Paglia!) that he thinks might interest me.\u00a0 He makes my writing a priority for our family. If he didn\u2019t, I wouldn\u2019t write.<\/p>\n

The Ogre and I really work well together. It\u2019s kind of a surprise to me, because I spent the beginning of our marriage engaged in a bitter power struggle against him. It was mostly one-sided and I\u2019m pretty sure he was totally confused about the ways it played out. Like when I would refuse to get him a glass of water when I was getting myself one. (Patriarchal oppression, that\u2019s why! He has his own legs, dammit!) <\/em>Also, it was stupid. He\u2019s actually the one in our relationship who is more<\/em> willing to make sacrifices so I can write.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just stupid, this battle of the sexes. And it\u2019s even stupider that it has now devolved into an insistence that there is no difference between the sexes. I mean, come on. You know we\u2019re really standing amidst the rubble of Western Civilization when our greatest thinkers are trying to insist that men and women are pretty much the same.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never read much by or about Camille Paglia before. But then I read this interview in the Wall Street Journal, and my head totally exploded. But no subject gets her going more than when I ask if she really sees a connection between society\u2019s attempts to paper over the biological distinction between men and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1110,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[259],"class_list":["post-2840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-camille-paglia"],"yoast_head":"\nCamille Paglia FTW<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I've never read much by or about Camille Paglia before. But then I read this interview in the Wall Street Journal, and my head totally exploded. 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