--- title: Camille Paglia: Feminism, Free Women and Free Speech description: The self-described ‘dissident feminist’ on the intersection between feminism and campus debates canonical: https://time.com/4707294/camille-paglia-women-arent-free-until-speech-is/ author: Camille Paglia article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-03-21T16:04:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:01.701Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Camille Paglia: Blocking Campus Speech Is Anti-Democracy and Anti-Feminist og:description: The ‘dissident feminist’ says the academic Left is grotesquely over-regulating student life og:url: https://time.com/4707294/camille-paglia-women-arent-free-until-speech-is/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Camille Paglia: Blocking Campus Speech Is Anti-Democracy and Anti-Feminist twitter:description: The ‘dissident feminist’ says the academic Left is grotesquely over-regulating student life twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Camille Paglia: Blocking Campus Speech Is Anti-Democracy and Anti-Feminist > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: 5 Ways To Be An Active Feminist [Watch (HLS stream): 5 Ways To Be An Active Feminist](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/x17JAkMb.m3u8) (1:35)  _Published 2017-01-11. 5 ways to be an active feminist according to the co-organizers of the Women's March on Washington_ by [Camille Paglia](https://time.com/author/camille-paglia/) ## Camille Paglia Mar 21, 2017 4:04 PM UTC by [Camille Paglia](https://time.com/author/camille-paglia/) ## Camille Paglia Mar 21, 2017 4:04 PM UTC History moves in cycles. The plague of [political correctness](http://time.com/4527408/2016-election-political-correctness/) and assaults on [free speech](http://time.com/4530197/college-free-speech-zone/) that erupted in the 1980s and were beaten back in the 1990s have returned with a vengeance. In the United States, the universities as well as the mainstream media are currently patrolled by well-meaning but ruthless thought police, as dogmatic in their views as agents of the Spanish Inquisition. We are plunged once again into an ethical chaos where [intolerance](http://time.com/4697066/campus-protests-controversial-speakers/) masquerades as tolerance and where individual liberty is crushed by the tyranny of the group. The premier principles of my new book, [_Free Women_ _, Free Men_](https://www.amazon.com/Free-Women-Men-Gender-Feminism/dp/0375424776/?tag=timecom-20), are free thought and free speech—open, mobile, and unconstrained by either liberal or conservative ideology. The liberal versus conservative dichotomy, dating from the split between Left and Right following the French Revolution, is hopelessly outmoded for our far more complex era of expansive technology and global politics. A bitter polarization of liberal and conservative has become so extreme and strident in both the Americas and Europe that it sometimes resembles mental illness, severed from the common sense realities of everyday life. My dissident brand of feminism is grounded in my own childhood experience as a fractious rebel against the suffocating conformism of the 1950s, when Americans, exhausted by two decades of economic instability and war, reverted to a Victorian cult of domesticity that limited young girls’ aspirations and confined them (in my jaundiced view) to a simpering, saccharine femininity. In 1991, New York Newsday published my op-ed on [date rape](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-16/magazine/tm-4660%5F1%5Fcamille-paglia/3), which remains the most controversial thing I have ever written. Syndicated in regional newspapers from coast to coast in haphazard truncated form, it caused a huge backlash. There was a coordinated campaign, evidently emanating from feminist groups in the Midwest, to harass the president of my university with demands for my firing. That article, often reprinted in freshman-composition course packs at state universities, caused me endless trouble throughout the 1990s. It led to picketing and protests at my outside campus lectures and to my own walk-offs (to avoid fisticuffs) from Austrian and British TV talk shows and even from the stage of Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. I still stand by every word of my date-rape manifesto. Women infantilize themselves when they cede responsibility for sexual encounters to men or to after-the-fact grievance committees, parental proxies unworthy of true feminists. My baby-boom generation demanded and won an end to such parietal rules, and it is tragic indeed how so many of today’s young women seem to long for a return of those hovering paternalistic safeguards. As a career college teacher, I want our coddling, authoritarian universities to end all involvement with or surveillance of students’ social lives and personal interactions, verbal or otherwise. If a crime is committed, it should be reported to the police. Otherwise, college administrations should mind their own business and focus on facilitating and funding education in the classroom. The Free Speech Movement, led by a fiery Italian-American, Mario Savio, erupted at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, the year I entered college. It was a cardinal moment for my generation. The anti-establishment stance of the Free Speech Movement represented the authentic populist revolution of the 1960s, which resisted encroachments of authority by a repressive elite. How is it possible that today’s academic Left has supported rather than protested campus speech codes as well as the grotesque surveillance and over-regulation of student life? American colleges have abandoned their educational mission and become government colonies, ruled by officious bureaucrats enforcing federal dictates. This despotic imperialism has no place in a modern democracy. An enlightened feminism, animated by a courageous code of personal responsibility, can only be built upon a wary alliance of strong women and strong men. _This is an excerpt from_ [Free Women, Free Men](https://www.amazon.com/Free-Women-Men-Gender-Feminism/dp/0375424776/?tag=timecom-20)_, by Camille Paglia. Copyright © 2017 by Camille Paglia. Reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved._  ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There are so many organizations that exist. They need to be strengthened, they need more resources, they need bodies, they need people, new blood, new energy. And they're just waiting for you. The movement is happening. So if you are a person who has the resources to donate, you should. And also just know who your elected officials are. Often times I travel. World country and I do organizing training. And I tell people raise your hand if you know who your local city councilman Alderman is, who's your state legislator. And people will honestly say they don't know. So you have to know who these people are cuz they are representing our interest right. Just stay informed because if you do not know something really horrible could happen on your watch if you are not Also consider leadership roles for yourself at the local level because we don't have to wait four years. There are so many seats up for grabs in 2017 at the local level and 2018 in congress. We can make changes from the bottom up and make it more equitable. And achieve more parody for women and our allies in leadership positions across the country. You don't have to be an expert. Bob is somebody who works in fashion. Other women are yoga teachers, bakers, you know, and we're all working together collectively to build collective power. It's really digging Looking deep into the core of your heart and figuring out what do you love, what do you care about and how can you give back. 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