[lbo-talk] re: Naomi Wolf v Harold Bloom

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Feb 24 09:21:59 PST 2004


paul childs wrote:


>Some foaming at the mouth reaction from the Great White North:
>
>http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040224/COWENT24/TPComment/Columnists


>The incident, she writes, "devastated my sense of being valuable to
>Yale as a student rather than as a pawn of powerful men." But Ms.
>Wolf (who, it must be noted, is ravishingly beautiful) is getting
>precious little sympathy from the sisterhood. "It's a desperate
>power grab," says Katie Roiphe, a well-known feminist who wrote a
>book on date rape. "People didn't pay attention to her last book on
>motherhood. She wants to regain the sense of outrage of the feminism
>of the early 1990s."
>
>"How many times do we have to relive Naomi Wolf's growing up?" fumes
>the redoubtable Camille Paglia. "Move on! Move on! Get on to the
>menopause next!"

Roiphe + Paglia = The Sisterhood? Gosh, this is damaging my image of Canada ahead of our forthcoming weekend in Toronto!

By chance I sat next to Roiphe at a dinner once and talked with her for nearly two hours. Despite her self-identification as an "anti-feminist" (her choice, after having rejected "right-winger"), she knows absolutely nothing about feminism. She seemed shallow and not very bright. And her books have sold less than mine even. How is she a "well-known feminist"?

Doug



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list