Salon.com > Naomi Wolf

Must-see morning clip

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:32:00 +0000

In which Stephen Colbert beats Naomi Wolf at her own game, and compares the vagina to a Dan Brown novel:

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Naomi Wolf

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In “Glittering” return, Paglia lets loose

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 11:45:00 +0000

Camille Paglia, art historian, culture critic, founding Salon columnist and expert provocateur, has a new book out, “Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars” that looks closely at 29 wide-ranging works -- paintings to sculpture to performance art to digital art -- that she sees as defining works of art. And for the voluble and volatile Paglia, the lean precision of the book is a marvel.

Each work is paired with a relatively short and compulsively readable essay, a format she writes was inspired by “Catholic breviaries of devotional images, like Mass cards of the saints.” Her choices range from the classic and expected to the obscure and the startling (she proclaims “Star Wars” creator George Lucas our greatest living artist). It’s Paglia at her best. Even her explorations of the more familiar works will have you marveling anew -- her chapter on Picasso’s notorious “Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” had me wanting to run to the MoMa to see it again with fresh eyes. She even manages to breathe new life into an overexposed, coffee-mugged work like “Irises”:

Naomi Wolf says her critics have problems with female sexuality

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:39:00 +0000

In a Time article, author Naomi Wolf shot back at critics who attacked her psuedo-scientific, airy-fairy "Vagina: A New Biography," for being too pseudo-scientific and airy-fairy. But much of Wolf's self-justifying rebuttal amounts to her complaining that critics don't like her book because people are afraid to talk about women and sex.

See here:

While many responses to my book were positive, the tone of some of the critiques—from “mystic woo woo about the frou frou" to “bad news for everyone who has one” — suggests to me that our culture, even one in which Fifty Shades of Grey is being devoured by millions of women, still has problems discussing women’s sexuality in a positive, empowering way. And we need — perhaps women especially — to be able to have that conversation.

Critics attack Naomi Wolf

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:05:00 +0000

It's only been one day since Naomi Wolf's "Vagina: A New Biography" came out, and already critics are jumping on it. At Slate Katie Roiphe (who has her own detractors) describes the book as self-parody, writing, "I doubt the most brilliant novelist in the world could have created a more skewering satire of Naomi Wolf’s career." And when asked what she wants readers to take away from her book, Wolf told Publisher's Weekly, "That the vagina is misunderstood if we see it as a sex organ, reductively. That it’s much better understood as part of the female brain, an extension of the female consciousness, connected to women’s creativity, confidence, and sense of connection to the world." That doesn't sound much better.

10. Naomi Wolf

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

In 2004, Naomi Wolf wrote a powerful story for New York magazine about being sexually harassed by a powerful and widely respected man, and failing to come forward for years because coming forward with a harassment claim is often more damaging for the accuser than for the accused.

In 2010 she participated in the widespread questioning of the secret ties and motives of the women who accused Julian Assange of sexual assault and rape. In a sarcastic open letter to Interpol, Wolf seriously downplayed the severity of the claims levied against Assange, in order to argue that he's the victim of a political conspiracy.

Here's Wolf's version of events:

I see that Julian Assange is accused of having consensual sex with two women, in one case using a condom that broke. I understand, from the alleged victims' complaints to the media, that Assange is also accused of texting and tweeting in the taxi on the way to one of the women's apartments while on a date, and, disgustingly enough, 'reading stories about himself online' in the cab. Both alleged victims are also upset that he began dating a second woman while still being in a relationship with the first. (Of course, as a feminist, I am also pleased that the alleged victims are using feminist-inspired rhetoric and law to assuage what appears to be personal injured feelings. That's what our brave suffragette foremothers intended!).