Naomi Wolf

Naomi R. Wolf (born November 12, 1962)[1] [2] [3]  is an American author and former political consultant. With the publication of the 1991 bestselling book The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokeswoman of what was later described as the third wave of the feminist movement.[4]  In 2007, she published the bestselling book The End of America.



Contents
[hide]  *1 Childhood, education and personal life  ==Childhood, education and personal life[ edit] == Wolf was born in San Francisco, to a Jewish family.[5] [6]  Her mother is Deborah Goleman, an anthropologist and the author of The Lesbian Community.[4]  Her father is the Romanian-born gothic horror scholar Leonard Wolf. She attended Lowell High School and debated in regional speech tournaments as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. Wolf then attended Yale University where in 1984, she received her Bachelor of Arts in English literature. From 1985 to 1987, she was a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford.[7]
 * 2 Works
 * 2.1 The Beauty Myth
 * 2.2 Promiscuities
 * 2.3 Misconceptions
 * 2.4 The End of America
 * 2.5 Give Me Liberty
 * 2.6 Vagina: A New Biography
 * 2.7 Other writings
 * 3 Feminist positions
 * 4 Alleged sexual encroachment incident at Yale
 * 5 Political consultant
 * 6 Occupy Wall Street
 * 7 Controversies over alleged conspiracy theories
 * 7.1 2013
 * 7.2 2014
 * 8 Selected bibliography
 * 9 References
 * 10 External links

In 2004, Wolf reported an alleged incident of "sexual encroachment" by professor Harold Bloom she had experienced when she was a Yale undergraduate working on poetry with Bloom. Frustrated in her efforts to gain satisfaction that the university would take such an incident seriously, Wolf made her complaint public.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-NYmag_8-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[8]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf was married to journalist David Shipley. They have two children, Rosa (b. 1995) and Joseph (b. 2000). Wolf and Shipley divorced in 2005.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[9] ==Works<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == ===The Beauty Myth<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the early 1990s, Wolf gained international fame as a spokeswoman of third-wave feminism<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-10" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[10] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-11" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[11]  as a result of the success of her first book The Beauty Myth, which became an international bestseller.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-huffpo-blog_7-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[7]  In the book, she argues that "beauty" as a normative value is entirely socially constructed, and that the patriarchy determines the content of that construction with the goal of reproducing its own hegemony.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf posits the idea of an "iron-maiden," an intrinsically unattainable standard that is then used to punish women physically and psychologically for their failure to achieve and conform to it. Wolf criticized the fashion and beauty industries as exploitative of women, but added that the beauty myth extended into all areas of human functioning. Wolf writes that women should have "the choice to do whatever we want with our faces and bodies without being punished by an ideology that is using attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments regarding women's appearance to undermine us psychologically and politically". Wolf argues that women were under assault by the "beauty myth" in five areas: work, religion, sex, violence, and hunger. Ultimately, Wolf argues for a relaxation of normative standards of beauty.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[12] In her introduction, Wolf positioned her argument against the concerns of second-wave feminists and offered the following analysis:

Naomi Wolf speaking at Brooklyn Law School, January 29, 2009<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us... [D]uring the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile,eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest-growing specialty... [P]ornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal...More women have more money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.3999996185303px;">[13] <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf's book was a bestseller, receiving polarized responses from the public and mainstream media, but winning praise from most feminists. Second-wave feminist Germaine Greer wrote that The Beauty Myth was "the most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch, and Gloria Steinem wrote, "The Beauty Myth is a smart, angry, insightful book, and a clarion call to freedom. Every woman should read it."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[14]  British novelist Fay Weldon called the book "essential reading for the New Woman".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-peopleMagazine_15-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[15]  Betty Friedan wrote in Allure magazine that "'The Beauty Myth' and the controversy it is eliciting could be a hopeful sign of a new surge of feminist consciousness."

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">However, Camille Paglia, whose Sexual Personae was published the same year as The Beauty Myth, derided Wolf as unable to perform "historical analysis", and called her education "completely removed from reality."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[16]  Her comments touched off a series of contentious debates between Wolf and Paglia in the pages of The New Republic.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[17] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[18] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[19]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Likewise, Christina Hoff Sommers criticized Wolf for publishing the estimate that 150,000 women were dying every year from anorexia. Sommers wrote that the actual number is closer to 100, a figure which others, such as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, stated to be much too low. In the same interview, Sommers stated that Wolf had retracted the figure.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[20]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The New York Times published a harshly critical assessment of Wolf's work by Caryn James. She lambasted the book as a "sloppily researched polemic as dismissible as a hackneyed adventure film...Even by the standards of pop-cultural feminist studies, The Beauty Myth is a mess."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[21]  In a comparatively positive review, The Washington Post called the book "persuasive" and praised its "accumulated evidence."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-22" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[22] ===Promiscuities<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Promiscuities reports on and analyzes the shifting patterns of contemporary adolescent sexuality. Wolf argues that literature is rife with examples of male coming-of-age stories, covered autobiographically by D. H. Lawrence, Tobias Wolff, J. D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway, and covered misogynistically by Henry Miller, Philip Roth, and Norman Mailer. Wolf insists, however, that female accounts of adolescent sexuality have been systematically suppressed. She adduces cross-cultural material to demonstrate that women have, across history, been celebrated as more carnal than men. Wolf also argues that women must reclaim the legitimacy of their own sexuality by shattering the polarization of women between virgin and whore.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[23]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Promiscuities received, in general, negative reviews. The New York Times published a review that characterized Wolf as a "frustratingly inept messenger: a sloppy thinker and incompetent writer. She tries in vain to pass off tired observations as radical aperçus, subjective musings as generational truths, sappy suggestions as useful ideas".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-24" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[24]  Two days earlier, however, a different Times reviewer praised the book, writing, "Anyone—particularly anyone who, like Ms. Wolf, was born in the 1960s—will have a very hard time putting down Promiscuities. Told through a series of confessions, her book is a searing and thoroughly fascinating exploration of the complex wildlife of female sexuality and desire."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-25" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[25]  In contrast, The Library Journal excoriated the work, writing, "Overgeneralization abounds as she attempts to apply the microcosmic events of this mostly white, middle-class, liberal milieu to a whole generation....There is a desperate defensiveness in the tone of this book which diminishes the force of her argument."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-26" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[26] ===Misconceptions<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Misconceptions examines modern assumptions surrounding pregnancy and childbirth. Most of the book is told through the prism of Wolf's personal experience of her first pregnancy. She describes the "vacuous impassivity" of the ultrasound technician who gives her the first glimpse of her new baby. Wolf both laments her C-sectionand examines why the procedure is commonplace in the United States, and advocates a return to more personal approaches to childbirth such as midwifery. The second half of the book catalogs a series of anecdotes about life after giving birth, focusing in particular on inequalities that arise in men and women's approaches and adjustments to child care.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-27" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[27] ===The End of America<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Wolf takes a historical look at the rise of fascism, outlining 10 steps necessary for a fascist group (or government) to destroy the democratic character of a nation-state and subvert the social/political liberty previously exercised by its citizens:

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The book details how this pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and elsewhere, and analyzes its emergence and application of all the 10 steps in American political affairs since the September 11 attacks.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-29" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[29] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-tws06dec26_30-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[30]
 * 1) Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
 * 2) Create secret prisons where torture takes place
 * 3) Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens
 * 4) Set up an internal surveillance system
 * 5) Harass citizens' groups
 * 6) Engage in arbitrary detention and release
 * 7) Target key individuals
 * 8) Control the press
 * 9) Treat all political dissidents as traitors
 * 10) Suspend the rule of law<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-28" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[28]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The End of America was adapted for the screen as a documentary by filmmakers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, best known for The Devil Came on Horseback andThe Trials of Darryl Hunt. It had its worldwide premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival on October 17, 2008. It has since been screened at Sheffield DocFest in the UK, as well as in limited release at New York City's IFC Center. The film became available online on October 21, 2008 at SnagFilms. End of Americawas favorably reviewed in The New York Times by Stephen Holden<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-31" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[31]  as well as in Variety magazine.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-32" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[32]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Mark Nuckols of the Russian Academy of National Economy argues in The Atlantic that Wolf draws false historical parallels based on highly selective and misleading citations.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Nuckols_33-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[33] ===Give Me Liberty<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries was written as a sequel to The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the book, Wolf looks at times and places in history where citizens were faced with the closing of an open society and successfully fought back, and looks back at the ordinary people of the Founding Fathers of the United States' generation, the ones not named by history, all of whom had this "vision of liberty" and moved it forward by putting their lives on the line to make the vision real. She is an outspoken advocate for citizenship and wonders whether younger Americans have the skills and commitment to act as true citizens.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-tws07decabbbs_34-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[34]  She wrote in 2007: <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">This lack of understanding about how democracy works is disturbing enough. But at a time when our system of government is under assault from an administration that ignores traditional checks and balances, engages in illegal wiretapping and writes secret laws on torture, it means that we're facing an unprecedented crisis. As the Founders knew, if citizens are ignorant of or complacent about the proper workings of a republic "of laws not of men," then any leader of any party – or any tyrannical Congress or even a tyrannical majority – can abuse the power they hold. But at this moment of threat to the system the Framers set in place, a third of young Americans don't really understand what they were up to.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-tws07dec_35-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.3999996185303px;">[35] ===Vagina: A New Biography<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Published in 2012 on the topic of the vagina, Vagina: A New Biography was widely criticized, especially by feminist authors. Calling it "ludicrous" at Slate.com, Katie Roiphe wrote, "I doubt the most brilliant novelist in the world could have created a more skewering satire of Naomi Wolf’s career than her latest book."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-36" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[36]  In The Nation,Katha Pollitt said the book was "silly" and contained "much dubious neuroscience and much foolishness"; she concluded, "It’s lucky vaginas can’t read, or mine would be cringing in embarrassment."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-37" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[37]  Although writing that "Wolf’s ideas and suggestions in 'Vagina' are valuable ones," Toni Bentley said in The New York Times Book Review that the book contained "shoddy" research and "is undermined by the fact that she has rendered herself less than unreliable over the past couple of decades, with one rant more hysterical than another."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-38" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[38]  Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum decried the book’s "painful" writing and its "hoary ideas about how women think."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-39" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[39]  In The New York Observer, Nina Burleigh suggested that critics of the book were so vehement "because (a) their editors handed the book to them for review because they thought it was an Important Feminist Book when it's actually slight and (b) there’s a grain of truth in what she’s trying to say."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-40" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[40]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In response to the criticism, Wolf stated the following in a television interview: <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">...anything that shows documentation of the brain and vagina connection is going to alarm some feminists... ...also feminism has kind of retreated into the academy and sort of embraced the idea that all gender is socially constructed and so here is a book that is actually looking at science... ... though there has been some criticisms of the book from some feminists ... who say, well you can’t look at the science because that means we have to grapple with the science... ... to me the feminist task of creating a just world isn’t changed at all by this fascinating neuroscience that shows some differences between men and women.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-41" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[41] ===Other writings<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf's other books include Fire with Fire on politics, female empowerment and women's sexual liberation.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-42" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[42]  The New York Times assailed the work for its "dubious oversimplifications and highly debatable assertions" and its "disconcerting penchant for inflationary prose," nonetheless noting Wolf's "efforts to articulate an accessible, pragmatic feminism, ...helping to replace strident dogma with common sense."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-43" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[43]  The Time magazine reviewer dismissed the book as "flawed," noting however that Wolf was "an engaging raconteur" who was also "savvy about the role of TV – especially the Thomas-Hill hearings and daytime talk shows – in radicalizing women, including homemakers." The reviewer characterized the book as advocating an inclusive strain of feminism that welcomed abortion opponents.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-44" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[44]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In 2005, Wolf published The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from my Father on How to Live, Love, and See, which chronicled her midlife crisis attempt to reclaim her creative and poetic vision and revalue her father's love, and her father's force as an artist and a teacher. ==Feminist positions<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In publishing an article in The New Republic that criticized contemporary pro-choice positions, Wolf argued that the movement had "developed a lexicon ofdehumanization" and urged feminists to accept abortion as a form of homicide and defend the procedure within the ambiguity of this moral conundrum. She continues, "Abortion should be legal; it is sometimes even necessary. Sometimes the mother must be able to decide that the fetus, in its full humanity, must die."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Wolf-TNR_45-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[45]
 * Abortion

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf concluded by speculating that in a world of "real gender equality," passionate feminists "might well hold candlelight vigils at abortion clinics, standing shoulder to shoulder with the doctors who work there, commemorating and saying goodbye to the dead."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Wolf-TNR_45-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[45]  More recently, in an article on the subtle manipulation of George W. Bush's image among women, Wolf wrote "Abortion is an issue not of Ms. Magazine-style fanaticism or suicidal Republican religious reaction, but a complex issue."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-46" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[46]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Pro-life commentators said Wolf "fails to carry through fully in her analysis...this simply is not, or should not be, the unqualified response of our society to the destruction of innocent life."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-47" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[47]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf suggested in 2003 that the ubiquity of internet pornography tends to enervate the sexual attraction of men toward typical real women. She writes, "The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as 'porn-worthy.' Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention." Wolf advocates abstaining from porn not on moral grounds, but because "greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-nymag.com_48-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[48]
 * Pornography

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf has examined how modern Western women, born in inclusive, egalitarian liberal democracies, are assuming positions of leadership in neofascist political movements: <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">Second-wave feminist theory abounds in assertions that war, racism, love of hierarchy, and general repressiveness belong to “patriarchy”; women’s leadership, by contrast, would naturally create a more inclusive, collaborative world. The problem is that it has never worked out that way, as the rise of women to leadership positions in Western Europe’s far-right parties should remind us. Leaders such as Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, Pia Kjaersgaard of Danish People's Party, and Siv Jensen of Norway’s Progress Party reflect the enduring appeal of neofascist movements to many modern women in egalitarian, inclusive liberal democracies.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-49" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.3999996185303px;">[49]
 * Women in Fascism

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf has spoken about the dress required of women living in Muslim countries: <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">The West interprets veiling as repression of women and suppression of their sexuality. But when I traveled in Muslim countries and was invited to join a discussion in women-only settings within Muslim homes, I learned that Muslim attitudes toward women's appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private, of what is due to God and what is due to one's husband. It is not that Islam suppresses sexuality, but that it embodies a strongly developed sense of its appropriate channeling – toward marriage, the bonds that sustain family life, and the attachment that secures a home.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-50" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.3999996185303px;">[50]
 * Women in Islamic countries

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The December 20, 2010 airing of ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Now! Democracy Now!]'' featured a segment titled "Naomi Wolf vs. Jaclyn Friedman: Feminists Debate the Sexual Allegations Against Julian Assange" in which Jaclyn Friedman argues the sexual assault allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange shouldn't be dismissed just because they may be politically motivated. Wolf argues that the alleged victims should have said no, that they consented to having sex with Assange, that the charges are politically motivated and demean the cause of legitimate rape victims. The discussion took place shortly after the leaking of the Swedish police report on the incident.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-51" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[51] ==Alleged sexual encroachment incident at Yale<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In 2004, a year before her divorce, Wolf wrote an article for New York magazine accusing literary scholar Harold Bloom of a "sexual encroachment" more than two decades earlier by touching her thigh. She said that what she alleged Bloom did was not harassment, either legally or emotionally, and she did not think herself a "victim", but that she had harbored this secret for 21 years. Explaining why she had finally gone public with the charges, Wolf wrote, "I began, nearly a year ago, to try—privately—to start a conversation with my alma mater that would reassure me that steps had been taken in the ensuing years to ensure that unwanted sexual advances of this sort weren't still occurring. I expected Yale to be responsive. After nine months and many calls and e-mails, I was shocked to conclude that the atmosphere of collusion that had helped to keep me quiet twenty years ago was still intact—as secretive as a Masonic lodge."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-NYmag_8-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[8]
 * Defense of Julian Assange

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Reflecting on Yale University's sexual harassment guidelines, Wolf wrote, "Sexual encroachment in an educational context or a workplace is, most seriously, a corruption of meritocracy; it is in this sense parallel to bribery. I was not traumatized personally, but my educational experience was corrupted. If we rephrase sexual transgression in school and work as a civil-rights and civil-society issue, everything becomes less emotional, less personal. If we see this as a systemic corruption issue, then when people bring allegations, the focus will be on whether the institution has been damaged in its larger mission."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-NYmag_8-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[8]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">A formal complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights on March 15, 2011, by 16 current and former Yale students—12 female and 4 male—describing a sexually hostile environment at Yale. A federal investigation of Yale University began in March 2011 in response to the complaints.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-52" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[52]  "Wolf said on CBS's The Early Show: 'Yale has been systematically covering up much more serious crimes than the ones that can be easily identified. What they do is that they use the sexual harassment grievance procedure in a very cynical way, purporting to be supporting victims, but actually using a process to stonewall victims, to isolate them, and to protect the university'", as quoted in the Daily Mail.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-53" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[53]  Yale settled the Federal complaint in June 2012, acknowledging "inadequacies" but not "facing disciplinary action with the understanding that it keeps in place policy changes instituted after the complaint was filed. The school must report on its progress to the Office of Civil Rights until May 2014."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-54" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[54] ==Political consultant<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">]  == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wolf was involved in Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election bid, brainstorming with the president's team about ways to reach female voters.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Seelye_55-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[55]  During Al Gore's unsuccessful bid for the presidency in the 2000 election, Wolf was hired as a consultant to target female voters, reprising her role in the Clinton campaign. Wolf's ideas and participation in the Gore campaign generated considerable media coverage and criticism.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-56" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[56]  According to a report by Michael Duffy in Time, Wolf was paid a monthly salary of $15,000 "in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the women's vote to shirt-and-tie combinations." This article was the original source of the widely reported assertion that Wolf was responsible for Gore's "three-buttoned, earth-toned look."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Seelye_55-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[55] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-57" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[57]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In an interview with Melinda Henneberger in The New York Times, Wolf denied ever advising Gore on his wardrobe. Wolf herself said she mentioned the term "alpha male" only once in passing and that "[it] was just a truism, something the pundits had been saying for months, that the vice president is in a supportive role and the President is in an initiatory role... I used those terms as shorthand in talking about the difference in their job descriptions".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-58" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[58] ==Occupy Wall Street<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">On October 18, 2011, Wolf was arrested in New York during the Occupy Wall Street protests, and spent about half an hour in a cell.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-59" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[59]  Speaking about her arrest, Wolf said, "I was taken into custody for disobeying an unlawful order. The issue is that I actually know New York City permit law ... I didn’t choose to get myself arrested. I chose to obey the law and that didn’t protect me."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-60" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[60]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">A month later, Wolf wrote an article that argued that attacks on the Occupy movement were a coordinated plot, orchestrated by federal law enforcement agencies and implemented by American mayors. She alleged that "congressional overseers, with the blessing of the White House, told the DHS to authorise mayors to order their police forces—pumped up with millions of dollars of hardware and training from the DHS—to make war on peaceful citizens."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Crackdown_61-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[61]  The response to this article ranged from praise to criticism of Wolf for being overly speculative and creating a "conspiracy theory".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-62" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[62]  Wolf responded that there is ample evidence for her argument, and proceeded to review the information available to her at the time of the article, and new evidence since that time.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-63" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[63]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In early 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing the Global Intelligence Files, a trove of e-mails obtained via a hack by Anonymous and Jeremy Hammond. Among them was an email with an official Department of Homeland Security document from October 2011 attached. It indicated that DHS was closely watching Occupy, and concluded, "While the peaceful nature of the protests has served so far to mitigate their impact, larger numbers and support from groups such as Anonymous substantially increase the risk for potential incidents and enhance the potential security risk to critical infrastructure." In late December 2012, FBI documents released following an FOIArequest from the Partnership for Civil Justice revealed that the FBI used counterterrorism agents and other resources to extensively monitor the national Occupy movement.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-64" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[64]  The documents contained no references to agency personnel covertly infiltrating Occupy branches, but did indicate that the FBI gathered information from police departments and other law enforcement agencies relating to planned protests.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-nyt2012-12-25_65-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[65]  Additionally, the blog Techdirt reported that the documents disclosed a plot by unnamed parties "to murder OWS leadership in Texas" but that "the FBI never bothered to inform the targets of the threats against their lives."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-66" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[66]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">According to Mother Jones, none of the documents revealed efforts by federal law enforcement to disband the Occupy camps or provided much evidence that federal officials attempted to suppress protesters' free speech rights. It was, said Mother Jones, "a far cry from Wolf's contention"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-67" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[67]  in a December 2012 piece for The Guardian: <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">"It was more sophisticated than we had imagined: new documents show that the violent crackdown on Occupy last fall [2011]—so mystifying at the time—was not just coordinated at the level of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and local police. The crackdown, which involved, as you may recall, violent arrests, group disruption, canister missiles to the skulls of protesters, people held in handcuffs so tight they were injured, people held in bondage till they were forced to wet or soil themselves—was coordinated with the big banks themselves."

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">"How simple … just to label an entity a 'terrorist organization' and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing."

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:inherit;">"[The FBI crackdown on Occupy] was never really about 'the terrorists'. It was not even about civil unrest. It was always about this moment, when vast crimes might be uncovered by citizens—it was always, that is to say, meant to be about you."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-68" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:10.3999996185303px;">[68] ==Controversies over alleged conspiracy theories<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == ===2013<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Writing in The Atlantic in January 2013, law and business professor Mark Nuckols declared, "In her various books, articles, and public speeches, Wolf has demonstrated recurring disregard for the historical record and consistently mutilated the truth with selective and ultimately deceptive use of her sources. All of this might have little real-world import when she writes about her orgasms or her weight problems. But when she distorts facts to advance her political agenda, she dishonors the victims of history and poisons present-day public discourse about issues of vital importance to a free society." In particular, Nuckols argued, "Naomi Wolf has for many years now been claiming that a fascist coup in America is imminent. Most recently in The Guardian she alleged, with no substantiation, that the U.S. government and big American banks are conspiring to impose a 'totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent.'"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Nuckols_33-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[33]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In June 2013, New York magazine reported that in a recent Facebook post, Wolf had expressed her "creeping concern" that NSA leaker Edward Snowden "is not who he purports to be, and that the motivations involved in the story may be more complex than they appear to be." Wolf was similarly skeptical of Snowden's "very pretty pole-dancing Facebooking girlfriend who appeared for, well, no reason in the media coverage … and who keeps leaking commentary, so her picture can be recycled in the press."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-69" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[69]  Wolf responded at her website, "I do find a great deal of media/blog discussion about serious questions such as those I raised, questions that relate to querying some sources of news stories, and their potential relationship to intelligence agencies or to other agendas that may not coincide with the overt narrative, to be extraordinarily ill-informed and naive." Specifically regarding Snowden, she wrote, "Why should it be seen as bizarre to wonder, if there are some potential red flags—the key term is 'wonder'—if a former NSA spy turned apparent whistleblower might possibly still be—working for the same people he was working for before?"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-70" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[70] ===2014<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In October 2014, Wolf again aroused controversy, with a series of Facebook posts questioning the authenticity of videos that purported to show beheadings of two Americans and two Britons by the Islamic State, implying that they had been staged by the U.S. government and that the victims and their parents were actors. Wolf also charged that the U.S. was dispatching troops not to assist in treating the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa but to carry the disease back home to justify a military takeover of America. She further said that the Scottish independence referendum, in which Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom, was faked.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Vox_71-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[71]  Speaking about this at a demonstration in Glasgow on October 12, Wolf said, "I truly believe it was rigged."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-72" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[72]  Vox journalist Max Fisher urged Wolf's readers "to understand the distinction between her earlier work, which rose on its merits, and her newer conspiracy theories, which are unhinged, damaging, and dangerous."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Vox_71-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[71]  Charles C. W. Cooke observed at the National Review Online, "Over the last eight years, Naomi Wolf has written hysterically about coups and about vaginas and about little else besides. She has repeatedly insisted that the country is on the verge of martial law, and transmogrified every threat—both pronounced and overhyped—into a government-led plot to establish a dictatorship. She has made prediction after prediction that has simply not come to pass. Hers are not sober and sensible forecasts of runaway human nature, institutional atrophy, and constitutional decline, but psychedelic fever-dreams that are more typically suited to the InfoWars crowd."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-73" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[73]  Under the headline "Naomi Wolf Went Off the Deep End Long Ago," The American Spectator advised, "Her words must be taken not just with a grain of salt, but a full shaker's worth."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-74" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[74]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Responding to such criticism, Wolf said, "All the people who are attacking me right now for 'conspiracy theories' have no idea what they are talking about … people who assume the dominant narrative MUST BE TRUE and the dominant reasons MUST BE REAL are not experienced in how that world works." To her nearly 100,000 Facebook followers, Wolf maintained, "I stand by what I wrote."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-75" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[75]  However, in a follow-up Facebook post two days later, Wolf back-pedaled. "I am not asserting that the ISIS videos have been staged," she wrote. "I certainly sincerely apologize if one of my posts was insensitively worded. I have taken that one down. … I am not saying the ISIS beheading videos are not authentic. I am not saying they are not records of terrible atrocities. I am saying that they are not yet independently confirmed by two sources as authentic, which any Journalism School teaches, and the single source for several of them, SITE, which received half a million dollars in government funding in 2004, and which is the only source cited for several, has conflicts of interest that should be disclosed to readers of news outlets."