Camille Paglia

Young feminists have been sold a bill of goods about American feminism. The enormous changes in women over the past 40 years are constantly and falsely attributed to the organized women’s movement of the late 1960s and ’70s.

My generation of bossy, confident, baby-boom women were something brand new in history. Our energy and assertiveness weren’t created by Betty Friedan, unknown before her 1963 book, or by Gloria Steinem, whose political activism, as even the Lifetime profile admitted, did not begin until 1969.

Except for naval and air exercises, our military should be stationed on American soil, where service men and women can lead normal lives in close proximity to family and friends.

Music never dies. Do we really need another Madonna tour? Does she have to compete with women performers 25 years her junior?

Younger women have no problem in reconciling beauty with ambitions as a professional woman.

Perhaps there is no greater issue facing contemporary women than the choices they must make about balancing home and work.

A lesser complaint: hair extensions. There are moments on ‘All My Children’ when half the women actors, young and old, seem to be afflicted by android Barbie creep. All those thick swatches of lifeless strands clustering lankly round ladies’ necks! Like orange tanning spray, this is a fashion fad that should be put out of its misery.

Working moms commonly testify that they feel guilty when they are away from their children and guilty when they are not at their jobs. Devoted fathers certainly miss their children deeply, but it does not seem to be with the same gnawing, primal anxiety that often afflicts women.

It is capitalist America that produced the modern independent woman. Never in history have women had more freedom of choice in regard to dress, behavior, career, and sexual orientation.

Men know they are sexual exiles. They wander the earth seeking satisfaction, craving and despising, never content. There is nothing in that anguished motion for women to envy.