Crying Wolf? "Beauty Myth" Author [Naomi Wolf] Takes on Harold Bloom

New York Observer ^ | February 20, 2004 | Rachel Donadio

[aculeus]

And now a word from The Observer culture reporter. Naomi Wolf is back in the news. Nearly two decades after graduating from Yale, Ms. Wolf is taking on her alma mater and the patriarchy, in the form of eminent literary scholar Harold Bloom. According to sources at New York magazine and Yale University, in the course of reporting an article slated to run in next week’s issue, Ms. Wolf has been claiming that Mr. Bloom sexually harassed her while she was an undergraduate 20 years ago.

Mr. Bloom didn’t agree to be interviewed for the New York magazine story, and he declined an interview with The Observer. Sources close to Mr. Bloom, however, told The Observer that the 73-year old Shakespeare scholar has called Ms. Wolf’s claims a "vicious lie." These same sources also note that Mr. Bloom wrote Ms. Wolf a recommendation for a Rhodes scholarship when she was a Yale undergraduate, a scholarship which she subsequently won. When asked about the Rhodes recommendation letter and how it might bear on Ms. Wolf’s accusations against Mr. Bloom, a spokeswoman for New York magazine, Serena Torrey, said, "I can’t comment on the content of a story that’s not closed." She described the story as "a broader examination of the way that Yale and institutions of higher learning handle incidents of sexual misconduct and harassment." After being contacted about the controversy, Ms. Torrey called back to say that the article may not appear in next week’s issue: "It’s subject to a number of reviews. We can’t be sure when it’s running."

Ms. Wolf declined an interview and issued a statement through Ms. Torrey: "My story will speak for itself."

According to Yale University, Ms. Wolf approached the university last month with various requests. For one thing, she wished to explore filing a complaint of sexual harassment against Mr. Bloom. Helaine Klasky, a spokeswoman for Yale, said Ms. Wolf was told that "you are not permitted under Yale statutes to file sexual-harassment complaints 20 years after an alleged event occurred. There were policies and procedures in place when Ms. Wolf attended Yale and the alleged harassment took place, yet she did not avail herself of them." (Yale has a two-year statute of limitations on such complaints.) Ms. Klasky said that last month Ms. Wolf also contacted the offices of Yale president Richard Levin and the dean of Yale College, Richard Brodhead, as well as the public-relations office, in the context of writing her article. Furthermore, according to Ms. Klasky, Ms. Wolf "requested an apology from the university, and was told that an apology could only be issued if wrongdoing was found—and unless one’s filed a formal complaint, there cannot be any apology."

Ms. Wolf made her name as the author of the 1991 best-seller The Beauty Myth, and more recently has written books on motherhood and adolescent sexuality. Her notoriety seemed to have peaked when she famously advised Al Gore during the 2000 campaign, suggesting that he wear more "earth tones" in order to appeal to the women’s vote, and reportedly collected a monthly fee of $15,000 for her advice.

Sources close to Mr. Bloom said that Ms. Wolf never tried reaching the professor at home—his number is listed—but rather left specific, and potentially incendiary, phone messages with administrative assistants at his two Yale offices.

In her 1997 book Promiscuities, Ms. Wolf wrote about an unnamed college professor who placed his hand between her legs after showing up at her apartment to discuss her poetry. Other classmates, she claimed, had had similar experiences, but she thought she could resist. "My whole body, my whole self-image, once again, again, burned with culpability," she wrote. "It felt so familiar: this sense of being exposed as if in a slow-moving dream of shame. I could practically hear my own pulse: What had I done, done, done?"

Ms. Wolf’s editor at New York, Joanna Coles, a former reporter for the Times of London, denied that Ms. Wolf had contacted Yale about a sexual-harassment claim. Ms. Wolf had been "working with a lawyer on this story," Ms. Coles said. "She is fully aware of what is on the statute, and she had no intention at all of bringing a claim against Harold Bloom."

Ms. Coles told The Observer that Yale had been uncooperative with Ms. Wolf in her efforts to report on its sexual-harassment policies. "She’s been back and forth trying to talk to people at the university for months and months," Ms. Coles said. "She succeeded in talking to some of them, but she didn’t get the information that she was looking for."

Ms. Wolf’s article landed during a particularly turbulent few weeks at New York magazine, with editor in chief Caroline Miller departing as former New York Times Magazine editor Adam Moss prepares to take over the reins.

Camille Paglia, who traded blows with Ms. Wolf in the early 1990’s over their radically different views on female sexual power, said she was no longer at war with Ms. Wolf, but was "shocked" to learn of Ms. Wolf’s accusations against Mr. Bloom, who is a long-time mentor of Ms. Paglia’s.

"I just feel it’s indecent that if Naomi Wolf did not have the courage to pursue the matter at the time, or in the 1990’s, and put her own reputation on the line, then to bring all of this down on a man who is in his 70’s and has health problems—who has become a culture hero to readers in the humanities around the world—to drag him into a ‘he said/she said’ scenario so late in the game, to me demonstrates a lack of proportion and a basic sense of fair play," said Ms. Paglia, who is professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she said she helped institute that university’s sexual-harassment policies in the 1980s.

"At the beginning of the 90’s, people said, ‘Oh, Naomi Wolf, this great thinker,’" said Ms. Paglia. "But what she’s managed to do in 10 years is marginalize herself as a chronicler of teenage angst. She doesn’t want to leave that magic island when she was the ripening teenager. How many times do we have to relive Naomi Wolf’s growing up? How many books, how many articles, Naomi, are you going to impose on us so we have to be dragged back to your teenage-heartbreak years? This is regressive! It’s childish! Move on! Move on! Get on to menopause next!"

Since Ms. Wolf’s days at Yale—she graduated in 1986—the university has, like many of its counterparts, strengthened its sexual-harassment grievance procedures. In the late 1990’s, the university instituted a strict policy forbidding student-teacher relationships.

Sources at New York said that Ms. Wolf’s article was being fact-checked, and may change significantly in the next few days.

You may reach Rachel Donadio via email at: rdonadio@observer.com.

This column ran on page 6 in the 2/23/2004 edition of The New York Observer

[mondonico]

Another great quote from Camille Paglia on Naomi posted here.:

"It really grates on me that Naomi Wolf for her entire life has been batting her eyes and bobbing her boobs in the face of men and made a profession out of courting male attention by flirting and offering her sexual allure."

[Snuffington]

Another pathetic cry for attention from a has-been leftist possuer. Al Sharptonesqe in the way she's willing to slander someone else in her own cry for attention. Camile Paglia had her character nailed long ago.

[ikka]

There is revealing insight here, however, into the types of people that run in liberal social circles.

She is a crappy writer. And yes, the folks she is dealing with are well-off, liberal losers.

[OpusatFR]

Dear lord, Wolf is just tedious.