Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism by Camille Paglia

Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism

Camille Paglia
352 pages
Pantheon
Mar 2017
All Non-Fiction WSBN
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From the fiery intellectual provocateur - and one of our most fearless advocates of gender equality - a brilliant, urgent essay collection that both celebrates modern feminism and challenges us to build an alliance of strong women and strong men. <br><br>Ever since the release of her seminal first book, <i>Sexual Personae, </i>Camille Paglia has remained one of feminism's most outspoken, independent, and searingly intelligent voices. Now, for the first time, her best essays on the subject are gathered together in one concise volume. Whether she's calling for equal opportunity for American women (years before the founding of the National Organization for Women) , championing a more discerning standard of beauty that goes beyond plastic surgery's quest for eternal youth, lauding the liberating force of rock and roll, or demanding free and unfettered speech on university campuses and beyond, Paglia can always be counted on to get to the heart of matters large and small. At once illuminating, witty, and inspiring, these essays are essential reading that affirm the power of men and women and what we can accomplish together.
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The 'voice crying in the wilderness' that speaks to millions.

Camille Paglia’s FREE WOMEN FREE MEN is a collection of 36 previously-published pieces with a new introduction and a modest set of illustrations. The book begins with sections from her magnum opus, SEXUAL PERSONAE which essentially lay the theoretical foundations for the book. These sections are scholarly/theoretical. The remaining pieces include essays, reviews, op-eds and interviews. They are often polemical, always interesting, and reinforce the theoretical underpinnings established at the outset. The writing is unfailingly lively; in some cases her polemics verge on the Agnewesque. For example, she describes poststructuralism as a “stale teething biscuit [for] the nattering nerds of trendy academe” (p. 120). The thematic organization includes samples from her writings from 1990-2016; despite the breadth of the subject matter, from ancient art to contemporary popular culture and sociology to endocrinology the book coheres very nicely and returns, time and again, to her central position. She argues that science should serve as a central component in all women’s studies and gender studies programs, that every such program should be assessed by independent professionals for ideological bias, and that these programs should require the writings of conservatives as well as dissident feminists. She calls for a massive rollback “of the paternalistic system of grievance committees and other meddlesome bureaucratic contrivances which have turned American college campuses into womb-like customer-service resorts” (p. 181). “If women expect equal treatment in society, they must stop asking for infantilizing special protections. With freedom comes personal responsibility” (p. 182). Her fundamental belief is that men struggle against Nature, while women embody it. This explains why men labor to organize and to create and why women are more accepting of the plights that Nature visits upon us. One of her major insights is borrowed from Samuel Johnson. Johnson argued that men d...

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About this book
Pages 352
Publisher Pantheon
Published 2017
Readers 3