Is the Polish Wearing Thin?

Whether you agree with her or not I suspect you’ll find Camille Paglia’s latest op-ed at Salon, on the turn that feminism is taking with respect to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, entertaining. Here’s a snippet:

When and how did Hillary allegedly become a feminist icon, as so many young women evidently think? Her public prominence has always been based not on any accomplishment of her own but on her marriage to a charismatic politician, now in his dotage. Her speech at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 listed the limitations and atrocities suffered by Third World women and children, but her call to “move beyond rhetoric” has lacked a discernible follow-through. Moreover, in a central passage of that speech, every sentence about Hillary’s encounters with needy women began with “I”, unsettlingly prefiguring her over-use of “I” in her current campaign, in contrast to Bernie Sanders’ ego-transcending focus on sparking a populist movement of political reform.

Read the whole thing.

9 comments… add one
  • Modulo Myself Link

    Paglia really has no idea what she’s talking about. Clinton is crashing because her feminism has nothing to say about class. She is not crashing because of the unfair things that have happened to Camille Paglia.

  • jan Link

    Paglia’s piece is certainly an acid wash on Hillary’s image. In a terse nutshell she described HRC’s record as a human being as well as a public figure:

    What genuine principles does Hillary have left, after a public career so light on concrete achievement and so heavy with lies and greed? Yes, she’s been handed job after job, but primarily due to her very unfeminist association with a man. As a senator, she initiated nothing of substance, and as Secretary of State, she stumbled into one disastrous fiasco after another, escalating the destabilization of North Africa and the Mideast.

    I know Michael R. gave a multi-point plan for Hillary to succeed in her POTUS ambitions. But, IMO, her entire life has been a self-serving facade. No amount of a make-over can undo the real HRC. So, what Michael is waving around, as a poultice for this woman’s desire for power, is to fool people into believing she is something she is not.

  • ... Link

    Hillary is a feminist icon to young women? Then why do so many Democratic women under the age of 35 give their support to Bernie?

  • Perhaps more precise diction would be “they’ve heard that Hillary Clinton is a feminist icon but they’re not sure why”.

  • ... Link

    I think that corrected diction is true for everyone.

    “Stand by your maaaaan….”

  • Andy Link

    I have to admit I really like Paglia’s writing even though I don’t much care for Paglia or her worldview. Still, I think she’s mostly right here, at least with regard to Hillary and the old school feminist establishment.

  • TastyBits Link

    My new ticket for 2016:

    Camille Paglia with Nicki Minaj as VP.

  • CStanley Link

    I was about to say what Andy said. And rather than putting her on a ticket- I would absolutely love it if Paglia and Michael Reynolds were speechwriters. I disagree with many of their viewpoints but they are both gifted writers who can challenge people to think.

  • michael reynolds Link

    CStanley:

    Thanks. In another life I would be Eli Gold from The Good Wife.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqoH8ZsVS_w

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