R E C E N T L Y Out with self-esteem tutorials, in with standardized tests! (12/16/98) Corporate America needs bosses, not "non-hierarchical management" (12/09/98) More darts at Foucault's scrawny haunches (12/02/98) Ken Starr's strange sexual persona (11/25/98) A tale of two Blooms (11/18/98) ___________________ Love Camille Paglia? Pick up her books at barnesandnoble.com ___________________ A L S O About Camille Paglia Ask Camille archives - - - - - - - - - - C O L U M N I S T S Sexpert Opinion By Susie Bright Bring on the full Monty! (12/11/98) The Reluctant Capitalist By Heather Chaplin Money talks (12/18/98) Left Hook By Joe Conason Why Lott and Barr hate Clinton (12/22/98) Unspun By Steve Erickson Mementos from the pre-millennium (12/23/98) Right On! By David Horowitz How "low" crimes and misdemeanors become "high" (12/21/98) Mr. Blue By Garrison Keillor How can I get the exciting man I married to stop talking about multiprotocol networking? (12/15/98) Word by Word By Anne Lamott The last waltz (12/23/98) Media Circus By Susan Lehman Cool on global warming (12/17/98) On Television By Joyce Millman Smits walks, "Felicity" stalks, Sammo rocks (12/21/98) Under the Covers By James Poniewozik And a little scumbag shall lead them (12/22/98) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Yes, there is a better search engine. While the portal sites fiddle, Google catches fire (12/21/98) Home Movies By Charles Taylor Family matters (12/14/98) Second Thoughts By Sallie Tisdale Rolling out the years (12/17/98) Salon Columnists - - - - - - - - - -

A S K_C A M I L L E +|+ C A M I L L E+P A G L I A --- Online advice for the culturally disgruntled --- Men: Fair game for banal feminist office humor Dear Camille: In light of your complex opinions on various forms of feminism and your recent response to a letter on hierarchy and the workplace, I was wondering what you'd make of the following situation: A colleague of mine forwarded a seemingly innocuous e-mail titled "Why Santa is a Woman" that went on to list numerous reasons Santa can't be male (e.g., a man would wait to Dec. 24 to pick out gifts, would only pick tasteless gifts, would get lost on the sleigh and not stop to ask for directions, etc.). Clearly the e-mail, circulated to all staff, draws upon stereotypes of men. My feeling is that if the tables were turned and a male circulated an e-mail full of stereotypes about women, he'd be fired or at least punished. Most of the staff didn't blink an eye, though a few of us did feel that it was inappropriate and sexist. I'm tired of the double standard so-called "political correctness" has brought to the American workplace. If it's not OK to tell jokes that draw upon stereotypes of women, Jews, blacks, etc., it is also not OK to draw upon stereotypes of men, Christians, whites, etc. Am I wrong or merely overreacting? Fed up in Washington, D.C. Dear Fed up: First of all, the preempting of workplace communications to circulate personal jokes is offensive in itself. Employees of any organization or institution have the right to live and breathe in a banality-free zone -- especially during the escalating Kitsch Fest of Cash Cow Christmas. It's up to the top brass or department head to set stricter professional standards. Mental clutter these days needs pruning, not proliferation. I totally agree with you that a PC double standard has gelled over the past 30 years that favors certain protected groups on campus or in the still-overwhelmingly liberal media. For example, anti-Catholic vitriol from gay activists is routinely tolerated, while even factual observations about American Jews -- such as those by black Muslims about the strong Jewish presence in the media and the entertainment industry -- are censored or condemned as dangerously antisemitic. That PC can have national security consequences was demonstrated at that disastrous Ohio "town meeting" in February when all three officials sent by the Clinton administration to defend U.S. plans to bomb an Islamic country were Jews (Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State William Cohen and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger), a detail studiously ignored by the major media. That event, broadcast by CNN to the world, intensified international suspicions that American foreign policy in the Mideast is not in fact neutral -- which we confirmed last week by our arrogantly unilateral, suspiciously timed and outrageously costly bombing raids on Iraq (about which America's Lilliputian leftists made only the feeblest of protests). In regard to the issue of reverse sexism, yes, indeed, male-bashing became the instant drug of choice for the revived women's movement, a self-crippling addiction from which feminists are just waking up. Your pesky "Why Santa is a Woman" bagatelle was inspired not by figures of intellectual distinction like Samuel Butler (whose "The Authoress of the Odyssey" appeared in 1897) or my rabbinic mentor Harold Bloom (who in "The Book of J" in 1990 argued for the female authorship of the first books of the Bible) but by a soft-headed, smarmily simpering, Clinton-excusing, party-loving socialite feminist, Gloria Steinem, who, in a leaden, sophomoric essay tittered about what a flop Freud would be were he a woman named "Phyllis." I have repeatedly attacked a similar double standard in the gay world, where lesbian comedians feel free to make nasty gibes about penises -- while any gay man who dared to deride female genitalia would be lynched. Comedy, I always maintain, is the only solution to the battle of the sexes. But freedom of speech -- or rational rules of workplace conduct -- must be equally shared. Dear Camille: What do you make of the phenomenal popularity and growing influence of radio moralist Dr. Laura Schlessinger? Though her judgments often lack balance and nuance, and though empathy is not her strong suit, I believe her influence, overall, is much for the good, supplying balls and backbone to a culture that over the past 35 years has been gradually depleted of these necessary masculine attributes. And I find her ferocious domineering of weak callers turns on the ying in me. How about you? Bowled Over in Boulder N E X T_P A G E | Her theme song should be "When the Whip Comes Down" - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.