Camille Paglia was a feminist before today’s social justice landwhales and their virtue signaling supporters were a naughty gleam in their mommies’ and daddies’ eyes. The academic and social critic, who has been called the “anti-feminist feminist” for decades, and who has been a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia since 1984, is now in the crosshairs of today’s triggered snowflakes, who cannot tolerate hearing truth or having their worldview challenged.

You see, Camille Paglia believes women should be strong and understand their own sexuality. She believes that it is today’s feminism that objectifies, weakens, and sexualizes women, and that women need to stop blaming men for their plight. Camille Paglia believes in personal responsibility and independent thought, and refuses to accept victim mentality – precisely what today’s feminism worships.

The snowflakes are fighting back against Camille Paglia’s take-no-prisoners style. In an online petition, organized by Joseph McAndrews, a self-described “trans-masculine, non-binary Writing for Film and Television junior at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia” demands that Camille Paglia be fired.

Camille Paglia should be removed from UArts faculty and replaced by a queer person of color. If, due to tenure, it is absolutely illegal to remove her, then the University must at least offer alternate sections of the classes she teaches, instead taught by professors who respect transgender students and survivors of sexual assault.

In other words, this pathetic, pusillanimous, quivering pansy that doesn’t even know whether it likes or can handle its own genitals is demanding that an accomplished academic (who, by the way, is queer), whose achievements he couldn’t hope to match, be silenced because her words chafe his imaginary labia.

It was only a matter of time.

Camille Paglia advocates personal responsibility and she doesn’t suffer fools lightly. So when the University decided to genuflect in front of triggered snowflakes and invite a local transgender activist to soothe their “trauma” after Paglia’s lecture titled “Ambiguous Images: Sexual Duality and Sexual Multiplicity in Western Art,” she decided not to attend the “talk-back.”

And why should she attend it? So she can listen to some butthurt, inept weakling, whose only achievement in life is being a “transgender activist,” which translates into demanding special privileges and protections for people who cannot function in society and must have special dispensations, squeal its protest and demand respect it hadn’t earned, while denigrating Paglia’s work and views as hateful and *insert latest victim here*-phobic?

No thanks. I wouldn’t attend either.

So far, the university is not giving in. UArts President David Yager sent out an email condemning the piddly little fascists and their inability to tolerate dissent or challenges to their worldview.

I firmly believe that limiting the range of voices in society erodes our democracy. Universities, moreover, are at the heart of the revolutionary notion of free expression: promoting the free exchange of ideas is part of the core reason for their existence….

I believe this resolve holds even greater importance at an art school. Artists over the centuries have suffered censorship, and even persecution, for the expression of their beliefs through their work. My answer is simple: not now, not at UArts.

The University of the Arts is committed to the exercise of free speech and academic freedom, to addressing difficult or controversial issues and ideas through civil discussion, with respect for those who hold opinions different from our own.

But the snowflakes are not giving up. “I pay tuition,” whines McAndrews, “I will not allow injustices such as this to go unnoticed.”

Really?

Do other students at UArts who might hold a different opinion of Camille Paglia, or who aren’t too chickenshit to hear her well-reasoned arguments, also pay tuition?

Does McAndrews’ status as an imaginary “victim” give him the moral authority to dictate to what views other students are exposed?

Does his $34,000 per year tuition authorize him to impact a tenured professor’s work and livelihood?

Does this pathetic mediocrity, who has accomplished nothing in life, and who must fabricate a gender in order to feel special, really feel himself qualified to make demands about the hiring and firing of faculty at an institution of higher learning that is charged with educating him?

Enough is enough!

Universities are supposed to challenge. They’re supposed to instruct. They’re supposed to impart knowledge. They’re supposed to teach thinking and logical argumentation. They’re not supposed to shield students – most of whom are legal adults – from thought-provoking ideas. As the mother of a recent college graduate, I would have stopped paying tuition to any institution of supposed “higher learning” that bowed to the triggered, cowardly, squawking masses, whose tender labia get chafed by mere words.

Camille Paglia isn’t swayed by the whining third-wave feminists. She believes the #metoo movement is detrimental to women and does nothing to empower them. Waving the victim flag does nothing to hold real rapists accountable, but does allow women who may have made a bad decision at one point in their sexual lives to assuage their feelings of guilt by abusing young men with rape accusations. “To me, this is not feminism,” she says. “This is just a bourgeois culture of excuses.”

“If a real rape was committed, go friggin’ report it to police.”

I remember writing something similar when the #metoo movement first started.

My point here is that I would encourage victims to fight back. Fight back to ensure that the predator is held accountable. Fight back to protect other women who may become prey at the hands of these exploiters. Fight back for your dignity. Fight back for your honor. Defend yourself when needed, and use every tool at your disposal to do so.

It’s not enough to speak up and wave the victim flag. That hashtag proclaiming yourself to have been a victim will not give you moral authority.

Fighting back against your abuser will.

Luckily, no one demanded my dismissal over this unpopular opinion, but then again, I’m not an American icon, nor am I a courageous, respected intellectual, and I’m not significant enough for the social justice zealots to set their sights on me.

Let’s hope they don’t claim Camille Paglia’s scalp.

Featured image: Pixabay clipart, cropped; Pixabay License