PROVOCATIONS

PROVOCATIONS,  Collected Essays, by Camille Paglia, Pantheon 2018 

Outrageous, just as we expected and hoped!

Not a neutral observer, Paglia has an eye.  She can see movement, see fissures developing, hear the winds shift.  Here, in her collection of essays, we are doing time travel, but with destinations set.  The author is showing us what she sees

 ahead.

Look at the details

Me-too-ism - "My philosophy of equity feminism demands removal of all barriers to women's advancement in the political and professional realms...I oppose special protections for  women in the workplace.  Treating women as more vulnerable, virtuous or credible than men is reactionary, regressive and ultimately counterproductive....Working-class women are often so dependent on their jobs that they cannot fight back, but there is no excuse for well-educated, middle-class women to elevate career advantage or fear of social embarrassment over their own dignity and self-respect...Speak up now, or shut up later!"

Here comes another shocker:

Rosie the Riveter:  "It was overwhelmingly men who created the machines and ultra-efficient systems of the industrial revolution, which in turn emancipated women.   For the first time in history, women have gained economic independence and no longer must depend on fathers or husbands for survival.   But many women seem surprised and unnerved by the competitive, pitiless forces that drive the modern professions, which were shaped by entrepreneurial male bonding.  It remains to be seen whether those deep patterns of mutually bruising male teamwork, which may date from the Stone Age, can be altered to accommodate female sensitivities without reducing productivity and progress."

"Women's discontent and confusion are being worsened by the post modernist rhetoric of academe, which asserts that gender is a social construct and that biological sex differences don't exist or don't matter...Speaking from my lifelong transgender perspective, I find such claims absurd.  That most men and women on the planet experience and process sexuality differently, in both mind and body, is blatantly obvious to any sensible person." 

Can any of this be changed:

"Endless sexual miscommunication and bitter rancor lie ahead."

Does it matter - do you care?

Book tour: 

Tuesday, Oct 9, 92 St Y, NYC, 7:30 

Thursday, Oct 11, Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, 7:00

Tuesday, Oct 16, Radnor Memorial Library, 7:00

Tuesday, Oct 30, Chicago Humanities Festival, Francis W. Parker School, 330 W Webster Ave, 8:00

Patricia E. Moody

FORTUNE magazine  "Pioneering Woman in Mfg" 

IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert

A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, pemoody@aol.com, patriciaemoody@gmail.com, tricia@patriciaemoody.com,