The Barrel of a Gun

[To paraphrase the Great Obfuscator, there she goes again. Unable to sleep after a dream in which I took part in, and then walked out on, an ACT-UP protest having to do with soft drink brands served in an art gallery, I've just read and reread dear Camille Paglia's recent unfocused yawp (via Andrew Sullivan, her gay male analog) about...well, I guess it's about the need for women political leaders to ape male power poses as Sen. Clinton, amid unrelenting scorn, continues her methodical march to the nomination. Paglia cites Hatshepsut of Egypt's 18th dynasty as an example to be followed, contrasting her rule with the fatal frustrations suffered by the title character in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler]

[My distaste for Paglia (and Sullivan) has always been more about style than substance, specifically that her love of grand style muddies and warps the sometimes good substance of her written work. She piles triumphal, verve-filled example after example upon us poor, pummeled readers, exhorting us to feel (not think) that the Grand in history is what Matters when trying to puzzle out the politics of the day. For a lesbian, she's a deplorable size queen.]

[In this piece for the Globe and Mail Online, Paglia correctly states that women have come a long way since the 19th century world of Ibsen's plays, in which frustrated female protagonists chose death for themselves and those around them because they were prevented from exercising power more constructively. She give examples of all the female prime ministers that even ostensibly conservative countries like Pakistan and Ireland have produced, and wonders why not here? So far, so good: of those actually running, Hillary Rodham Clinton is clearly the person most qualified to assume the U.S. presidency. She's possibly the candidate with the most impressive credentials ever to have run for the office in my lifetime. While I deplore some of the senator's positions, I won't be sorry if she gets to the White House.]

[The fact that Paglia used to revile Rodham Clinton in column after column (upon the latter's announcement for the Senate, for example, Paglia compared her to that Roman politician's horse he sent to the Senate in his place - nice sisterhood there), but seems to support her now, is encouraging until one gets to the meat of her thesis, which seems to be that, as an example of yet another new wave of feminism (book title recently seen in a Mission District shop: We Don't Need Another Wave), Clinton deserves Paglia's (and, incidentally, our) support because she has "shrewdly got herself appointed to the Armed Services Committee." It's only thru Clinton's supposed military heritage inculcated by her Republican, naval drill-instructor father, that she's qualified to be Commander-in-Chief.]

[Never mind her work as a lawyer; an advocate for children; an organizer at every level of electoral politics; a practical co-executive with her husband in Little Rock and in Washington; a health-care reformer; someone who's met and engaged with most of the world's leaders; and a senator - it's her Daddy's military education that makes her presidential material because (say it with me, altogether now) in a post-9/11 world, that's what really matters.]

[Now, I know that many insecure Obamaists think the Clinton is less than viable because too many Americans can't get their heads around a woman Commander-in-Chief. Maybe Paglia's argument will resonate with them, but I doubt most idiots who think Clinton isn't qualified for that reason even know who Camille Paglia is. She certainly won't enlighten them by bringing up the example of Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt more than 3,300 years ago. I can just imagine a bunch of middle-aged white guys at a NASCAR meet, slapping their heads and going "Of course! Hatshepsut didn't call herself a queen; she ruled successfully as a pharaoh, taking on previously male attributes! How could we have been so blind?!"]

[If Hillary Rodham Clinton does make it back to the White House, it will be a victory for feminism, but a relatively small one. She doesn't show too many signs of wanting to implement feminism's ultimate program: remaking this patriarchal, capitalist, alienating world into a humanistic place in which power is shared for everyone's benefit rather than hoarded and used as a weapon. I do think she'll surprise us if and when she gets there, but I don't see her as any sort of feminist Messiah. The real work of feminism (which really means humanism) is done on the ground, in a million little ways, by you and me and everybody else who will never become famous.]

[Paglia seems to want women to become men, thru the most obvious route: by toting a gun. Call it the Strap-On School of Politics. It's only thru this lens that she casts her favorable gaze on Sen. Clinton. Sad, and oh so typical.]

Previously Next

[I swear, it's a coincidence that on the day I wrote that, the Senator called herself the F-word. She chose the most timid definition of the term, but still...]