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Transcript for: Has Feminism Gone Too Far?



Think Tank Transcripts: Has Feminism Gone Too Far?



ANNOUNCER: 'Think Tank' has been made possible by Amgen, arecipient of the Presidential National Medal of Technology. Amgen,bringing better, healthier lives to people worldwide throughbiotechnology.



Additional funding is provided by the John M. Olin Foundation, theWilliam H. Donner Foundation, the Randolph Foundation, and the JMFoundation.



MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm Ben Wattenberg. There are manyfeminists and scholars who contend that America is still apatriarchal place where women are victims and adversaries of men. Wewill hear that point of view in a future program. But for the nexthalf-hour we will hear a different idea from two prominent andcontroversial feminists: Camille Paglia and Christina Sommers.



The topic before this house: Has feminism gone too far? This weekon Think Tank.



Joining us on this special edition of Think Tank are two authorswho have made themselves unpopular with much of the modern feministmovement. Camille Paglia is professor of humanities at the Universityof the Arts in Philadelphia and best-selling author most recently of'Vamps and Tramps.' Her criticisms of modern feminism caused oneauthor to refer to her as the spokeswoman for the anti-feministbacklash.



Our other guest, Christina Sommers, is an associate professor ofphilosophy at Clark University. In her recent book, 'Who StoleFeminism,' she accuses activist women of betraying the women'smovement. She wrote the book, she says, because she is a feminist whodoes not like what feminism has become.



Christina Sommers, what has feminism become?



MS. SOMMERS: The orthodox feminists are so carried away withvictimology, with a rhetoric of male-bashing that it's full of femalechauvinists, if you will. Also, women are quite eager to censor, tosilence. And what concerns me most as a philosopher is it's becomevery anti-intellectual, and I think it poses a serious risk to youngwomen in the universities. Women's studies classes are increasingly akind of initiation into the most radical wing, the most intolerantwing, of the feminist movement. And I consider myself awhistle-blower. I'm from inside the campus. I teach philosophy. I'veseen what's been going on.



MR. WATTENBERG: Camille, what has feminism become?



MS. PAGLIA: Well, I have been an ardent feminist since the rebirthof the current feminist movement. I'm on the record as being -- asrebelling against my gender-role, as being an open lesbian and so on.In the early 1960s I was researching Amelia Earhart, who for mesymbolized the great period of feminism of the '20s and '30s justafter women won the right to vote. When this phase of feminism kickedback in the late '60s, it was very positive at first. Women drew theline against men and demanded equal rights. I am an equal opportunityfeminist. But very soon it degenerated into a kind of totalitarian'group think' that we are only now rectifying 20 years later.



MR. WATTENBERG: Is this the distinction between equity feminismand gender feminism? Is that what we're talking about?



MS. SOMMERS: That's right. Yes.



MR. WATTENBERG: Could you sort of explain that so that we get ourterms right?



MS. SOMMERS: An equity feminist -- and Camille and I both areequity feminists --is you want for women what you want for everyone:fair treatment, no discrimination. A gender feminist, on the otherhand, is someone like the current leaders in the feminist movement:Patricia Ireland and Gloria Steinem and Susan Faludi and EleanorSmeal. They believe that women are trapped in what they call asex-gender system, a patriarchal hegemony; that contemporary Americanwomen are in the thrall to men, to male culture. And it's so silly.It has no basis in American reality. No women have ever had moreopportunities, more freedom, and more equality than contemporaryAmerican women. And at that moment the movement becomes more bitterand more angry. Why are they so angry?



MS. PAGLIA: Mmm-hmm. (In agreement.) This is correct. In otherwords, I think that the current feminist movement has taken creditfor a lot of the enormous changes in women's lives that my generationof the '60s wrought. There were women in the mid '60s when I was incollege who did not go onto become feminists. They were baudy andfeisty and robust. Barbra Streisand is a kind of example of a kind ofpre-feminist woman that changed the modern world and so on.



Now, I think that again what we need to do now is to get rid ofthe totalitarians, get rid of the Kremlin mentality --



MR. WATTENBERG: Now, hang on, when you say --



MS. PAGLIA: Wait -- and here are the aims of my program. We've gotto get back to a pro-art, all right, pro-beauty, pro-men kind offeminism. And --



MS. SOMMERS: I think she's right to call it a kind oftotalitarianism. Many young women on campuses combine two verydangerous things: moral fervor and misinformation. On the campusesthey're fed a kind of catechism of oppression. They're taught 'one infour of you have been victims of rape or attempted rape; you'reearning 59 cents on the dollar; you're suffering a massive loss ofself-esteem; that you're battered especially on Super Bowl Sunday.'All of these things are myths, grotesque exaggerations.



MR. WATTENBERG: Well, why don't you go through some of those mythswith some specificity?



MS. SOMMERS: Well, for example, a few years ago feminist activistsheld a news conference and announced that on Super Bowl Sundaybattery against women increases 40 percent. And, in fact, NBC wasmoved to use a public service announcement to, you know, encouragemen 'remain calm during the game.' Well --



MR. WATTENBERG: How can you remain calm during the Super Bowl!(Laughter.)



MS. SOMMERS: Well, they might explode like mad linemen and attacktheir wives and so forth. The New York Times began to refer to it asthe 'day of dread.' One reporter, Ken Ringle at the Washington Post,did something very unusual in this roiling sea of media credulity. Hechecked the facts -- and within a few hours discovered that it was ahoax. No such research, no -- there's no data about a 40-percentincrease. And this is just one of so many myths. You'll hear --



MR. WATTENBERG: Give me some others.



MS. SOMMERS: According to the March of Dimes, battery is thenumber -- the leading cause of birth defects. Patricia Irelandrepeats this. It was in Time magazine. It was in newspapers acrossthe country. I called the March of Dimes and they said, 'We've neverseen this research before.' This is preposterous. There's no suchresearch. And yet this is being taught to young women in thecolleges. They're basically learning that they live in a kind ofviolent -- almost a Bosnian rape camp.



Now, naturally, the more sensitive young women --



MR. WATTENBERG: What about rape? Is that exaggerated by the modernfeminists?



MS. SOMMERS: Completely. This idea of one in four girls victims ofrape or attempted rape? That's preposterous! And there's also a kindof gentrification of rape. You're much more likely to be a victim ofrape or attempted rape if you're in a high crime neighborhood. Thechances of being raped at Princeton are remote. Katie Roiphe talkedabout being at Princeton. She said she was more afraid -- she wouldwalk across a dark golf course and was more afraid of being attackedby wild geese than by a rapist. And yet the young women at Princetonhave more programs and whistles are given out and blue lights.There's more services to protect these young women from rape than forwomen in, you know, downtown Newark.



MR. WATTENBERG: Where do you come out on this?



MS. PAGLIA: Well, one of the things that got me pilloried fromcoast to coast was when I wrote a piece on date rape for Newsday inJanuary of 1991. It got picked up by the wire services, and thetorrent of abuse that poured in. I want women to fend for themselves.That essay that I wrote on rape begins with the line 'Rape is anoutrage that cannot be tolerated in civilized society.' I absolutelyabhor this broadening of the idea of rape, which is an atrocity, tothose things that go wrong on a date --acquaintances, you know,little things, miscommunications -- on pampered elite collegecampuses. MS. SOMMERS: I interviewed a young women at the Universityof Pennsylvania who came in in a short skirt and she was in theWomen's Center, and I think she thought I was one of the sisterhood.And she said, 'Oh, I just suffered a mini-rape.' And I said, 'Whathappened?' And she said, 'A boy walked by me and said, `Nice legs'.'You know? And that -- and this young woman considers this a form ofrape!



MS. PAGLIA: That's right.



MR. WATTENBERG: What role in the development of this kind ofthought that the idea of sexual harassment and whole Anita Hill thinghave? Was that sort of a --



MS. PAGLIA: That's fairly recent, actually. It was in the late'80s that started. I mean, that was a late phase. I think probablythe backlash against the excesses of sexual harassment have -- youknow, have really finally weakened the hold of PC. I believe, forexample, in moderate sexual harassment guidelines. I lobbied fortheir adoption at my university in 1986. But I put into my proposal astrict penalty for false accusation. All right? I don't like thesituation where the word of any woman is weighed above the testimonyof any man. And I was the only leading feminist that went out againstAnita Hill. I think that that whole case was pile of crap.



MR. WATTENBERG: Why?



MS. PAGLIA: Well, I think it was absurd. First of all, again,totalitarian regime, okay, is where 10 years after the fact you'renominated now for a top position in your country and you are beingasked to reconstruct lunch conversations that you had with someonewho never uttered a peep. Okay? This is to Anita Hill: 'All right,when he started to talk again about this pornographic films at lunchin the government cafeteria, what did you do?' 'I tried to change thesubject.' Excuse me! I mean, that is ridiculous. I mean, so many ofthese cases --



MS. SOMMERS: He never touched her.



MS. PAGLIA: He never touched her. Okay? That was such a trumped-upcase by the feminist establishment.



MR. WATTENBERG: Do you sign onto that?



MS. SOMMERS: Well, I've changed. I mean, initially I was justcarried away with the media and thought, 'Oh, Saint Anita.' And laterI thought about it and actually learned from some experts on sexualharassment that her behavior was completely untypical. She did notact -- the career lechers --usually a woman is repulsed and will notfollow him from place to place, and usually there are many women whowill come forward who have had the same experience. These things werenot true in his case. It now seems to me quite likely that he wasinnocent of these charges.



MS. PAGLIA: Completely innocent. And I must say, as a teacher of23 years, if someone offends you by speech, we must train women todefend themselves by speech. You cannot be always running totribunals. Okay? Running to parent figures, authority figures, afterthe fact because you want to preserve your perfect, decorous,middle-class persona.



MR. WATTENBERG: This is Catherine MacKinnon, who says speech isrape?



MS. PAGLIA: Yes, I'm on the opposite wing. Catherine McKinnon isthe anti-porn wing of feminism. I am on the radically pro-porn wing.I'm more radical than Christina. I --



MR. WATTENBERG: Are you pro-pornography?



MS. SOMMERS: For adults. I'm trying to be very careful about itfor -- you know, I feel in our society -- for children. But I'mhorrified at the puritanism and the sex phobia of feminism. How didthat happen? I mean, feminism -- it used to be fun to be a feminist,and it used to have a lot of -- it attracted all sorts of livelywomen. Now you ask a group of young women on the college campus, 'Howmany of you are feminists?' Very few will raise their hands becauseyoung women don't want to be associated with it anymore because theyknow it means male-bashing, it means being a victim, and it meansbeing bitter and angry. And young women are not naturally bitter andangry.



MS. PAGLIA: We had a case at Penn State where an Englishinstructor who was assigned to teach in an arts building where therehad been a print of Goya's 'Naked Maja,' a great classic artwork, onthe wall for 40 years. All right? She demanded it be taken downbecause she felt sexually harassed by it, because the students in theclassroom were looking at it instead of her. Okay? Now, this isridiculous. This is part of the puritanism of our culture. I want akind of feminism that is pro-beauty, pro-sensuality. Okay? That isnot embarrassed and upset by a spectacle of the beauty of the humanbody!



MR. WATTENBERG: What about this argument that came up recentlythat girls in elementary and high school are neglected by theirteachers? Is that -- have either of you --



MS. PAGLIA: A bunch of crap.



MS. SOMMERS: It's a hoax.



MS. PAGLIA: A bunch of crap.



MS. SOMMERS: I mean, it's all -- it's really an incredible case ofjust junk science. The American Association of University Womenhastily threw together a survey of 3,000 children and asked themabout their sense of well-being and their self-esteem, and they neverpublished it. It'a not -- it hasn't been replicated by scholars.Adolescents don't see significant differences -- the majority don'tsee significant differences -- between levels of self-esteem betweenyoung men and young women. Yet the AAUW said it was true. It's anadvocacy group. Their membership was drying up. They were losing, youknow, several thousand members a year. They needed an issue. Theybrought in a new group and they got on the gender-bias bandwagon andbasically struck gold. They now -- you can call an 800 number. Theyhave short-changing girls mugs and t-shirts. (Laughter.) And theywere so positively reviewed in the media that they can use --



MS. PAGLIA: Oh, the media was utterly credulous. I couldn'tbelieve it when MacNeil/Lehrer totally -- they fell for it likesuckers that night.



MS. SOMMERS: Well, they would ask young men, 'What do you want tobe when you grow up?' And boys would say things like rock star orsports star. And girls would say lawyer and doctor. So they declareda glamor gap and said that there's a glamor gap, that girls don'tdream their dreams. Well, most children don't have the talent to berock stars. The sensible ones know this. So the way I would interpretthose findings is that girls mature earlier and boys suffer a realitygap.



MS. PAGLIA: Right, right.



MS. SOMMERS: But this was the kind of question that was asked. Yetnot one journalist that I'm aware of, except the Sacramento Bee,because they wrote to me and said, 'We question this' -- they didn'tdo what Ken Ringle did at the Washington Post. They didn't send awayfor the data. They relied on the glossy brochures.



MR. WATTENBERG: Let me --



MS. PAGLIA: And the question of attention in the classroom, too.As experienced teachers, okay, this idea that you measure, okay, howmuch attention the teacher is paying to the boys and girls todetermine how much that the student is valued, and it was discoveredthat the teacher was making more remarks to the boys. You're keepingthem in line! Okay? The boys you have to say, 'Shut up, be quiet! Dothis thing. Are you doing your homework?' Like this. The girls, allright, they do their homework. They're very mature. And girls at thatage are rather sensitive, and I as a teacher am very aware -- as ateacher of freshmen, all right -- that the girls are sitting therepleading with you with their eyes, 'Don't embarrass me in front ofthe entire class.' Okay? I'm very aware that I seem to be talkingoften to the boys. Tut that is just because they're so -- their egosare completely -- I mean, they're so unconflicted. Okay? They loveattention. They're like yapping puppies. You know what I mean? Theydon't care about making fools of themselves once they start.



MR. WATTENBERG: The boys?



MS. PAGLIA: The boys make fools of themselves, blah, blah, blah,blah! Okay? The most intelligent students hang back. All right? I wasvery silent in class, myself. Okay? And so I -- and I like to justtake notes. All right?



MR. WATTENBERG: That sounds like you're anti-male now. You'resaying, 'Now I'm offended.'



MS. PAGLIA: No, no!



MS. SOMMERS: But they can be immature.



MS. PAGLIA: The boys are immature.



MS. SOMMERS: The AAUW would ask children: 'I'm good at a lot ofthings.' And you could say, all the time, some of the time, usually,but you know -- and a lot of little boys, the 11 to -- would say,'All the time, I'm good at everything all the time.' And girls, beinga little more reflective, will give a more nuanced answer. The AAUWcounted everything except 'always true' meaning that they weresuffering from a dangerous lack of self-esteem. They declared anAmerican tragedy. American girls don't believe in themselves.



MS. PAGLIA: Right, and the girls' are doing better in school.



MS. SOMMERS: Girls are getting better grades.



MS. PAGLIA: Right.



MS. SOMMERS: More go to college.



MS. PAGLIA: Right.



MS. SOMMERS: More boys drop out. More boys are getting into drugsand alcohol.



MR. WATTENBERG: And most of the teachers are women in any event --



MS. SOMMERS: Yes. And to add to that, it's supposed to beunconscious --



(Cross talk.)



MR. WATTENBERG: -- a point you made, I guess, in that.



MS. SOMMERS: Yeah.



MR. WATTENBERG: The -- what about the argument -- you hear lessabout it now, and perhaps the data has changed, but that women onlymake 59 cents for every dollar that --



MS. PAGLIA: First of all, what was omitted from that is what kindof jobs are women gravitating toward? I mean, Warren Farrell, in hisbook, 'The Myth of Male Power,' has a lot of statistics that show menare taking the dangerous, dirty jobs like roofing, okay, the kind ofgritty things that pay more -- commissioned sales that are veryunstable. Okay?



It appears that a lot of women -- where the real biases occur,okay, those barriers must be removed. But this is an inadequate kindof a figure. It doesn't allow for the fact that most women, in fact,in my experience, too, like nice clean, safe offices, nicepredictable hours and so on, and they don't want to, like, knockthemselves out in that kind of way. I mean, every time I pass --after reading Warren Farrell's book, every time I pass men doing thatroofing tar, okay, breathing those toxic fumes and so on, okay, Ihave a renewed respect for the kind of sacrifices that men have made.



MR. WATTENBERG: That 59-cent number --



MS. SOMMERS: It hasn't been for --



MR. WATTENBERG: -- is now 71, but even that was --



MR. SOMMERS: It's now 71 cents, and that is not correct becauseyou have to control for age, length of time in the work place. And ifyou look at younger women now, the age -- the wage gap is closed.It's now -- when they have children, it's 90 cents. But if they don'thave children, it's now closer to what --



MS. PAGLIA: It would be outrageous if people were doing exactlythe same thing and being paid a different wage. Okay? But that is notat all the basis for this figure.



MR. WATTENBERG: Legalized abortion has come to be viewed as thecentral issue of the feminist movement. Is that an appropriate spotfor it to be? That --



MS. SOMMERS: It's an important issue. I believe, in choice, but Ithink there's an obsession with feminists with that issue, which is-- and it's also very -- it leaves a lot of women out of themovement. There should be a place in women's studies, there should bea place in women's scholarship for traditionally religious women.There are Christian -- conservative Christian women who are scholars,Orthodox Jewish women who are scholars, Islamic women who arescholars. Why don't -- why isn't there any place for them in women'sstudies? Because there's a litmus test --



MS. PAGLIA: Yes.



MS. SOMMERS: -- and you have to be pro-choice or you need notapply.



MS. PAGLIA: I'm radically pro-choice, unrestricted right toabortion. However, I have respect for the pro-life side, and I amdisgusted by the kind of rhetoric that I get. I support the abortionrights groups with money and so on, but I cannot stand the kind ofstuff that comes in my mailbox, right, which stereotypes all pro-lifepeople as being fanatics, misogynists, and so on, radical and far,you know, right and so on. I mean, it is



MS. SOMMERS: It is so condescending and so elitist.



MS. PAGLIA: It's condescending. It's insulting. It's elitist. It'santi-intellectual. It's a deformed --



MS. SOMMERS: It's very anti-intellectual. The arguments onabortion philosophically -- and I teach applied ethics -- if youreally understand the issues, you have to have some questions,especially about second trimester abortions where you are quitelikely dealing with an individual.



MR. WATTENBERG: What is your view today? How would the averageAmerican woman, if we could ever distill such a body, how does sheview this new feminism?



MS. SOMMERS: Well, the average American women, first of all, israther fond of men. Okay? She has a husband or a father or a brotheror -- you know? So the male-bashing is out of control right now. Imean -- and if you look at a lot of the statistics that I deconstructin my book. You know, that men are responsible for birth defects,that men -- Naomi Wolff has a factoid she has since corrected, butshe says 150,000 girls die every year starving themselves to deathfrom anorexia. This was in Gloria Steinem's book. It got into AnnLander's column. It's in women's studies textbooks. The correctfigure, according to the Center for Disease Control, is closer to 100deaths a year, not 150,000.



MS. PAGLIA: Three-thousand times exaggerated or something.



MS. SOMMERS: It's, you know -- so Naomi Wolff put is this way. Shesaid young -- it's a holocaust against women's bodies. We're beingstarved not by nature, but by men. And --



MS. PAGLIA: They want to blame the media for anorexia, when inpoint of fact anorexia plays white middle-class households. It is aresponse to something incestuous going on within these nuclearfamilies.



MS. SOMMERS: Mainly upper-middle-class --



MS. PAGLIA: Yes, right.



MS. SOMMERS: -- overachieving white girls.



MS. PAGLIA: Yeah.



MS. SOMMERS: And by the way, if 150,000 of these girls wheredying, you would need -- it would be -- you would need to haveambulances on hand at places where they gather like Wellesley Collegegraduation and like you do at major sporting events. (Laughter.) Butwhy didn't anyone -- it's funny, but no one caught the error.



MS. PAGLIA: No one caught it. The media was totally servile! Everyword that came out of Gloria Steinem's mouth or Patricia Ireland'smouth is treated as gospel truth. For 20 years the major media, whenthey want 'what is the women's view?' they turn to NOW. Okay? NOWdoes not speak for American women. It does not speak even for allfeminists.



MR. WATTENBERG: NOW is the National Organization --



MS. PAGLIA: National Organization for Women, which --



MR. WATTENBERG: National Organization for Women.



MS. PAGLIA: -- for Women, which Betty Friedan founded, but whichsoon expelled even her. Okay? They've been taken over by a certainkind of ideology. All right? I'm in constant war with them as adissident feminist and so on, and -- you know, and it's taken me along time, you know, to fight my way into the public eye.



MR. WATTENBERG: All right, let me ask this question: What are thepolicy implications of this idea of feminine dictumhood?



MS. SOMMERS: It's a disaster. These women are -- I will give themone thing. They're brilliant work-shoppers, networkers, organizers,moving in, taking over infrastructure. They're busybodies. There hasnever been a more effective, you know, army of busybodies. And theyknow how to work the system. So they will hastily throw together astudy designed to show women are medically neglected or women have amassive loss of self-esteem -- one in four. And then they move to keysenators. Senator Biden seems to be especially vulnerable.



MS. PAGLIA: Oh! What a weak link. What a weak link.



MS. SOMMERS: Patricia Schroeder, Senator Kennedy. But it'sRepublicans, too. They're quite carried away. Congressman Ramstadfrom Minneapolis.



MR. WATTENBERG: Yeah, they're afraid of the TV commercials runningagainst them, which is --



MS. SOMMERS: That's right.



MS. PAGLIA: Yeah, that's right.



MS. SOMMERS: And then we're getting -- we now have a gender-biasbill that went through Congress that's going to provide millions ofdollars for gender-bias workshops. What the politicians don't realizeis that feminism is a multi-million dollar industry. The gender-biasindustry is thriving. They're the work-shoppers and the networkersout there.



MS. PAGLIA: The bureaucrats are really profitting --



MS. SOMMERS: Consultants and bureaucrats.



MS. PAGLIA: It's a tremendous waste of money.



MS. SOMMERS: And it's not based on truth.



MS. PAGLIA: It should go into education. That money should godirectly into education to improve the system.



MS. SOMMERS: I spoke to a teacher yesterday who taught inBrooklyn, and there were no books to teach English.



MS. PAGLIA: Oh, pathetic!~



MS. SOMMERS: And yet there are going to be -- there's going to be$5 million now, plus a lot more from the education bill, forworkshops on gender-bias in the classroom, which is a non-problemcompared to far more serious problems. So I consider many feministsto be opportunists. They move in on real problems. There is a problemof violence in our schools. They'll turn it into a problem of sexualharassment --



MS. PAGLIA: Yes.



MS. SOMMERS: -- which is nothing compared to the problem ofviolence and instability. They'll move into under-performance of ourkids.



MS. PAGLIA: All this money should be going into keeping publiclibraries open so that the poor can go in and take out a book the waymy immigrants, you know, parents were able to and the way I was ableto. It's outrageous that we have the closing-down of publiclibraries, and the conditions of inner-city schools is disgraceful.And all this money wasted going to bureaucrats?



MR. WATTENBERG: Camille, let me ask you this: Does the case youmake undermine traditional family values? Would a conservativelistening to what you are talking about in terms of sensuality andsexuality and pornography and so on, would they say you areundermining and corroding family values in America?



MS. PAGLIA: Probably they would, but my argument in all my booksis rather large. I say that Western culture was formed as two greattraditions -- the Judeo-Christian and the Greco-Roman -- and theyhave contributed to each other and they're in conflict with eachother. And I -- what I -- my libertarian theory is of a publicsphere/private sphere. Government must remain out of the privatesphere for abortion and drug use and sodomy and so on. The publicsphere is shared by both traditions. I have respect for theJudeo-Christian side. I'm calling in 'The Activism in Feminism' for arenewed respect for religion, even though I'm an atheist. So I thinkthat there is much in my thinking that I think would reassure peopleof traditional family values.



MR. WATTENBERG: Let me ask you this question to close of both ofyou: What should the 1990s equity feminist believe in and believeremains to be done for women?



MS. SOMMERS: The first thing, I think we have to save young womenfrom the feminists. That's at the top of my agenda. And I say that asa very committed feminist philosopher. I went into philosophy. It wasa field traditionally dominated by males. I got my job as a professorto encourage more young women to enter this field, to be analyticthinkers, to be logicians and metaphyscians. And, instead, infeminist philosophy classes you'll often have young women sittingaround honoring emotions and denigrating the great thinkers insteadof, you know, studying them, mastering them and benefitting fromthem.



MR. WATTENBERG: So you --



MS. SOMMERS: That's one thing. The other thing, more traditionalfeminist issue, is probably the double-shift. As women, we're doing alot of things men traditionally did; they're not doing what wetraditionally did. And so women do bear more responsibility at home.But if we're going to solve that problem, I think we have to approachmen as friends --



MS. PAGLIA: We have to -- yes --



MS. SOMMERS: -- in a spirit of respect instead of calling themproto-rapists and harassers and --



MS. PAGLIA: The time for hostility to men is past. There was thatmoment. I was part of it. I have punched men, kicked men, hit themover the head with umbrellas. Okay? I am openly confrontational withmen. As an open lesbian, I have been -- you know, I express my angerto men directly. I don't get in a group and whine about men. So,oddly, I give men a break and admit the greatness of male, you know,achievements and so on. What we have to do now is get over that angertoward men, all right, and we have to bring the sexes back together.Reconciliation between the sexes is the first order of business.



MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Thank you, Christina Sommers and CamillePaglia for your critique of modern feminism. We will be hearing anopposing view on a future program.



And thank you. We enjoy hearing from our audience. Please sendcomments and questions to: New River Media, 1150 17th Street, NW,Washington, DC, 20036. Or we can be reached via e-mail atthinktv@aol.com.



For Think Tank, I'm Ben Wattenberg.



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