Camille Paglia on pronouns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nL8eRuGMmc

Whole speech: Camille Paglia: Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism (and pronouns). Brooklyn Public Library, March 16, 2017 (1:20:50)

Q: So, in the realm of free speech, I was curious about your thoughts on the backlash received by Prof. Jordan Peterson on the U. of Toronto campus. Have you heard of the issue?

Paglia: No, I haven't. Want to tell us a little bit?

Q: Basically, he is in opposition of bill C-16 and basically his refusal of using gender pronouns on the campus. [NOTE: this is only partially correct. He has never refused to use someone's idiopronouns when asked. But he was and is opposed to making a law requiring it because that's compelled speech, an infringement on free speech.]

Paglia: Oh.

Q: He's received enormous backlash in his videos on Youtube—

Paglia: Wait. This professor refused to use the pronouns that are being requested or demanded by gender activists.

Q: Yes.

Paglia: Okay. Well, more power to him, is what I say. This is getting ridiculous. My Ph.D. is in English literature from Yale. Contribute to the language. Write a poem. Write a book. Look at the way Gloria Steinem won her one great accomplishment, that she was a cofounder of Ms. Magazine. And there was a very important contribution made by the word "Ms.", because before this, unlike the Romance languages, in English you had Mrs. or Miss. So if you were unmarried at age 40, 50, 60, you were still called "Miss" in a very demeaning way. Whereas in France a young girl is called "Mademoiselle." The minute a person gets in her 20s and afterward, she is called "Madame", whether she's married or unmarried. "Madame." She has dignity, she has authority. And the same thing in Italian. You're "Signorina" if you're young, and "Signora" if you're old. It doesn't matter if you're married or unmarried. "Ms." was a very important contribution to the language. It took time to be absorbed.

But this political agitation to change everyday common speech, are you kidding me? People shouldn't be putting up with this for one second. What kind of nonsense is this? Absolute nonsense! These people who are searching for their own identity and want to impose on others, that's not my philosophy as a libertarian. That is an invasion, intrusion into other people's personal rights. Why? The English Language is owned by everyone! It was created by great artists: Chaucer and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Joyce and so on! How dare you, you sniveling little maniacs, to tell us how we're going to use pronouns! Go take a hike, I say to them!