Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

A BUREAUCRACY OF ONE'S OWN 133In a 1991 lecture at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Doris Lessingcriticized the "rampaging kind of feminist" and called the denigration ofmale writers sheer "nonsense" that will alienate sensible women fromfeminism. "Hearing this kind of thing, many women think, oh my God, Idon't want to have anything to do with this." 30But such opinions areignored by the women's studies and transformation movements. "That iswhat has made you marginal in the universities," Cynthia Ozick waswarned by a campus feminist when she expressed the "wrong" views in aNew Yorker article some years ago.Perhaps the most conspicuous target of feminist opprobrium is CamillePaglia, who has managed to confound her attackers by striking backpublicly and to great effect. After her book Sexual Personae not onlybecame an unexpected best-seller but also was hailed by a number ofscholarly critics, she could reasonably have expected to be acknowledgedas an outstanding woman scholar even by those who take strong exceptionto her unfashionable views.But the Women's Review of Books branded Sexual Personae a work of"crackpot extremism," "an apologia for a new post-Cold War fascism,"patriarchy's "counter-assault on feminism." 31Feminist professors at ConnecticutCollege, attempting to get it removed from a reading list, comparedit to Mein Kampf When Paglia appeared at a Brown Universityforum, outraged faculty feminists signed a petition censuring her anddemanding an investigation into procedures for inviting speakers to thecampus.Yale professor Harold Bloom has pointed out that "someone as brilliant,as learned, as talented, and as ferociously burning an intellect asCamille Paglia" belongs in the Ivy League or at someplace like the Universityof California at Berkeley or the University of Chicago. But the"bureaucrats of resentment who are appointed by others in the networkbecause they are politically correct" will continue to do their utmost tomake sure that this does not happen. "They will blackball her everywhere."32Despite Paglia's continued defiance, the lesson is clear: anyone whodares to criticize the "New Feminist scholarship" must be prepared forrough treatment. When the Shakespearean scholar Richard Levin tookissue with some feminist interpretations of Shakespeare's tragedies, hewas denounced in a rude letter boasting no fewer than twenty-four signatories.Signing in groups is a standard feature of feminist critical response.In the letter, published in PMLA, they tell us they are "puzzledand disturbed that Richard Levin has made a successful academic career"