On Date Rape Camille Paglia Summary

An article on the San Francisco Examiner called “On Date Rape” by Camille Paglia, a humanities professor and cultural critic shares her opinion on today’s dating and rape. Paglia states that it was her generation in the 60’s that “broke the rules” and opened the doors for “freedom” for women. However, she claims that women of today do not acknowledge the risks for “freedom.” On the article, she displays countless of fallacies and weaknesses in reasoning, which might object her position as a feminist. Her conclusions question her validity and sympathy to this issue and does not make a convincing argument. In the article, Paglia demonstrates abrupt reasoning, allures to fear, and she also makes weak arguments to interpret her poorly impressions of today’s dating, and rape. In paragraph 2 of the article, Paglia demonstrates abrupt reasoning in her argument, she states “Today these young women want the freedoms that we won, but they don’t want to acknowledge the risk.” What Paglia is saying is that all women today are trying to take advantage of this independence …show more content…
Throughout the article, she uses fallacious arguments to appeal to fear. In paragraph 2, she says, “The minute you go out with a man, the minute you go to a bar to have drink there is a risk. You can be overpowered,” this is telling women that men are stronger and probably will hurt you, this spreads intimidation and fear among her female audience. Paglia makes a false analogy in the fourth paragraph when she calls women idiots by comparing the car keys being on a top of a car in New York City to a girl being drunk at a fraternity party and going to upstairs with a guy. What Paglia is saying is that it’s the woman’s fault if she gets drunk and raped on a party, but it’s also the men’s responsibility to take care of our