Camille Paglia's On Date Rape

765 Words4 Pages
It is impossible to know the just how many college age women will be raped this year, last year, or any year before. The seriousness of rape is not to be underscored. While it is estimated that 1 in 5 college aged women will be raped before they graduate, exact numbers are hard to come by. Coming forth as a victim of sexual assault is highly stigmatized.The brave act of honesty, and the brutal backlash that can ensue, can sometimes be just as traumatic as the act itself. Most women who are raped remain silent about it. We live in a culture that both fosters rape, and then seeks to shame and repress it. Camille Paglia's article, “On Date Rape,” only serves to do more of the same. Paglia proudly claims that her generation paved the way for an…show more content…
It is a funny thing to be so quick to take credit for “the freedoms that (her generation) won” while not allowing any personal agency to the young women of today. So, while women are no longer forced to be physically chaperoned on their dates, Paglia attempts to chaperone their minds. As if the very act of being female is, in and of itself, the very act of complete and utter…show more content…
She likens the act of getting raped to to the act of leaving one's keys on the hood of their car. Her proposed response to women who have been date raped is, “You stupid idiot, what the hell were you thinking?” As if the very act of being female is, in and of itself, the very act of “asking for it.” She then goes on to claim, with no backing whatsoever, that black and Hispanic women aren't the ones who are making a “fuss about this.” As if rape is something to be “fussy” about...As if black and Hispanic women are somehow immune to date rape. As a people who are already marginalized by society as a whole, Paglia has no qualms about furthering their marginalization by speaking of them in such broad sweeping and general terms. As if the very color of one’s skin is the only determining factor in one’s mental and physical lot in
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    Evaluating an Extended Argument “On Date Rape” After reading this editorial piece entitled “on Date Rape” by Camille Paglia, the humanities professor and cultural critic at San Francisco examiner. Lack of knowledge, incomprehension of social customs and treatment guarded as caution can lead to unfortunate misleading perceptions within a diverse culture. I found out that Paglia’s article is undependable due to the several fallacies such as poising well, appealing to fear, false analogy and hasty

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