Camille Paglia Essay

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Critiquing Camille Paglia’s Editorial “On Date Rape” Camille Paglia is an anti feminist, controversial lesbian graduate student from Yale, and best known as “America’s foremost cultural critic.” (The Sunday Times). Amongst other things, Paglia wrote a fierce editorial titled “On Date Rape.” Paglia concludes that if a woman is raped; it is her fault because she should have seen the signs. Although Paglia is very well educated, her use of fallacies, such as appeal to fear, hasty generalization, false analogy, and false cause, truly exhibits how narrow-minded she really is. Paglia begins her editorial with appeal to fear. She states that “The minute you go out with a man, the minute you go to a bar to have a drink, there is a risk.” According to the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network, “One out of every 6 American women will be a victim of rape, date rape, or attempted rape in her lifetime.” Also, alcohol is the leading factor in about 90% of all date rape crimes (Drexel University). For this reason, women need to practice self-awareness. However, many people put themselves in a risky situation every day for example, according to The Human Factors and Ergonomics Society “The usage of cell phones while driving has caused 2,500 deaths and 333,000 injuries in the United States every year.” Cell phone usage impairs driving skills, therefore, like, alcohol posing a risk, but most continue to do it anyway. Then, She also makes a hasty generalization when she declares that “These young feminist today are deluded. They come from a protected, white, middle-class world, and they expect everything to be safe.” Despite what Paglia believes, not all young feminist women come from a white, middle-class protected world. For example, Bell Hooks is a famous African American social activist and feminist. Not to mention, Shirley

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