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Wikipedia

Naomi Wolf

February 15, 2024

Not to be confused with Naomi Klein.

Naomi Rebekah Wolf (born 1962) is an American feminist author, journalist, and conspiracy theorist.

Naomi Wolf
Wolf in 2012
BornNaomi Rebekah Wolf
1962 (age 61–62)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation
  • author
  • political consultant
  • journalist
EducationYale University (BA)
New College, Oxford (DPhil)
Notable worksThe Beauty Myth
The End of America
Misconceptions
Fire with Fire
Outrages
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1993; div. 2005)​
Brian O'Shea
​
(m. 2018)​
[1]
Children2
Website
dailyclout.io

After the 1991 publication of her first book, The Beauty Myth, Wolf became a prominent figure in the third wave of the feminist movement.[2][3] Feminists including Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan praised her work. Others, including Camille Paglia, criticized it. In the 1990s, she was a political advisor to the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.[4]

Wolf's later books include the bestseller The End of America in 2007 and Vagina: A New Biography. Critics have challenged the quality and accuracy of her books' scholarship; her serious misreading of court records for Outrages (2019) led to its U.S. publication being canceled.[5] Wolf's career in journalism has included topics such as abortion and the Occupy Wall Street movement in articles for media outlets such as The Nation, The New Republic, The Guardian, and The Huffington Post.

Since around 2014, Wolf has been described by journalists and media outlets as a conspiracy theorist.[a] She has been criticized for posting misinformation on topics such as beheadings carried out by ISIS, the Western African Ebola virus epidemic, and Edward Snowden.[6][7][8]

Wolf has objected to COVID-19 lockdowns and criticized COVID-19 vaccines.[9][10] In June 2021, her Twitter account was suspended for posting anti-vaccine misinformation.[11]

Early life and education

Naomi Rebekah Wolf was born in 1962[12][13] in San Francisco, California, to a Jewish family.[14][15] Her mother is Deborah Goleman Wolf, an anthropologist and the author of The Lesbian Community.[2] Her father was Leonard Wolf, a Romanian-born scholar of gothic horror novels, faculty member at San Francisco State University, and Yiddish translator. Leonard Wolf died from Parkinson's disease on March 20, 2019.[16] Wolf has a brother, Aaron, and a half-brother, Julius, from her father's earlier relationship; it remained a secret until Wolf was in her 30s.[17]

Wolf attended Lowell High School and debated in regional speech tournaments as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. She attended Yale University, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1984. From 1985 to 1987, she was a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford.[18] Wolf's initial period at Oxford University was difficult, as she experienced "raw sexism, overt snobbery and casual antisemitism". Her writing became so personal and subjective that her tutor advised against submitting her doctoral thesis. Wolf told interviewer Rachel Cooke, writing for The Observer, in 2019: "My subject didn't exist. I wanted to write feminist theory, and I kept being told by the dons there was no such thing." Her writing at this time formed the basis of her first book, The Beauty Myth.[19][20]

Wolf ultimately returned to Oxford, completing her Doctor of Philosophy degree in English literature in 2015. Her thesis, supervised by Stefano Evangelista of Trinity College, formed the basis of her 2019 book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love.[21][22] The thesis (which the journal Times Higher Education called "error-strewn") was subject to significant corrections of its scholarship, prompting several articles in the UK higher education press.[23]

Political consultant

Wolf was involved in President Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection bid, brainstorming with Clinton's team about ways to reach female voters.[4] Hired by Dick Morris, she wanted Morris to promote Clinton as "The Good Father" and a protector of "the American house".[24] She met with him every few weeks for nearly a year, according to the book Morris wrote about the campaign, Behind the Oval Office.[25] Wolf managed to "persuade me to pursue school uniforms, tax breaks for adoption, simpler cross-racial adoption laws and more workplace flexibility."[26] The advice she gave was without payment, Morris said in November 1999, as Wolf was fearful the knowledge of her involvement in the campaign might have negative consequences for Clinton.[25]

During Al Gore's bid for the presidency in the 2000 election, Wolf was hired as a consultant. Her ideas and participation in the campaign generated considerable media coverage.[27] According to a report by Michael Duffy and Karen Tumulty in Time, Wolf was paid a salary of $15,000 (by November 1999, $5,000) per month[26][28] "in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the women's vote to shirt-and-tie combinations."[26] Wolf's direct involvement in the Time article was unclear; she declined to be interviewed on the record.[29]

In a New York Times interview with Melinda Henneberger, Wolf said she had been appointed in January 1999 and denied having advised Gore on his wardrobe. Wolf said she had 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".[28] Wolf told Katharine Viner of The Guardian in 2001: "I believe his agenda for women was a really historic agenda. I was honored to bring the concerns of women to Gore's table. I'm sorry that he didn't win and the controversy was worth it for me." She told Viner the men in Gore's campaign, at the equivalent level, were paid more than she was.[30]

Works

The Beauty Myth (1991)

 
Wolf speaking at Brooklyn Law School, January 29, 2009

In 1991, Wolf gained international attention as a spokeswoman of third-wave feminism after the publication of her first book, The Beauty Myth, an international bestseller.[31][32][33] The New York Times named it "one of the seventy most influential books of the twentieth century".[18][34] She argues that "beauty" as a normative value is entirely socially constructed, and that the patriarchy determines the content of that construction with the objective to maintain women's subjugation.[35]

Wolf proposes the concept of an "iron maiden", an intrinsically unreachable norm that is then used to physically and mentally punish women for failing to achieve and adhere to it. She condemns the fashion and beauty industries for exploiting women, but also writes that the beauty myth pervades all aspects of human life. Wolf believes that women should have "the freedom to do anything we choose with our faces and bodies without being penalized by an ideology that uses attitudes, economic pressure, and even legal judgments about women's looks to psychologically and politically destroy us." She claims that the "beauty myth" has targeted women in five areas: labor, religion, sex, violence, and hunger. Finally, Wolf advocates for a relaxation of conventional beauty norms.[36] In her introduction, she scaffolds her work upon the achievements of second-wave feminists and offers the following analysis:

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.[37]

Accuracy

Christina Hoff Sommers criticized Wolf for publishing the estimate that 150,000 women were dying every year from anorexia. Sommers said she traced the source to the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association, which said it was misquoted; the figure refers to sufferers, not fatalities. Wolf's citation came from a book by Brumberg, who referred to an American Anorexia and Bulimia Association newsletter and misquoted the newsletter. Wolf accepted the error and changed it in future editions. Sommers gave an estimate for the number of fatalities in 1990 as 100–400.[38][39] The annual anorexia casualties in the U.S. were estimated to be around 50 to 60 per year in the mid-1990s.[40] In 1995, for an article in The Independent on Sunday, British journalist Joan Smith recalled asking Wolf to explain her unsourced assertion in The Beauty Myth that the UK "has 3.5 million anorexics or bulimics (95 per cent of them female), with 6,000 new cases yearly". Wolf replied, according to Smith, that she had calculated the statistics from patients with eating disorders at one clinic.[31]

Caspar Schoemaker of the Netherlands Trimbos Institute published a paper in the academic journal Eating Disorders demonstrating that of the 23 statistics cited by Wolf in Beauty Myth, 18 were incorrect, with Wolf citing numbers that average out to 8 times the number in the source she was citing.[41]

Reception

Second-wave feminist Germaine Greer wrote that The Beauty Myth was "the most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch" (Greer's own work), and Gloria Steinem wrote, "The Beauty Myth is a smart, angry, insightful book, and a clarion call to freedom. Every woman should read it."[42] British novelist Fay Weldon called the book "essential reading for the New Woman".[43] 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."[citation needed]

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".[44] These comments touched off a series of debates between Wolf and Paglia in the pages of The New Republic.[45][46][47]

Caryn James wrote in The New York Times:

No other work has so forcefully confronted the anti-feminism that emerged during the conservative, yuppified 1980's, or so honestly depicted the confusion of accomplished women who feel emotionally and physically tortured by the need to look like movie stars. Even by the standards of pop-cultural feminist studies, The Beauty Myth is a mess, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.[48]

James also wrote that the book's "claims of an intensified anti-feminism are plausible, but Ms. Wolf doesn't begin to prove them because her logic is so lame, her evidence so easily knocked down."[48] Marilyn Yalom in The Washington Post called the book "persuasive" and praised its "accumulated evidence".[49]

Revisiting The Beauty Myth in 2019 for The New Republic, literary critic Maris Kreizman recalls that reading it as an undergraduate made her "world burst open", but as she matured, Kreizman saw Wolf's books as "poorly argued tracts" with Wolf making "wilder and wilder assertions" over time. Kreizman "began to write [Wolf] off as a fringe character" despite the fact that she had "once informed my own feminism so deeply."[7]

Fire with Fire (1993)

In Fire with Fire (1993), Wolf wrote about politics, female empowerment, and women's sexual liberation.[50] She wished to persuade women to reject "victim feminism" in favor of "power feminism". She argued for diminishing the issue of opposing men, avoiding divisive issues such as abortion and the rights of lesbians, and considering more universal issues like violence against women, pay disparities and sexual harassment.[26] Mary Nemeth wrote in Maclean's that her "central thesis—that when Anita Hill in 1991 accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment she provoked a 'genderquake' that turned American women into 'the political ruling class'—seems grossly exaggerated."[51] Melissa Benn in the London Review of Books called the book Wolf's "call for a realpolitik in which 'sisterhood and capital' might be allies".[52]

Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times assailed Fire with Fire for its "dubious oversimplifications and highly debatable assertions" and its "disconcerting penchant for inflationary prose", but approved of Wolf's "efforts to articulate an accessible, pragmatic feminism, …helping to replace strident dogma with common sense."[53] Time magazine reviewer Martha Duffy dismissed the book as "flawed", but wrote 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", characterizing the book as advocating an inclusive strain of feminism that welcomed abortion opponents.[54] Feminist author Natasha Walter wrote in The Independent that the book "has its faults, but compared with The Beauty Myth it has energy and spirit, and generosity too." But Walter criticized it for having a "narrow agenda" where "you will look in vain for much discussion of older women, of black women, of women with low incomes, of mothers." Calling Wolf a "media star", Walter wrote: "She is particularly good, naturally, on the role of women in the media."[55]

Promiscuities (1997)

Promiscuities (1997) 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 misogynistically by Henry Miller, Philip Roth and Norman Mailer, while female accounts of adolescent sexuality have been systematically suppressed.[56] Schools, in Wolf's opinion, should teach their students "sexual gradualism", masturbation, mutual masturbation and oral sex, which she sees as a more credible approach than total abstinence and without the risks of full intercourse.[26]

Wolf uses cross-cultural material to try to demonstrate that women have, across history, been celebrated as more carnal than men. She also argues that women must reclaim the legitimacy of their sexuality by shattering the polarization of women between virgin and whore.[56] Partly an account of her own sexual history, the book urges women to "redeem the slut in ourselves and rejoice in being bad girls".[19][57][58]

Promiscuities generally received negative reviews. In The New York Times, Kakutani wrote that Wolf is "a frustratingly inept messenger: a sloppy thinker and incompetent writer" who "tries in vain to pass off tired observations as radical aperçus, subjective musings as generational truths, sappy suggestions as useful ideas".[59] Of Wolf's claims about accounts of female sexuality being suppressed, Kakutani wrote: "Where has Ms. Wolf been? What about the raunchy confessions that surface daily on radio and television talk shows? What about all the memoirists—from Anais Nin to Kathryn Harrison?"[59] Two days earlier in the Times, Weaver Courtney praised the book: "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."[60] In contrast, The Library Journal excoriated the book, 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."[61]

Misconceptions (2001)

"I feel absolutely staggered by what I discovered after giving birth", Wolf said at the time Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood was published. "Birth today is like agribusiness. It's like a chicken plant: they go in, they go out", she told Katharine Viner. "Pregnancy, birth and motherhood" has "made me a more radical feminist than I have ever been."[30] The book draws heavily on Wolf's experience of her first pregnancy.[62] She describes the "vacuous impassivity" of the ultrasound technician who gives her the first glimpse of her new baby. Wolf laments her C-section and examines why the procedure is common in the U.S., advocating a return to midwifery. The book's second half is anecdotal, focusing on inequalities between parents with respect to child care.[63] In the section describing being on the operating table having a Caesarean, Wolf compares herself to Jesus at his crucifixion.[64] She outlines a "mothers' manifesto", including flexi-time for both parents, neighborhood toy banks, and a radical mothers' movement.[30]

In her New York Times review, Claire Dederer wrote that Wolf "barely pauses to acknowledge that Caesareans are, at times, a necessary and even lifesaving intervention" and that she does "her best writing when she's observing her own life" as a memoirist, calling Wolf's work in this idiom not "self-indulgent. It seems vital, and in a sense radical, in the tradition of 1970's feminists who sought to speak to every aspect of women's lives."[62]

The Treehouse (2005)

Wolf's The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live, Love, and See is an account of her midlife crisis. She revalues her father's love, and his role as an artist and a teacher during a year living in a house in upstate New York.[65]

In a promotional interview with The Herald (Glasgow), Wolf related her experience of a vision of Jesus: "just this figure who was the most perfected human being - full of light and full of love. …There was light coming out of him holographically, simply because he was unclouded."[66]

The End of America (2007)

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.[67] The book details how this pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and elsewhere, and analyzes its emergence and application of all 10 steps in American political affairs since the September 11 attacks.[68][69] Alex Beam wrote in the International Herald Tribune (reprinted in The New York Times): "In the book, Wolf insists that she is not equating [George W.] Bush with Hitler, nor the United States with Nazi Germany, then proceeds to do just that."[70] A month before the 2008 presidential election, she announced her intention to propose means to arrest Bush. "Americans are facing a coup, as of this morning, October 1st", she said in a radio interview.[71]

Several years later in 2013, Mark Nuckols argued in The Atlantic that Wolf's supposed historical parallels between incidents from the era of the European dictators and modern America are based on a highly selective reading in which Wolf omits significant details and misuses her sources.[72] In The Daily Beast, Michael C. Moynihan called the book "an astoundingly lazy piece of writing."[73]

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 and The Trials of Darryl Hunt. It premiered in October 2008, and was favorably reviewed in The New York Times by Stephen Holden[74] and by Variety magazine.[75] Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times saw aspects of it positively, but "what isn't plausible or reality-related is the conclusion itself. At the door of the Third Reich, Wolf's credibility collapses."[76] Moynihan called it "an even dumber documentary film" than the "dumb book".[73]

Interviewed by Alternet in 2010, Wolf compared some of President Barack Obama's actions to those of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler as typical of dictatorships.[77][78]

Wolf returned to her The End of America theme in a Globe and Mail article in 2014, considering how modern Western women, born in inclusive, egalitarian liberal democracies, are assuming positions of leadership in neofascist political movements.[79]

Give Me Liberty (2008)

Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries was written as a sequel to The End of America. The book looks at times and places in history where citizens faced the closing of an open society and successfully fought back.[80]

Vagina: A New Biography (2012)

Vagina: A New Biography was much criticized, especially by feminist authors. Katie Roiphe called it "ludicrous" in Slate: "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."[64] In The Nation, Katha Pollitt called it a "silly book" containing "much dubious neuroscience and much foolishness." It becomes "loopier as it goes on. We learn that women think and feel through their vagina, which can 'grieve' and feel insulted."[81]

Toni Bentley wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Wolf used "shoddy research methodology", while with "her graceless writing, Wolf opens herself to ridicule on virtually every page."[82] Janice Turner in The Times wrote that since Mary Wollstonecraft, female "writers have argued that women should not be defined by biology", yet "Wolf, our self-styled leader, has declared that female consciousness, creativity and destiny all come back" to a woman's genitals.[83] Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum wrote: "By asserting that what's between a woman's ears is directly informed by what's between her legs—'the vagina mediates female confidence, creativity and sense of transcendence,' Wolf writes—it acts as a perverse echo of Republican efforts to limit reproductive rights."[84] In the book, according to Suzanne Moore in The Guardian, "feminism becomes simply a highly mediated form of narcissism devoid of any actual brain/politics connection."[85]

In The New York Review of Books, Zoë Heller wrote that the book "offers an unusually clear insight into the workings of her mystic feminist philosophy", that the part of the book about the history of the vagina's representation is "full of childlike generalizations", and that Wolf's understanding of science "is pretty shaky too".[86] In an interview with The New York Times, Wolf rejected claims that she had written more freely than her sources could sustain.[87] 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."[88]

In response to the criticism, Wolf said in a television interview:

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.[89]

At a party organized to celebrate Wolf's publishing deal for this book, the male host invited guests to make pasta pieces shaped like vulvas. Wolf came to view this as mocking, and recounted feeling pressured to remain silent as the butt of a joke, something she said women often feel pressured to do. She said the incident resulted in her having writers' block for the next six months.[90][91]

Outrages (2019)

Wolf's book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love was based on the 2015 doctoral thesis she completed under the supervision of literary scholar Stefano-Maria Evangelista, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.[21][22] It studies the repression of homosexuality in relation to attitudes toward divorce and prostitution, and also in relation to the censorship of books.[92]

Outrages was published in the UK in May 2019 by Virago Press.[93] On June 12, 2019, Outrages was named on the O, The Oprah Magazine's "The 32 Best Books by Women of Summer 2019" list.[94] The next day, the U.S. publisher recalled all copies from U.S. bookstores.[95]

In a 2019 BBC radio interview, broadcaster and author Matthew Sweet identified an error in a central tenet of the book: a misunderstanding of the legal term "death recorded", which Wolf had taken to mean that the convict had been executed but in fact means that the convict was pardoned or the sentence was commuted.[96][97][98] He cited a website for the Old Bailey Criminal Court, which Wolf had referred to in the interview as one of her sources.[99] Reviewers have described other errors of scholarship in the work.[100][101]

At the Hay Festival in Wales in May 2019, a few days after her exchange with Sweet, Wolf defended her book and said she had already corrected the error.[102] At an event in Manhattan in June, she said she was not embarrassed and felt grateful to Sweet for the correction.[103][104] On October 18, 2019, it became known that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's release of the book in the U.S. was being canceled, with copies already printed and distributed being pulled and pulped.[105] Wolf expressed hope that the book would still be published in the U.S.[106][107]

In November 2020, Virago published a UK paperback edition of the book that removed the incorrect references to the execution of men for sodomy included in the hardback edition. Interviewed about the new edition, Sweet said that the book continues to misread historical sources: "Dr Wolf has misrepresented the experiences of victims of child abuse and violent sexual assault. This is the most profound offence against her discipline, as well as the memories of real people on the historical record". Cultural historian Fern Riddell called the book a "calumny against gay people" in the 19th century and said that Wolf "presents child rapists and those taking part in acts of bestiality as being gay men in consensual relationships and that is completely wrong". The Daily Telegraph reported that there had been calls for Wolf's 2015 DPhil to be reexamined, and for Virago to withdraw the book.[108] In a statement to The Guardian, Wolf said the book had been reviewed "by leading scholars in the field" and "it is clear that I have accurately represented the position". Oxford University stated that a "statement of clarification" to Wolf's thesis had been received and approved, and would be "available for consultation in the Bodleian Library in due course".[109]

In March 2021, Times Higher Education reported that Wolf's original thesis remained unavailable six years after it was examined. Oxford doctoral graduates can request an embargo of up to three years, with the potential for renewal.[110] The thesis finally became available in April 2021, with nine pages of corrections attached dealing with the misreading of historic criminal records.[111][22] Wolf had submitted the thesis to the archive in December 2020, more than five years after her DPhil was awarded, and had requested a one-year extension to the embargo period so that she could seek legal advice.[112] The extension request was declined.[23]

In university teaching, Outrages has been used as an example of the danger of misreading historical sources.[113]

Feminist issues

Abortion

In an October 1995 New Republic article, Wolf was critical of contemporary pro–choice positions, arguing that the movement had "developed a lexicon of dehumanization", and urged feminists to accept abortion as a form of homicide and defend the procedure within the ambiguity of this moral conundrum. She continued, "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."[114]

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."[114] In a 2005 article for New York magazine 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."[115]

Pornography

In a 2003 New York magazine article, Wolf suggested that the ubiquity of internet pornography tends to enervate men's sexual attraction to real women. She wrote, "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 advocated abstaining from porn not on moral grounds but because "greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity."[116]

Women in Islamic countries

Wolf has commented about the dress required of women living in Muslim countries. In 2008, she wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald, "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."[117]

Other views

Conspiracy theories

In the January 2013 issue of The Atlantic, law and business professor Mark Nuckols wrote: "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." He added: "[W]hen 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." Nuckols argued that Wolf "has for many years now been claiming that a fascist coup in America is imminent… [I]n 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'."[72]

In the same month, Charles C. W. Cooke wrote in 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."[71]

Sarah Ditum wrote in the New Statesman, "Perhaps it's not that Wolf is a feminist who's degenerated into conspiracism, but instead that she's a conspiracy theorist who happened to fall into feminism first. The Beauty Myth is a conspiracy theory of a sort, and sometimes conspiracies are real: the self-replicating power structure of patriarchy is one of them."[118]

Defense of Julian Assange

See also: Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority § Harassment of complainants, lawyers and journalists

Shortly after Julian Assange was arrested in 2010, Wolf wrote in an article for The Huffington Post's comedy section that the allegations two women made against him amounted to no more than bad manners from a boyfriend.[118][119] His accusers, she later wrote in several contexts, were working for the CIA, and Assange had been falsely accused.[118]

On December 20, 2010, Democracy Now! featured a debate between Wolf and Jaclyn Friedman on Assange's case. According to Wolf, the alleged victims should have said no, asserted that they consented to having sex with him, and said the claims were politically motivated and demeaned the cause of legitimate rape victims.[120] In a 2011 Guardian article, she argued that the accuser in rape cases should not retain anonymity. She said anonymity in such cases was "a relic of the Victorian era" which "serves institutions that do not want to prosecute rapists [...] this is particularly clear in the Assange case, where public opinion matters far more than usual".[121] In The Nation, Katha Pollitt wrote that Wolf's argument was that anonymity "impedes law enforcement", which Pollitt said "is a little bizarre: doesn't Wolf realize that anonymity applies only to the media? Everyone in the justice system knows who the complainants are."[122] Laurie Penny wrote in the New Statesman in September 2012 that "Wolf has done great damage by using her platform as one of the world's most famous feminists to dismiss these women's allegations."[123]

Occupy Wall Street

On October 18, 2011, Wolf was arrested and detained in New York during the Occupy Wall Street protests, having ignored a police warning not to remain on the street in front of a building. She spent about 30 minutes in a cell.[124] She disputed the NYPD's interpretation of applicable laws: "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."[125]

A month later, Wolf argued in The Guardian, citing leaked documents, that attacks on the Occupy movement were a coordinated plot orchestrated by federal law enforcement agencies. Those leaks, she alleged, showed that the FBI was privately treating OWS as a terrorist threat rather than a peaceful organization.[126] The response to this article ranged from praise to criticism of Wolf for being overly speculative and creating a conspiracy theory.[127] Wolf responded that there was ample evidence for her argument, and proceeded to review the information available to her at the time of the article, and what she alleged was new evidence since that time.[128]

Imani Gandy of Balloon Juice wrote that "nothing substantiates Wolf's claims", that "Wolf's article has no factual basis whatsoever and is, therefore, a journalistic failure of the highest order" and that "it was incumbent upon [Wolf] to fully research her claims and to provide facts to back them up."[129] Corey Robin, a political theorist, journalist, and associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, wrote on his blog: "The reason Wolf gets her facts wrong is that she's got her theory wrong."[130]

In a December 2012 Guardian article, Wolf wrote about[131] FBI documents released following an FOIA request from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund revealed that the FBI used counterterrorism agents and other resources to monitor the national Occupy movement extensively.[132] 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.[133] 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."[134] Wolf wrote:

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.

How simple…just to label an entity a 'terrorist organization' and choke off, disrupt or indict its sources of financing.

[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.[131]

Mother Jones claimed that none of the documents revealed efforts by federal law enforcement agencies to disband the Occupy camps, and that the documents did not provide much evidence that federal officials attempted to suppress protesters' free speech rights. Mother Jones said the truth was "a far cry from Wolf's contention."[135]

Edward Snowden

In June 2013, New York magazine reported that Wolf, in a recent Facebook post, 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."[8] 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."[8] She wondered whether he was planted by "the Police State".[136]

Wolf responded on 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." Of 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?"[137]

Salon accused Wolf of making factual errors and misreadings.[136]

Islamic State executions and other assertions

In a series of Facebook posts in October 2014, Wolf questioned the authenticity of videos purporting to show beheadings of two American journalists 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.[6][73] Wolf also charged that the U.S. was dispatching military 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 the U.S.[6][138] She further said that the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, in which Scotland voted to remain in the U.K., was faked.[6] Speaking about this at a demonstration in Glasgow on October 12, Wolf said, "I truly believe it was rigged."[139]

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." Wolf posted, "I stand by what I wrote."[138] But in a later Facebook post, she retracted her statement: "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.[140]

Max Fisher commented that "the videos were widely distributed on open-source jihadist online outlets" while the "Maryland-based nonprofit SITE monitors extremist social media." Wolf deleted her original Facebook posts.[6]

COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wolf has frequently promoted COVID-19 misinformation, misinformation related to vaccination and 5G conspiracy theories.[141][142][143]

After Joe Biden was elected U.S. president, Wolf tweeted on November 9, 2020: "If I'd known Biden was open to 'lockdowns' as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won't ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him".[144] In February 2021, Wolf said on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News that government COVID-19 restrictions were turning the U.S. "into a totalitarian state before everyone's eyes", and went on to say, "I really hope we wake up quickly, because history also shows that it's a small window in which people can fight back before it is too dangerous to fight back."[145]

In a March 2021 interview for Sky News Australia, Wolf claimed that lockdown policies are an "invention" of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. She also said that "Every human right in law is being violated", that Australians are being "lied to over and over", and that Australians are being psychologically tortured.[146]

On April 19, 2021, Wolf alleged that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical advisor, "doesn't work for us", asserting he had loyalties to Israel that interfered with service to public health. Wolf pointed to $1 million she said Fauci had received from Israel. It was actually the Dan David Prize, a prestigious private award that Fauci received in 2021 for public service.[147][148]

Wolf opposes COVID-19 vaccine passports, saying they represent "the absolute end of the line for human liberty in the West."[149]

Wolf has frequently shared conspiracy theories concerning the safety and efficacy of vaccines against COVID-19.[150] In April 2021, she was instrumental in amplifying and spreading myths that the vaccines cause female infertility.[151] Wolf's conspiratorial and anti-vaccine stance has been criticized as irresponsible, and she has also been the subject of ridicule.[152]

Twitter suspended Wolf's account in June 2021,[141] a decision the company said was permanent, according to the London Observer.[153] At the end of July 2021, The Daily Beast reported that Wolf was a co-plaintiff in former president Donald Trump's social media lawsuit. According to Wolf, Twitter's suspension of her account led her to lose "over half of her business model, investors in her business, and other sources of income."[154]

Wolf appeared on the May 23, 2022, episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, where she said: "There are military-age men pouring over the border from places like Afghanistan and Ukraine. And the easiest thing in the world to send them to God knows where, you know, and to arm them to assist the World Health Organization". She argued that the Second Amendment made it harder for government to subjugate the population, but that it was possible. Wolf said, "I really hope that it doesn't devolve into civil war, which is really what the next thing is in history when you have an occupying force, which is what the WHO will be, you know, by next week".[155]

In an October 2022 interview with UK TV channel GB News, Wolf said that COVID-19 vaccines are part of an effort "to destroy British civil society". Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulatory agency, announced an investigation into GB News after receiving more than 400 complaints from members of the public[156] and later found the channel in breach of broadcasting rules.[157]

In January 2023, Wolf appeared with Steve Bannon in his War Room show on Robert J. Sigg's Real America's Voice television network. They advertised a book titled Pfizer Documents Analysis Report that supposedly contained "50 reports using primary source Pfizer documents released under a court order by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration". The authors were not mentioned, but summarized as a team of 3,500 medical experts by the name of "The War Room/DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis Project". According to Wolf and Bannon, the book rips "the veneer off the myth that mRNA injections are safe and effective.”[158]

Personal life

Wolf's first marriage was in 1993 to journalist David Shipley, then an editor at The New York Times. The couple had two children, a son and daughter.[17] Wolf and Shipley divorced in 2005.[20]

On November 23, 2018, Wolf married Brian William O'Shea, a U.S. Army veteran, private detective, and owner of Striker Pierce Investigations. According to a November 2018 New York Times article, Wolf and O'Shea met in 2014 after people threatened Wolf on the internet after she reported on human rights violations in the Middle East, and her contacts recommended O'Shea.[1]

Wolf is often confused with author Naomi Klein; this confusion is a major subject of Klein's 2023 book Doppelganger, which Wolf did not contribute to despite numerous attempts by Klein to contact her.[159]

Alleged "sexual encroachment" incident at Yale

In a 2004 article for New York magazine, Wolf accused literary scholar Harold Bloom of a "sexual encroachment" in 1983 for touching her inner 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. In a 2015 interview with Time, Bloom denied ever being indoors with "this person".[160] 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.[161] 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.[161]

In Slate magazine around the time the allegations against Bloom first surfaced, Meghan O'Rourke wrote that Wolf generalized about sexual assault at Yale on the basis of her alleged personal experience. Moreover, O'Rourke wrote, despite Wolf's assertion that sexual assault existed at Yale, she did not interview any Yale students for her story. In addition, O'Rourke wrote, "She jumps through verbal hoops to make it clear she was not 'personally traumatized,' yet she spends paragraphs describing the incident in precisely those terms." O'Rourke wrote that, despite Wolf's claim that her educational experience was corrupted, Wolf "neglects to mention that she later was awarded a Rhodes [scholarship]." O'Rourke concluded that the "gaps and imprecision" in Wolf's article "give fodder to skeptics who think sexual harassment charges are often just a form of hysteria."[162]

Separately, a formal complaint was filed with the US 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.[163] In April, 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." More specifically, she alleged "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."[164] 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 [was] required to report on its progress to the Office of Civil Rights until May, 2014."[165]

In January 2018, Wolf accused Yale officials of blocking her from filing a formal grievance against Bloom. She told The New York Times that she had attempted to file the complaint in 2015 with Yale's University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, but that the university had refused to accept it.[166] On January 16, 2018, Wolf said, she determined to see Yale's provost, Ben Polak, in another attempt to present her case. "As she documented on Twitter," the newspaper reported, "she brought a suitcase and a sleeping bag, because she said she did not know how long she would have to stay. When she arrived at the provost's office, she said, security guards prevented her from entering any elevators. Eventually, she said, Aley Menon, the secretary of the sexual misconduct committee, appeared and they met in the committee's offices for an hour, during which she gave Ms. Menon a copy of her complaint."[166] This was reported and confirmed by Norman Vanamee, who apparently met Wolf at Yale that morning. In Town & Country magazine in January 2018, Vanamee returned to the story and wrote, "Yale University has a 93-person police department, and, after the guard called for backup, three of its armed and uniformed officers appeared and stationed themselves between Wolf and the elevator bank."[167]

Selected works

Books

  • The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used Against Women. New York: Perennial. 2002 [1990]. ISBN 978-0060512187.
  • Fire with Fire: The New Female Power and How To Use It. New York: Fawcett Columbine. 1994. ISBN 978-0449909515.
  • Promiscuities: A Secret History of Female Desire. London: Vintage. 1997. ISBN 978-0099205913.
  • Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood. New York: Doubleday. 2001. ISBN 978-0385493024.
  • The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live, Love, and See. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2005. ISBN 978-0743249775.
  • The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Pub. 2007. ISBN 978-1933392790.
  • The Inner Compass for Ethics & Excellence. 2007. ISBN 978-1934441282., co-authored with Daniel Goleman
  • Give me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2008. ISBN 978-1416590569.
  • Vagina: A New Biography. New York: Ecco. 2012. ISBN 978-0061989162.
  • Outrages: Sex, Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love. Chelsea Green Pub. 2020. ISBN 978-1645020165.
  • The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, Covid-19 and the War Against the Human. All Seasons Press. 2022. ISBN 978-1737478560.

Book chapters

  • Fallon, Patricia; Katzman, Melanie A.; Wooley, Susan C., eds. (1994). "Hunger". Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders. New York: Guilford Press. pp. 94–114. ISBN 978-1572301825.

Notes

  1. ^ Sources describing Wolf as a "conspiracy theorist" or using related terms include:
    • Boteach, Shmuely (September 10, 2014). "Naomi Wolf's allegations of an Israeli genocide fuel anti-Semitism". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved April 2, 2021. Naomi is so enmeshed with conspiracy theories that she even questions whether ISIS is a true threat.
    • Fisher, Max (October 5, 2014). "The insane conspiracy theories of Naomi Wolf". Vox. Retrieved April 2, 2021. [I]t is important for readers who may encounter Wolf's ideas to understand the distinction between her earlier work, which rose on its merits, and her newer conspiracy theories, which are unhinged, damaging, and dangerous.
    • Brereton, Alex (October 6, 2014). "The line between conspiracy and scepticism is getting harder to draw – just ask Naomi Wolf". The Guardian. Retrieved April 2, 2021. So Naomi Wolf thinks that the Isis beheading videos may not have been genuine. In a series of Facebook posts over the weekend that also included theories about an Ebola-driven military quarantine of US society and fake ballots in the Scottish referendum, she crossed over into conspiracy territory.
    • Ditum, Sarah (October 7, 2014). "Naomi Wolf is not a feminist who became conspiracy theorist – she's a conspiracist who was once right". New Statesman. London. Retrieved April 1, 2021. Perhaps it's not that Wolf is a feminist who's degenerated into conspiracism, but instead that she's a conspiracy theorist who happened to fall into feminism first.
    • Moynihan, Michael (April 14, 2017) [October 11, 2014]. "From ISIS to Ebola, What Has Made Naomi Wolf So Paranoid?". The Daily Beast. Retrieved January 3, 2020. Wolf's path from respectability to conspiracy theory isn't uncommon.
    • Aaronovitch, David (May 29, 2019). "Beware liberal attempts to rewrite history". The Times. Retrieved March 19, 2021. She is furthermore a serial espouser of mad conspiracy theories, insisting on their plausibility in the face of overwhelming evidence
    • Kreizman, Maris (June 14, 2019). "A Journey With Naomi Wolf". The New Republic. Retrieved April 2, 2021. In 2014 she spread conspiracy theories including the belief that the beheading of two American journalists by ISIS was faked and staged.
    • Poole, Steven (October 9, 2019). "Permanent Record: Edward Snowden spies on the spies". New Statesman. London. Retrieved March 19, 2021. 'Chemtrails' are what conspiracy theorists, including the author Naomi Wolf, call the contrails of jet planes: rather than being harmless water vapour, they think they are deliberate sprays of noxious chemicals into the atmosphere, for reasons unclear.
    • Onion, Rebecca (March 30, 2021). "A Modern Feminist Classic Changed My Life. Was It Actually Garbage?". Slate. Retrieved April 2, 2021. I can see this progression of Wolf's thinking in every Trump- and COVID-era conspiracy theorist, from Stop the Steal to QAnon, who, like Wolf, seems to favor a 'natural order' where their particular problems rank first. It goes from 'this sucks so much' to 'someone is surely pulling these strings' to 'guys—I found the someone!'
    • "Fauci got $1 million from Israel, 'doesn't work for us,' conspiracist Naomi Wolf says on Fox News". Haaretz.com. April 20, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2022. Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf suggested that Dr. Anthony Fauci is beholden to Israel rather than serving the United States.

References

  1. ^ a b Mallozzi, Vincent M. (November 24, 2018). "An Author and Investigator Find Comfort in Each Other". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 23, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Hix, Lisa (June 19, 2005). "Did Father Know Best? In Her New Book, Third Wave Feminist Naomi Wolf Reconsiders Her Bohemian Upbringing". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 15, 2010.
  3. ^ Wolf, Naomi (1991). The Beauty Myth. New York: Bantham Doubleday Dell Publishing. ISBN 978-0060512187. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  4. ^ a b Seelye, Katharine Q. (November 1, 1999). "Adviser Pushes Gore to Be Leader of the Pack". The New York Times. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
  5. ^ "Naomi Wolf: US publisher cancels book release after accuracy concerns". BBC News. October 23, 2019. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c d e Fisher, Max (October 5, 2014). "The insane conspiracy theories of Naomi Wolf". Vox. Vox Media. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  7. ^ a b Kreizman, Maris (June 14, 2019). "A Journey With Naomi Wolf". The New Republic. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
  8. ^ a b c Coscarelli, Joe (June 14, 2013). "Naomi Wolf Thinks Edward Snowden and His Sexy Girlfriend Might Be Government Plants". New York. Retrieved October 6, 2014.
  9. ^ Gertz, Matt (April 20, 2021). "Fox keeps hosting pandemic conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf". Media Matters for America. Retrieved May 21, 2021.
  10. ^ Onion, Rebecca (March 30, 2021). "A Modern Feminist Classic Changed My Life. Was It Actually Garbage?". Slate. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
  11. ^ Hutton, Alice (June 5, 2021). "Beauty Myth author Naomi Wolf suspended from Twitter after sharing vaccine disinformation". The Independent. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2021.
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  13. ^ Donald, Ann; Wolf, Ann (April 18, 1997). "The Write Stuff". The List. Retrieved April 9, 2021.
  14. ^ Wolf, in an interview on The Alex Jones Show podcast October 22, 08 @ 2:40:38 into the program: "Well, you know, I'm Jewish and so, you know, I think there's this very deep reaction in people with my ancestry because my dad's family was largely wiped out by the Holocaust, a sensitivity to travel restrictions because for people of my ethnicity there's a giant divide between people who got out before the border hardened during the National Nazi Socialist regime and those who waited a little too long. So I watch with concern when I travel, the growth of the [US] watchlist which is growing by 20,000 names a month."
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  20. ^ a b Cooke, Rachel (May 19, 2019). "Naomi Wolf: 'We're in a fight for our lives and for democracy'". The Observer. London. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  21. ^ a b Meredith, Fionola (May 18, 2019). . Irish Times. Archived from the original on May 18, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
  22. ^ a b c Wolf, Naomi (2015). Ecstasy or justice? The sexual author and the law, 1855-1885 (DPhil). University of Oxford.
  23. ^ a b Grove, Jack (June 24, 2021). "Naomi Wolf wanted extra year-long embargo on controversial thesis". Times Higher Education. Retrieved June 27, 2021.
  24. ^ Mundow, Anna (April 8, 1997). "Sexual revisionist". The Irish Times. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  25. ^ a b Gerhart, Ann (November 5, 1999). "Who's Afraid of Naomi Wolf? The List Is Growing Fast Since the 'Promiscuities' Author Turned Gore Adviser". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  26. ^ a b c d e Duffy, Michael; Tumulty, Karen (December 1, 1999). "Gore's secret guru". CNN. Time. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  27. ^ Somerby, Bob. "A virtual wilding: The month of earth tones-and Wolf". How He Got There Chapter 5. Retrieved May 19, 2010. The frenzy about Naomi Wolf began in the pages of Time. On Sunday morning, October 31, just four days after the jeering of Gore, the magazine released a news report headlined, 'GORE'S SECRET GURU.' (The report appeared in Time's new edition, dated November 8.) In the piece, Michael Duffy and Karen Tumulty reported an underwhelming fact: Author Naomi Wolf, the 'secret guru' in question, was advising the Gore campaign-had been doing so since January. Within days, this underwhelming piece of news had turned into a major press frenzy. For the next month, Gore and Wolf would be relentlessly trashed, in ways which were often remarkably ugly and often profoundly inane.
  28. ^ a b Henneberger, Melinda (November 5, 1999). "Naomi Wolf, Feminist Consultant to Gore, Clarifies Her Campaign Role". The New York Times. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  29. ^ Menand, Louis (December 2, 1999). "Opening Moves". New York Review of Books. Retrieved March 2, 2021. Time was elliptical about Wolf's own contribution to the story; the magazine said only that she had declined to talk about her role 'for the record.'
  30. ^ a b c Viner, Katharine (September 1, 2001). "Stitched up". The Guardian. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  31. ^ a b Smith, Joan (October 15, 1995). "The seer and the sisters". The Independent on Sunday. London. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022. Retrieved December 13, 2019.
  32. ^ Project Syndicate "The Next Wave."
  33. ^ Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. New York: Bantham Doubleday Dell Publishing, 1991; p. 281: "The beauty myth can be defeated only through an electric resurgence of the woman-centered political activism of the seventies—a feminist third wave—updated to take on the new issues of the nineties ... I've become convinced that here are thousands of young women ready and eager to join forces with a peer-driven feminist third wave that would take on, along with the classic feminist agenda, the new problems that have arisen with the shift in Zeitgeist and beauty backlash."
  34. ^ Felder, Deborah (2006). A Bookshelf of Our Own: Works that Changed Women's Lives. Kensington Publishing Corporation. p. 274. ISBN 978-0806527420. Retrieved June 26, 2015.
  35. ^ Johnson, Diane (January 16, 1992). "Something for the Boys". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  36. ^ The Beauty Myth, pp. 17–18, 20, 86, 131, 179, 218.
  37. ^ The Beauty Myth. p. 10
  38. ^ Christina Hoff Sommers (1995). Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. Simon and Schuster. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0684801568.
  39. ^ Pekars, Tetanya (June 7, 2012). . Science of Eating Disorders. Archived from the original on February 7, 2017. Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  40. ^ Sehgal, Parul (June 5, 2019). "Naomi Wolf's Career of Blunders Continues in 'Outrages'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  41. ^ Schoemaker, Casper (2004). "A Critical Appraisal of the Anorexia Statistics in The Beauty Myth: Introducing Wolf's Overdo and Lie Factor". Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. 12 (2): 97–102. doi:10.1080/10640260490444619. PMID 16864310. S2CID 8704509.
  42. ^ . Powells.com. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011.
  43. ^ Kim Hubbard, The Tyranny of Beauty, To Naomi Wolf, Pressure to Look Good Equals Oppression March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, People, June 24, 1991.
  44. ^ Paglia, Camille. Sex, Art, and American Culture. New York: Random House, 1992. p. 262
  45. ^ Naomi Wolf. "Feminist Fatale". The New Republic. March 16, 1992. pp. 23–25
  46. ^ Camille Paglia. The New Republic. April 13, 1992. pp. 4–5
  47. ^ Naomi Wolf and Camille Paglia. "The Last Words." The New Republic. May 18, 1992. pp. 4–5
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  56. ^ a b Wolf, Naomi (1997). Promiscuities. New York: Balantine Publishing Group. OCLC 473694368.
  57. ^ Meredith, Fionola (May 18, 2019). "Naomi Wolf: 'Never before have I seen so many threats to free speech. It is chilling'". The Irish Times. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  58. ^ Macdonald, Marianne (April 12, 1997). "Not nearly naughty enough, Naomi". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on June 18, 2022. Retrieved March 13, 2021.
  59. ^ a b Kakutani, Michiko (June 10, 1997). "Feminism Lite: She Is Woman, Hear Her Roar". The New York Times. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
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  61. ^ The Library Journal, June 1997.
  62. ^ a b Dederer, Claire (October 7, 2001). "What to Expect". The New York Times. Retrieved November 18, 2019.
  63. ^ Wolf, Naomi (2001). Misconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385493024.
  64. ^ a b Roiphe, Katie (September 10, 2012). "Naomi Wolf's New Book About Her Vagina: It's as ludicrous as you think it is". Slate. Retrieved January 23, 2021. Her 2001 book about motherhood, Misconceptions, in which she compared herself on the operating table getting a caesarian to Jesus on the crucifix, did not connect in the same way as her first book.[permanent dead link]
  65. ^ Bakewell, Joan (January 28, 2006). "Daddy dearest". The Guardian. Retrieved January 23, 2021.
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  67. ^ Wolf, Naomi (April 24, 2007). "Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps". The Guardian. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  68. ^ Wolf, Naomi (2007). The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. White River, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN 978-1933392790.
  69. ^ Wolf, Naomi (September 27, 2007). "Books: The End of America". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 6, 2009. I want to summarize why I believe we are facing a real crisis. My reading showed me that there are 10 key steps that would-be despots always take when they are seeking to close down an open society or to crush a democracy movement, and we are seeing each of those in the US today.
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  78. ^ Chait, Jonathan (March 31, 2010). "Crying Wolf". The New Republic. Retrieved February 28, 2021. Obama has done things like Hitler did. Let me be very careful here. The National Socialists rounded people up and held them without trial, signed legislation that gave torture impunity, and spied on their citizens, just as Obama has. It isn't a question of what has been done that Hitler did. It's what does every dictator do, on the left or the right, that is being done here and now. The real fight isn't left or right but between forces of democracy across the spectrum and the forces of tyranny.
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  95. ^ Alter, Alexandra (June 13, 2019). "Naomi Wolf's Publisher Delays Release of Her Book". The New York Times. Retrieved June 16, 2019. It's unclear whether Outrages will also be recalled in Britain, where it was released in May by the publisher Virago.
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  97. ^ Dzhanova, Yelena (May 24, 2019). "Here's an Actual Nightmare: Naomi Wolf Learning On-Air That Her Book Is Wrong". Intelligencer. New York. from the original on June 2, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2019. When she went on BBC radio on Thursday, Wolf, the author of Vagina and the forthcoming Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, probably expected to discuss the historical revelations she'd uncovered her book. But during the interview, broadcaster Matthew Sweet read to Wolf the definition of 'death recorded,' a 19th-century English legal term. 'Death recorded' means that a convict was pardoned for his crimes rather than given the death sentence. Wolf thought the term meant execution.
  98. ^ Wolf, Naomi; de Miranda, Luis; Parker, Sarah (May 22, 2019). "Censorship and sex". Free Thinking (audio recording). Interviewed by Matthew Sweet. London: www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
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  116. ^ Wolf, Naomi (October 9, 2003). "The Porn Myth". New York. Retrieved November 17, 2019.
  117. ^ Wolf, Naomi (August 30, 2008). "Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality". Sydney Morning Herald.
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  120. ^ Goodman, Amy (December 20, 2010). "Naomi Wolf vs. Jaclyn Friedman: Feminists Debate the Sexual Allegations Against Julian Assange". Democracy Now!. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
  121. ^ Wolf, Naomi (January 5, 2011). "Julian Assange's sex-crime accusers deserve to be named". The Guardian. Retrieved October 23, 2019.
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  125. ^ Cherkis, Jason (October 19, 2011). "Author Naomi Wolf Speaks Out About Her Arrest At Occupy Wall Street Protest". The Huffington Post. London. Retrieved August 21, 2012. Ellipsis in the source.
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  129. ^ Gandy, Imani (November 27, 2011). "Naomi Wolf's 'Shocking Truths' on #OWS Crackdowns Are False". Balloon Juice. Retrieved February 24, 2015.
  130. ^ Robin, Corey (November 27, 2011). "The Occupy Crackdowns: Why Naomi Wolf Got It Wrong". Retrieved February 28, 2015.
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February 15, 2024
naomi, wolf, confused, with, naomi, klein, naomi, rebekah, wolf, born, 1962, american, feminist, author, journalist, conspiracy, theorist, wolf, 2012bornnaomi, rebekah, wolf1962, francisco, california, occupationauthorpolitical, consultantjournalisteducationya. Not to be confused with Naomi Klein Naomi Rebekah Wolf born 1962 is an American feminist author journalist and conspiracy theorist Naomi WolfWolf in 2012BornNaomi Rebekah Wolf1962 age 61 62 San Francisco California U S Occupationauthorpolitical consultantjournalistEducationYale University BA New College Oxford DPhil Notable worksThe Beauty MythThe End of AmericaMisconceptionsFire with FireOutragesSpouseDavid Shipley m 1993 div 2005 wbr Brian O Shea m 2018 wbr 1 Children2Websitedailyclout wbr ioAfter the 1991 publication of her first book The Beauty Myth Wolf became a prominent figure in the third wave of the feminist movement 2 3 Feminists including Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan praised her work Others including Camille Paglia criticized it In the 1990s she was a political advisor to the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore 4 Wolf s later books include the bestseller The End of America in 2007 and Vagina A New Biography Critics have challenged the quality and accuracy of her books scholarship her serious misreading of court records for Outrages 2019 led to its U S publication being canceled 5 Wolf s career in journalism has included topics such as abortion and the Occupy Wall Street movement in articles for media outlets such as The Nation The New Republic The Guardian and The Huffington Post Since around 2014 Wolf has been described by journalists and media outlets as a conspiracy theorist a She has been criticized for posting misinformation on topics such as beheadings carried out by ISIS the Western African Ebola virus epidemic and Edward Snowden 6 7 8 Wolf has objected to COVID 19 lockdowns and criticized COVID 19 vaccines 9 10 In June 2021 her Twitter account was suspended for posting anti vaccine misinformation 11 Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Political consultant 3 Works 3 1 The Beauty Myth 1991 3 1 1 Accuracy 3 1 2 Reception 3 2 Fire with Fire 1993 3 3 Promiscuities 1997 3 4 Misconceptions 2001 3 5 The Treehouse 2005 3 6 The End of America 2007 3 7 Give Me Liberty 2008 3 8 Vagina A New Biography 2012 3 9 Outrages 2019 4 Feminist issues 4 1 Abortion 4 2 Pornography 4 3 Women in Islamic countries 5 Other views 5 1 Conspiracy theories 5 2 Defense of Julian Assange 5 3 Occupy Wall Street 5 4 Edward Snowden 5 5 Islamic State executions and other assertions 5 6 COVID 19 pandemic 6 Personal life 6 1 Alleged sexual encroachment incident at Yale 7 Selected works 7 1 Books 7 2 Book chapters 8 Notes 9 References 10 External linksEarly life and educationNaomi Rebekah Wolf was born in 1962 12 13 in San Francisco California to a Jewish family 14 15 Her mother is Deborah Goleman Wolf an anthropologist and the author of The Lesbian Community 2 Her father was Leonard Wolf a Romanian born scholar of gothic horror novels faculty member at San Francisco State University and Yiddish translator Leonard Wolf died from Parkinson s disease on March 20 2019 16 Wolf has a brother Aaron and a half brother Julius from her father s earlier relationship it remained a secret until Wolf was in her 30s 17 Wolf attended Lowell High School and debated in regional speech tournaments as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society She attended Yale University receiving her Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1984 From 1985 to 1987 she was a Rhodes Scholar at New College Oxford 18 Wolf s initial period at Oxford University was difficult as she experienced raw sexism overt snobbery and casual antisemitism Her writing became so personal and subjective that her tutor advised against submitting her doctoral thesis Wolf told interviewer Rachel Cooke writing for The Observer in 2019 My subject didn t exist I wanted to write feminist theory and I kept being told by the dons there was no such thing Her writing at this time formed the basis of her first book The Beauty Myth 19 20 Wolf ultimately returned to Oxford completing her Doctor of Philosophy degree in English literature in 2015 Her thesis supervised by Stefano Evangelista of Trinity College formed the basis of her 2019 book Outrages Sex Censorship and the Criminalization of Love 21 22 The thesis which the journal Times Higher Education called error strewn was subject to significant corrections of its scholarship prompting several articles in the UK higher education press 23 Political consultantWolf was involved in President Bill Clinton s 1996 reelection bid brainstorming with Clinton s team about ways to reach female voters 4 Hired by Dick Morris she wanted Morris to promote Clinton as The Good Father and a protector of the American house 24 She met with him every few weeks for nearly a year according to the book Morris wrote about the campaign Behind the Oval Office 25 Wolf managed to persuade me to pursue school uniforms tax breaks for adoption simpler cross racial adoption laws and more workplace flexibility 26 The advice she gave was without payment Morris said in November 1999 as Wolf was fearful the knowledge of her involvement in the campaign might have negative consequences for Clinton 25 During Al Gore s bid for the presidency in the 2000 election Wolf was hired as a consultant Her ideas and participation in the campaign generated considerable media coverage 27 According to a report by Michael Duffy and Karen Tumulty in Time Wolf was paid a salary of 15 000 by November 1999 5 000 per month 26 28 in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the women s vote to shirt and tie combinations 26 Wolf s direct involvement in the Time article was unclear she declined to be interviewed on the record 29 In a New York Times interview with Melinda Henneberger Wolf said she had been appointed in January 1999 and denied having advised Gore on his wardrobe Wolf said she had 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 28 Wolf told Katharine Viner of The Guardian in 2001 I believe his agenda for women was a really historic agenda I was honored to bring the concerns of women to Gore s table I m sorry that he didn t win and the controversy was worth it for me She told Viner the men in Gore s campaign at the equivalent level were paid more than she was 30 WorksThe Beauty Myth 1991 nbsp Wolf speaking at Brooklyn Law School January 29 2009In 1991 Wolf gained international attention as a spokeswoman of third wave feminism after the publication of her first book The Beauty Myth an international bestseller 31 32 33 The New York Times named it one of the seventy most influential books of the twentieth century 18 34 She argues that beauty as a normative value is entirely socially constructed and that the patriarchy determines the content of that construction with the objective to maintain women s subjugation 35 Wolf proposes the concept of an iron maiden an intrinsically unreachable norm that is then used to physically and mentally punish women for failing to achieve and adhere to it She condemns the fashion and beauty industries for exploiting women but also writes that the beauty myth pervades all aspects of human life Wolf believes that women should have the freedom to do anything we choose with our faces and bodies without being penalized by an ideology that uses attitudes economic pressure and even legal judgments about women s looks to psychologically and politically destroy us She claims that the beauty myth has targeted women in five areas labor religion sex violence and hunger Finally Wolf advocates for a relaxation of conventional beauty norms 36 In her introduction she scaffolds her work upon the achievements of second wave feminists and offers the following analysis 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 37 Accuracy Christina Hoff Sommers criticized Wolf for publishing the estimate that 150 000 women were dying every year from anorexia Sommers said she traced the source to the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association which said it was misquoted the figure refers to sufferers not fatalities Wolf s citation came from a book by Brumberg who referred to an American Anorexia and Bulimia Association newsletter and misquoted the newsletter Wolf accepted the error and changed it in future editions Sommers gave an estimate for the number of fatalities in 1990 as 100 400 38 39 The annual anorexia casualties in the U S were estimated to be around 50 to 60 per year in the mid 1990s 40 In 1995 for an article in The Independent on Sunday British journalist Joan Smith recalled asking Wolf to explain her unsourced assertion in The Beauty Myth that the UK has 3 5 million anorexics or bulimics 95 per cent of them female with 6 000 new cases yearly Wolf replied according to Smith that she had calculated the statistics from patients with eating disorders at one clinic 31 Caspar Schoemaker of the Netherlands Trimbos Institute published a paper in the academic journal Eating Disorders demonstrating that of the 23 statistics cited by Wolf in Beauty Myth 18 were incorrect with Wolf citing numbers that average out to 8 times the number in the source she was citing 41 Reception Second wave feminist Germaine Greer wrote that The Beauty Myth was the most important feminist publication since The Female Eunuch Greer s own work and Gloria Steinem wrote The Beauty Myth is a smart angry insightful book and a clarion call to freedom Every woman should read it 42 British novelist Fay Weldon called the book essential reading for the New Woman 43 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 citation needed 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 44 These comments touched off a series of debates between Wolf and Paglia in the pages of The New Republic 45 46 47 Caryn James wrote in The New York Times No other work has so forcefully confronted the anti feminism that emerged during the conservative yuppified 1980 s or so honestly depicted the confusion of accomplished women who feel emotionally and physically tortured by the need to look like movie stars Even by the standards of pop cultural feminist studies The Beauty Myth is a mess but that doesn t mean it s wrong 48 James also wrote that the book s claims of an intensified anti feminism are plausible but Ms Wolf doesn t begin to prove them because her logic is so lame her evidence so easily knocked down 48 Marilyn Yalom in The Washington Post called the book persuasive and praised its accumulated evidence 49 Revisiting The Beauty Myth in 2019 for The New Republic literary critic Maris Kreizman recalls that reading it as an undergraduate made her world burst open but as she matured Kreizman saw Wolf s books as poorly argued tracts with Wolf making wilder and wilder assertions over time Kreizman began to write Wolf off as a fringe character despite the fact that she had once informed my own feminism so deeply 7 Fire with Fire 1993 In Fire with Fire 1993 Wolf wrote about politics female empowerment and women s sexual liberation 50 She wished to persuade women to reject victim feminism in favor of power feminism She argued for diminishing the issue of opposing men avoiding divisive issues such as abortion and the rights of lesbians and considering more universal issues like violence against women pay disparities and sexual harassment 26 Mary Nemeth wrote in Maclean s that her central thesis that when Anita Hill in 1991 accused U S Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment she provoked a genderquake that turned American women into the political ruling class seems grossly exaggerated 51 Melissa Benn in the London Review of Books called the book Wolf s call for a realpolitik in which sisterhood and capital might be allies 52 Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times assailed Fire with Fire for its dubious oversimplifications and highly debatable assertions and its disconcerting penchant for inflationary prose but approved of Wolf s efforts to articulate an accessible pragmatic feminism helping to replace strident dogma with common sense 53 Time magazine reviewer Martha Duffy dismissed the book as flawed but wrote 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 characterizing the book as advocating an inclusive strain of feminism that welcomed abortion opponents 54 Feminist author Natasha Walter wrote in The Independent that the book has its faults but compared with The Beauty Myth it has energy and spirit and generosity too But Walter criticized it for having a narrow agenda where you will look in vain for much discussion of older women of black women of women with low incomes of mothers Calling Wolf a media star Walter wrote She is particularly good naturally on the role of women in the media 55 Promiscuities 1997 Promiscuities 1997 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 misogynistically by Henry Miller Philip Roth and Norman Mailer while female accounts of adolescent sexuality have been systematically suppressed 56 Schools in Wolf s opinion should teach their students sexual gradualism masturbation mutual masturbation and oral sex which she sees as a more credible approach than total abstinence and without the risks of full intercourse 26 Wolf uses cross cultural material to try to demonstrate that women have across history been celebrated as more carnal than men She also argues that women must reclaim the legitimacy of their sexuality by shattering the polarization of women between virgin and whore 56 Partly an account of her own sexual history the book urges women to redeem the slut in ourselves and rejoice in being bad girls 19 57 58 Promiscuities generally received negative reviews In The New York Times Kakutani wrote that Wolf is a frustratingly inept messenger a sloppy thinker and incompetent writer who tries in vain to pass off tired observations as radical apercus subjective musings as generational truths sappy suggestions as useful ideas 59 Of Wolf s claims about accounts of female sexuality being suppressed Kakutani wrote Where has Ms Wolf been What about the raunchy confessions that surface daily on radio and television talk shows What about all the memoirists from Anais Nin to Kathryn Harrison 59 Two days earlier in the Times Weaver Courtney praised the book 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 60 In contrast The Library Journal excoriated the book 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 61 Misconceptions 2001 I feel absolutely staggered by what I discovered after giving birth Wolf said at the time Misconceptions Truth Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood was published Birth today is like agribusiness It s like a chicken plant they go in they go out she told Katharine Viner Pregnancy birth and motherhood has made me a more radical feminist than I have ever been 30 The book draws heavily on Wolf s experience of her first pregnancy 62 She describes the vacuous impassivity of the ultrasound technician who gives her the first glimpse of her new baby Wolf laments her C section and examines why the procedure is common in the U S advocating a return to midwifery The book s second half is anecdotal focusing on inequalities between parents with respect to child care 63 In the section describing being on the operating table having a Caesarean Wolf compares herself to Jesus at his crucifixion 64 She outlines a mothers manifesto including flexi time for both parents neighborhood toy banks and a radical mothers movement 30 In her New York Times review Claire Dederer wrote that Wolf barely pauses to acknowledge that Caesareans are at times a necessary and even lifesaving intervention and that she does her best writing when she s observing her own life as a memoirist calling Wolf s work in this idiom not self indulgent It seems vital and in a sense radical in the tradition of 1970 s feminists who sought to speak to every aspect of women s lives 62 The Treehouse 2005 Wolf s The Treehouse Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live Love and See is an account of her midlife crisis She revalues her father s love and his role as an artist and a teacher during a year living in a house in upstate New York 65 In a promotional interview with The Herald Glasgow Wolf related her experience of a vision of Jesus just this figure who was the most perfected human being full of light and full of love There was light coming out of him holographically simply because he was unclouded 66 The End of America 2007 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 67 The book details how this pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany Fascist Italy and elsewhere and analyzes its emergence and application of all 10 steps in American political affairs since the September 11 attacks 68 69 Alex Beam wrote in the International Herald Tribune reprinted in The New York Times In the book Wolf insists that she is not equating George W Bush with Hitler nor the United States with Nazi Germany then proceeds to do just that 70 A month before the 2008 presidential election she announced her intention to propose means to arrest Bush Americans are facing a coup as of this morning October 1st she said in a radio interview 71 Several years later in 2013 Mark Nuckols argued in The Atlantic that Wolf s supposed historical parallels between incidents from the era of the European dictators and modern America are based on a highly selective reading in which Wolf omits significant details and misuses her sources 72 In The Daily Beast Michael C Moynihan called the book an astoundingly lazy piece of writing 73 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 and The Trials of Darryl Hunt It premiered in October 2008 and was favorably reviewed in The New York Times by Stephen Holden 74 and by Variety magazine 75 Nigel Andrews in the Financial Times saw aspects of it positively but what isn t plausible or reality related is the conclusion itself At the door of the Third Reich Wolf s credibility collapses 76 Moynihan called it an even dumber documentary film than the dumb book 73 Interviewed by Alternet in 2010 Wolf compared some of President Barack Obama s actions to those of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler as typical of dictatorships 77 78 Wolf returned to her The End of America theme in a Globe and Mail article in 2014 considering how modern Western women born in inclusive egalitarian liberal democracies are assuming positions of leadership in neofascist political movements 79 Give Me Liberty 2008 Give Me Liberty A Handbook for American Revolutionaries was written as a sequel to The End of America The book looks at times and places in history where citizens faced the closing of an open society and successfully fought back 80 Vagina A New Biography 2012 Vagina A New Biography was much criticized especially by feminist authors Katie Roiphe called it ludicrous in Slate 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 64 In The Nation Katha Pollitt called it a silly book containing much dubious neuroscience and much foolishness It becomes loopier as it goes on We learn that women think and feel through their vagina which can grieve and feel insulted 81 Toni Bentley wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Wolf used shoddy research methodology while with her graceless writing Wolf opens herself to ridicule on virtually every page 82 Janice Turner in The Times wrote that since Mary Wollstonecraft female writers have argued that women should not be defined by biology yet Wolf our self styled leader has declared that female consciousness creativity and destiny all come back to a woman s genitals 83 Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum wrote By asserting that what s between a woman s ears is directly informed by what s between her legs the vagina mediates female confidence creativity and sense of transcendence Wolf writes it acts as a perverse echo of Republican efforts to limit reproductive rights 84 In the book according to Suzanne Moore in The Guardian feminism becomes simply a highly mediated form of narcissism devoid of any actual brain politics connection 85 In The New York Review of Books Zoe Heller wrote that the book offers an unusually clear insight into the workings of her mystic feminist philosophy that the part of the book about the history of the vagina s representation is full of childlike generalizations and that Wolf s understanding of science is pretty shaky too 86 In an interview with The New York Times Wolf rejected claims that she had written more freely than her sources could sustain 87 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 88 In response to the criticism Wolf said in a television interview 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 89 At a party organized to celebrate Wolf s publishing deal for this book the male host invited guests to make pasta pieces shaped like vulvas Wolf came to view this as mocking and recounted feeling pressured to remain silent as the butt of a joke something she said women often feel pressured to do She said the incident resulted in her having writers block for the next six months 90 91 Outrages 2019 Wolf s book Outrages Sex Censorship and the Criminalization of Love was based on the 2015 doctoral thesis she completed under the supervision of literary scholar Stefano Maria Evangelista a Fellow of Trinity College Oxford 21 22 It studies the repression of homosexuality in relation to attitudes toward divorce and prostitution and also in relation to the censorship of books 92 Outrages was published in the UK in May 2019 by Virago Press 93 On June 12 2019 Outrages was named on the O The Oprah Magazine s The 32 Best Books by Women of Summer 2019 list 94 The next day the U S publisher recalled all copies from U S bookstores 95 In a 2019 BBC radio interview broadcaster and author Matthew Sweet identified an error in a central tenet of the book a misunderstanding of the legal term death recorded which Wolf had taken to mean that the convict had been executed but in fact means that the convict was pardoned or the sentence was commuted 96 97 98 He cited a website for the Old Bailey Criminal Court which Wolf had referred to in the interview as one of her sources 99 Reviewers have described other errors of scholarship in the work 100 101 At the Hay Festival in Wales in May 2019 a few days after her exchange with Sweet Wolf defended her book and said she had already corrected the error 102 At an event in Manhattan in June she said she was not embarrassed and felt grateful to Sweet for the correction 103 104 On October 18 2019 it became known that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt s release of the book in the U S was being canceled with copies already printed and distributed being pulled and pulped 105 Wolf expressed hope that the book would still be published in the U S 106 107 In November 2020 Virago published a UK paperback edition of the book that removed the incorrect references to the execution of men for sodomy included in the hardback edition Interviewed about the new edition Sweet said that the book continues to misread historical sources Dr Wolf has misrepresented the experiences of victims of child abuse and violent sexual assault This is the most profound offence against her discipline as well as the memories of real people on the historical record Cultural historian Fern Riddell called the book a calumny against gay people in the 19th century and said that Wolf presents child rapists and those taking part in acts of bestiality as being gay men in consensual relationships and that is completely wrong The Daily Telegraph reported that there had been calls for Wolf s 2015 DPhil to be reexamined and for Virago to withdraw the book 108 In a statement to The Guardian Wolf said the book had been reviewed by leading scholars in the field and it is clear that I have accurately represented the position Oxford University stated that a statement of clarification to Wolf s thesis had been received and approved and would be available for consultation in the Bodleian Library in due course 109 In March 2021 Times Higher Education reported that Wolf s original thesis remained unavailable six years after it was examined Oxford doctoral graduates can request an embargo of up to three years with the potential for renewal 110 The thesis finally became available in April 2021 with nine pages of corrections attached dealing with the misreading of historic criminal records 111 22 Wolf had submitted the thesis to the archive in December 2020 more than five years after her DPhil was awarded and had requested a one year extension to the embargo period so that she could seek legal advice 112 The extension request was declined 23 In university teaching Outrages has been used as an example of the danger of misreading historical sources 113 Feminist issuesAbortion In an October 1995 New Republic article Wolf was critical of contemporary pro choice positions arguing that the movement had developed a lexicon of dehumanization and urged feminists to accept abortion as a form of homicide and defend the procedure within the ambiguity of this moral conundrum She continued 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 114 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 114 In a 2005 article for New York magazine 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 115 Pornography In a 2003 New York magazine article Wolf suggested that the ubiquity of internet pornography tends to enervate men s sexual attraction to real women She wrote 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 advocated abstaining from porn not on moral grounds but because greater supply of the stimulant equals diminished capacity 116 Women in Islamic countries Wolf has commented about the dress required of women living in Muslim countries In 2008 she wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald 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 117 Other viewsConspiracy theories In the January 2013 issue of The Atlantic law and business professor Mark Nuckols wrote 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 He added W hen 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 Nuckols argued that Wolf has for many years now been claiming that a fascist coup in America is imminent I n 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 72 In the same month Charles C W Cooke wrote in 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 71 Sarah Ditum wrote in the New Statesman Perhaps it s not that Wolf is a feminist who s degenerated into conspiracism but instead that she s a conspiracy theorist who happened to fall into feminism first The Beauty Myth is a conspiracy theory of a sort and sometimes conspiracies are real the self replicating power structure of patriarchy is one of them 118 Defense of Julian Assange See also Assange v Swedish Prosecution Authority Harassment of complainants lawyers and journalists Shortly after Julian Assange was arrested in 2010 Wolf wrote in an article for The Huffington Post s comedy section that the allegations two women made against him amounted to no more than bad manners from a boyfriend 118 119 His accusers she later wrote in several contexts were working for the CIA and Assange had been falsely accused 118 On December 20 2010 Democracy Now featured a debate between Wolf and Jaclyn Friedman on Assange s case According to Wolf the alleged victims should have said no asserted that they consented to having sex with him and said the claims were politically motivated and demeaned the cause of legitimate rape victims 120 In a 2011 Guardian article she argued that the accuser in rape cases should not retain anonymity She said anonymity in such cases was a relic of the Victorian era which serves institutions that do not want to prosecute rapists this is particularly clear in the Assange case where public opinion matters far more than usual 121 In The Nation Katha Pollitt wrote that Wolf s argument was that anonymity impedes law enforcement which Pollitt said is a little bizarre doesn t Wolf realize that anonymity applies only to the media Everyone in the justice system knows who the complainants are 122 Laurie Penny wrote in the New Statesman in September 2012 that Wolf has done great damage by using her platform as one of the world s most famous feminists to dismiss these women s allegations 123 Occupy Wall Street On October 18 2011 Wolf was arrested and detained in New York during the Occupy Wall Street protests having ignored a police warning not to remain on the street in front of a building She spent about 30 minutes in a cell 124 She disputed the NYPD s interpretation of applicable laws 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 125 A month later Wolf argued in The Guardian citing leaked documents that attacks on the Occupy movement were a coordinated plot orchestrated by federal law enforcement agencies Those leaks she alleged showed that the FBI was privately treating OWS as a terrorist threat rather than a peaceful organization 126 The response to this article ranged from praise to criticism of Wolf for being overly speculative and creating a conspiracy theory 127 Wolf responded that there was ample evidence for her argument and proceeded to review the information available to her at the time of the article and what she alleged was new evidence since that time 128 Imani Gandy of Balloon Juice wrote that nothing substantiates Wolf s claims that Wolf s article has no factual basis whatsoever and is therefore a journalistic failure of the highest order and that it was incumbent upon Wolf to fully research her claims and to provide facts to back them up 129 Corey Robin a political theorist journalist and associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York wrote on his blog The reason Wolf gets her facts wrong is that she s got her theory wrong 130 In a December 2012 Guardian article Wolf wrote about 131 FBI documents released following an FOIA request from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund revealed that the FBI used counterterrorism agents and other resources to monitor the national Occupy movement extensively 132 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 133 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 134 Wolf wrote 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 How simple just to label an entity a terrorist organization and choke off disrupt or indict its sources of financing 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 131 Mother Jones claimed that none of the documents revealed efforts by federal law enforcement agencies to disband the Occupy camps and that the documents did not provide much evidence that federal officials attempted to suppress protesters free speech rights Mother Jones said the truth was a far cry from Wolf s contention 135 Edward Snowden In June 2013 New York magazine reported that Wolf in a recent Facebook post 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 8 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 8 She wondered whether he was planted by the Police State 136 Wolf responded on 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 Of 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 137 Salon accused Wolf of making factual errors and misreadings 136 Islamic State executions and other assertions In a series of Facebook posts in October 2014 Wolf questioned the authenticity of videos purporting to show beheadings of two American journalists 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 6 73 Wolf also charged that the U S was dispatching military 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 the U S 6 138 She further said that the 2014 Scottish independence referendum in which Scotland voted to remain in the U K was faked 6 Speaking about this at a demonstration in Glasgow on October 12 Wolf said I truly believe it was rigged 139 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 Wolf posted I stand by what I wrote 138 But in a later Facebook post she retracted her statement 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 140 Max Fisher commented that the videos were widely distributed on open source jihadist online outlets while the Maryland based nonprofit SITE monitors extremist social media Wolf deleted her original Facebook posts 6 COVID 19 pandemic During the COVID 19 pandemic Wolf has frequently promoted COVID 19 misinformation misinformation related to vaccination and 5G conspiracy theories 141 142 143 After Joe Biden was elected U S president Wolf tweeted on November 9 2020 If I d known Biden was open to lockdowns as he now states which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic and a terrifying practice one that won t ever end because elites love it I would never have voted for him 144 In February 2021 Wolf said on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News that government COVID 19 restrictions were turning the U S into a totalitarian state before everyone s eyes and went on to say I really hope we wake up quickly because history also shows that it s a small window in which people can fight back before it is too dangerous to fight back 145 In a March 2021 interview for Sky News Australia Wolf claimed that lockdown policies are an invention of Chinese leader Xi Jinping She also said that Every human right in law is being violated that Australians are being lied to over and over and that Australians are being psychologically tortured 146 On April 19 2021 Wolf alleged that National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci Biden s chief medical advisor doesn t work for us asserting he had loyalties to Israel that interfered with service to public health Wolf pointed to 1 million she said Fauci had received from Israel It was actually the Dan David Prize a prestigious private award that Fauci received in 2021 for public service 147 148 Wolf opposes COVID 19 vaccine passports saying they represent the absolute end of the line for human liberty in the West 149 Wolf has frequently shared conspiracy theories concerning the safety and efficacy of vaccines against COVID 19 150 In April 2021 she was instrumental in amplifying and spreading myths that the vaccines cause female infertility 151 Wolf s conspiratorial and anti vaccine stance has been criticized as irresponsible and she has also been the subject of ridicule 152 Twitter suspended Wolf s account in June 2021 141 a decision the company said was permanent according to the London Observer 153 At the end of July 2021 The Daily Beast reported that Wolf was a co plaintiff in former president Donald Trump s social media lawsuit According to Wolf Twitter s suspension of her account led her to lose over half of her business model investors in her business and other sources of income 154 Wolf appeared on the May 23 2022 episode of The Charlie Kirk Show where she said There are military age men pouring over the border from places like Afghanistan and Ukraine And the easiest thing in the world to send them to God knows where you know and to arm them to assist the World Health Organization She argued that the Second Amendment made it harder for government to subjugate the population but that it was possible Wolf said I really hope that it doesn t devolve into civil war which is really what the next thing is in history when you have an occupying force which is what the WHO will be you know by next week 155 In an October 2022 interview with UK TV channel GB News Wolf said that COVID 19 vaccines are part of an effort to destroy British civil society Ofcom the UK broadcasting regulatory agency announced an investigation into GB News after receiving more than 400 complaints from members of the public 156 and later found the channel in breach of broadcasting rules 157 In January 2023 Wolf appeared with Steve Bannon in his War Room show on Robert J Sigg s Real America s Voice television network They advertised a book titled Pfizer Documents Analysis Report that supposedly contained 50 reports using primary source Pfizer documents released under a court order by the U S Food and Drug Administration The authors were not mentioned but summarized as a team of 3 500 medical experts by the name of The War Room DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis Project According to Wolf and Bannon the book rips the veneer off the myth that mRNA injections are safe and effective 158 Personal lifeWolf s first marriage was in 1993 to journalist David Shipley then an editor at The New York Times The couple had two children a son and daughter 17 Wolf and Shipley divorced in 2005 20 On November 23 2018 Wolf married Brian William O Shea a U S Army veteran private detective and owner of Striker Pierce Investigations According to a November 2018 New York Times article Wolf and O Shea met in 2014 after people threatened Wolf on the internet after she reported on human rights violations in the Middle East and her contacts recommended O Shea 1 Wolf is often confused with author Naomi Klein this confusion is a major subject of Klein s 2023 book Doppelganger which Wolf did not contribute to despite numerous attempts by Klein to contact her 159 Alleged sexual encroachment incident at Yale In a 2004 article for New York magazine Wolf accused literary scholar Harold Bloom of a sexual encroachment in 1983 for touching her inner 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 In a 2015 interview with Time Bloom denied ever being indoors with this person 160 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 161 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 161 In Slate magazine around the time the allegations against Bloom first surfaced Meghan O Rourke wrote that Wolf generalized about sexual assault at Yale on the basis of her alleged personal experience Moreover O Rourke wrote despite Wolf s assertion that sexual assault existed at Yale she did not interview any Yale students for her story In addition O Rourke wrote She jumps through verbal hoops to make it clear she was not personally traumatized yet she spends paragraphs describing the incident in precisely those terms O Rourke wrote that despite Wolf s claim that her educational experience was corrupted Wolf neglects to mention that she later was awarded a Rhodes scholarship O Rourke concluded that the gaps and imprecision in Wolf s article give fodder to skeptics who think sexual harassment charges are often just a form of hysteria 162 Separately a formal complaint was filed with the US 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 163 In April 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 More specifically she alleged 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 164 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 was required to report on its progress to the Office of Civil Rights until May 2014 165 In January 2018 Wolf accused Yale officials of blocking her from filing a formal grievance against Bloom She told The New York Times that she had attempted to file the complaint in 2015 with Yale s University Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct but that the university had refused to accept it 166 On January 16 2018 Wolf said she determined to see Yale s provost Ben Polak in another attempt to present her case As she documented on Twitter the newspaper reported she brought a suitcase and a sleeping bag because she said she did not know how long she would have to stay When she arrived at the provost s office she said security guards prevented her from entering any elevators Eventually she said Aley Menon the secretary of the sexual misconduct committee appeared and they met in the committee s offices for an hour during which she gave Ms Menon a copy of her complaint 166 This was reported and confirmed by Norman Vanamee who apparently met Wolf at Yale that morning In Town amp Country magazine in January 2018 Vanamee returned to the story and wrote Yale University has a 93 person police department and after the guard called for backup three of its armed and uniformed officers appeared and stationed themselves between Wolf and the elevator bank 167 Selected worksBooks The Beauty Myth How Images of Beauty are used Against Women New York Perennial 2002 1990 ISBN 978 0060512187 Fire with Fire The New Female Power and How To Use It New York Fawcett Columbine 1994 ISBN 978 0449909515 Promiscuities A Secret History of Female Desire London Vintage 1997 ISBN 978 0099205913 Misconceptions Truth Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood New York Doubleday 2001 ISBN 978 0385493024 The Treehouse Eccentric Wisdom from My Father on How to Live Love and See New York Simon amp Schuster 2005 ISBN 978 0743249775 The End of America Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot White River Junction Vermont Chelsea Green Pub 2007 ISBN 978 1933392790 The Inner Compass for Ethics amp Excellence 2007 ISBN 978 1934441282 co authored with Daniel Goleman Give me Liberty A Handbook for American Revolutionaries New York Simon amp Schuster 2008 ISBN 978 1416590569 Vagina A New Biography New York Ecco 2012 ISBN 978 0061989162 Outrages Sex Censorship and the Criminalisation of Love Chelsea Green Pub 2020 ISBN 978 1645020165 The Bodies of Others The New Authoritarians Covid 19 and the War Against the Human All Seasons Press 2022 ISBN 978 1737478560 Book chapters Fallon Patricia Katzman Melanie A Wooley Susan C eds 1994 Hunger Feminist Perspectives on Eating Disorders New York Guilford Press pp 94 114 ISBN 978 1572301825 Notes Sources describing Wolf as a conspiracy theorist or using related terms include Boteach Shmuely September 10 2014 Naomi Wolf s allegations of an Israeli genocide fuel anti Semitism The Jerusalem Post Retrieved April 2 2021 Naomi is so enmeshed with conspiracy theories that she even questions whether ISIS is a true threat Fisher Max October 5 2014 The insane conspiracy theories of Naomi Wolf Vox Retrieved April 2 2021 I t is important for readers who may encounter Wolf s ideas to understand the distinction between her earlier work which rose on its merits and her newer conspiracy theories which are unhinged damaging and dangerous Brereton Alex October 6 2014 The line between conspiracy and scepticism is getting harder to draw just ask Naomi Wolf The Guardian Retrieved April 2 2021 So Naomi Wolf thinks that the Isis beheading videos may not have been genuine In a series of Facebook posts over the weekend that also included theories about an Ebola driven military quarantine of US society and fake ballots in the Scottish referendum she crossed over into conspiracy territory Ditum Sarah October 7 2014 Naomi Wolf is not a feminist who became conspiracy theorist she s a conspiracist who was once right New Statesman London Retrieved April 1 2021 Perhaps it s not that Wolf is a feminist who s degenerated into conspiracism but instead that she s a conspiracy theorist who happened to fall into feminism first Moynihan Michael April 14 2017 October 11 2014 From ISIS to Ebola What Has Made Naomi Wolf So Paranoid The Daily Beast Retrieved January 3 2020 Wolf s path from respectability to conspiracy theory isn t uncommon Aaronovitch David May 29 2019 Beware liberal attempts to rewrite history The Times Retrieved March 19 2021 She is furthermore a serial espouser of mad conspiracy theories insisting on their plausibility in the face of overwhelming evidence Kreizman Maris June 14 2019 A Journey With Naomi Wolf The New Republic Retrieved April 2 2021 In 2014 she spread conspiracy theories including the belief that the beheading of two American journalists by ISIS was faked and staged Poole Steven October 9 2019 Permanent Record Edward Snowden spies on the spies New Statesman London Retrieved March 19 2021 Chemtrails are what conspiracy theorists including the author Naomi Wolf call the contrails of jet planes rather than being harmless water vapour they think they are deliberate sprays of noxious chemicals into the atmosphere for reasons unclear Onion Rebecca March 30 2021 A Modern Feminist Classic Changed My Life Was It Actually Garbage Slate Retrieved April 2 2021 I can see this progression of Wolf s thinking in every Trump and COVID era conspiracy theorist from Stop the Steal to QAnon who like Wolf seems to favor a natural order where their particular problems rank first It goes from this sucks so much to someone is surely pulling these strings to guys I found the someone Fauci got 1 million from Israel doesn t work for us conspiracist Naomi Wolf says on Fox News Haaretz com April 20 2021 Retrieved January 7 2022 Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf suggested that Dr Anthony Fauci is beholden to Israel rather than serving the United States References a b Mallozzi Vincent M November 24 2018 An Author and Investigator Find Comfort in Each Other The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 23 2019 a b Hix Lisa June 19 2005 Did Father Know Best In Her New Book Third Wave Feminist Naomi Wolf Reconsiders Her Bohemian Upbringing San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved December 15 2010 Wolf Naomi 1991 The Beauty Myth New York Bantham Doubleday Dell Publishing ISBN 978 0060512187 Retrieved December 4 2015 a b Seelye Katharine Q November 1 1999 Adviser Pushes Gore to Be Leader of the Pack The New York Times Retrieved June 6 2021 Naomi Wolf US publisher cancels book release after accuracy concerns BBC News October 23 2019 Retrieved October 25 2019 a b c d e Fisher Max October 5 2014 The insane conspiracy theories of Naomi Wolf Vox Vox Media Retrieved January 4 2020 a b Kreizman Maris June 14 2019 A Journey With Naomi Wolf The New Republic Retrieved April 2 2021 a b c Coscarelli Joe June 14 2013 Naomi Wolf Thinks Edward Snowden and His Sexy Girlfriend Might Be Government Plants New York Retrieved October 6 2014 Gertz Matt April 20 2021 Fox keeps hosting pandemic conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf Media Matters for America Retrieved May 21 2021 Onion Rebecca March 30 2021 A Modern Feminist Classic Changed My Life Was It Actually Garbage Slate Retrieved April 2 2021 Hutton Alice June 5 2021 Beauty Myth author Naomi Wolf suspended from Twitter after sharing vaccine disinformation The Independent Archived from the original on June 18 2022 Retrieved June 6 2021 Naomi Wolf 1962 Wander Women Project Donald Ann Wolf Ann April 18 1997 The Write Stuff The List Retrieved April 9 2021 Wolf in an interview on The Alex Jones Show podcast October 22 08 2 40 38 into the program Well you know I m Jewish and so you know I think there s this very deep reaction in people with my ancestry because my dad s family was largely wiped out by the Holocaust a sensitivity to travel restrictions because for people of my ethnicity there s a giant divide between people who got out before the border hardened during the National Nazi Socialist regime and those who waited a little too long So I watch with concern when I travel the growth of the US watchlist which is growing by 20 000 names a month Blaisdell Bob May 15 2005 Naomi Wolf starts listening to her dad 12 tidy lessons in wisdom of the heart San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved November 18 2018 Leonard Wolf SFGate San Francisco Chronicle March 20 2019 Retrieved December 11 2020 a b Baxter Sarah January 8 2006 Finding her heart and getting a divorce The Sunday Times London ISSN 0956 1382 Retrieved September 26 2019 a b Naomi Wolf biography and blog The Huffington Post Retrieved December 15 2010 a b Harris Paul October 22 2011 Naomi Wolf true radical or ultra egoist Profile The Observer London Retrieved November 18 2018 a b Cooke Rachel May 19 2019 Naomi Wolf We re in a fight for our lives and for democracy The Observer London Retrieved November 18 2019 a b Meredith Fionola May 18 2019 Naomi Wolf Never before have I seen so many threats to free speech It is chilling Irish Times Archived from the original on May 18 2019 Retrieved May 25 2019 a b c Wolf Naomi 2015 Ecstasy or justice The sexual author and the law 1855 1885 DPhil University of Oxford a b Grove Jack June 24 2021 Naomi Wolf wanted extra year long embargo on controversial thesis Times Higher Education Retrieved June 27 2021 Mundow Anna April 8 1997 Sexual revisionist The Irish Times Retrieved March 13 2021 a b Gerhart Ann November 5 1999 Who s Afraid of Naomi Wolf The List Is Growing Fast Since the Promiscuities Author Turned Gore Adviser The Washington Post Retrieved March 13 2021 a b c d e Duffy Michael Tumulty Karen December 1 1999 Gore s secret guru CNN Time Retrieved March 13 2021 Somerby Bob A virtual wilding The month of earth tones and Wolf How He Got There Chapter 5 Retrieved May 19 2010 The frenzy about Naomi Wolf began in the pages of Time On Sunday morning October 31 just four days after the jeering of Gore the magazine released a news report headlined GORE S SECRET GURU The report appeared in Time s new edition dated November 8 In the piece Michael Duffy and Karen Tumulty reported an underwhelming fact Author Naomi Wolf the secret guru in question was advising the Gore campaign had been doing so since January Within days this underwhelming piece of news had turned into a major press frenzy For the next month Gore and Wolf would be relentlessly trashed in ways which were often remarkably ugly and often profoundly inane a b Henneberger Melinda November 5 1999 Naomi Wolf Feminist Consultant to Gore Clarifies Her Campaign Role The New York Times Retrieved November 18 2019 Menand Louis December 2 1999 Opening Moves New York Review of Books Retrieved March 2 2021 Time was elliptical about Wolf s own contribution to the story the magazine said only that she had declined to talk about her role for the record a b c Viner Katharine September 1 2001 Stitched up The Guardian Retrieved March 13 2021 a b Smith Joan October 15 1995 The seer and the sisters The Independent on Sunday London Archived from the original on June 18 2022 Retrieved December 13 2019 Project Syndicate The Next Wave Wolf Naomi The Beauty Myth New York Bantham Doubleday Dell Publishing 1991 p 281 The beauty myth can be defeated only through an electric resurgence of the woman centered political activism of the seventies a feminist third wave updated to take on the new issues of the nineties I ve become convinced that here are thousands of young women ready and eager to join forces with a peer driven feminist third wave that would take on along with the classic feminist agenda the new problems that have arisen with the shift in Zeitgeist and beauty backlash Felder Deborah 2006 A Bookshelf of Our Own Works that Changed Women s Lives Kensington Publishing Corporation p 274 ISBN 978 0806527420 Retrieved June 26 2015 Johnson Diane January 16 1992 Something for the Boys The New York Review of Books Retrieved November 18 2019 The Beauty Myth pp 17 18 20 86 131 179 218 The Beauty Myth p 10 Christina Hoff Sommers 1995 Who Stole Feminism How Women Have Betrayed Women Simon and Schuster pp 12 13 ISBN 978 0684801568 Pekars Tetanya June 7 2012 Naomi Wolf Got Her Facts Wrong Really Really Really Wrong Science of Eating Disorders Archived from the original on February 7 2017 Retrieved October 1 2016 Sehgal Parul June 5 2019 Naomi Wolf s Career of Blunders Continues in Outrages The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved June 9 2019 Schoemaker Casper 2004 A Critical Appraisal of the Anorexia Statistics in The Beauty Myth Introducing Wolf s Overdo and Lie Factor Eating Disorders The Journal of Treatment and Prevention 12 2 97 102 doi 10 1080 10640260490444619 PMID 16864310 S2CID 8704509 The Beauty Myth Powells com Archived from the original on June 29 2011 Kim Hubbard The Tyranny of Beauty To Naomi Wolf Pressure to Look Good Equals Oppression Archived March 3 2016 at the Wayback Machine People June 24 1991 Paglia Camille Sex Art and American Culture New York Random House 1992 p 262 Naomi Wolf Feminist Fatale The New Republic March 16 1992 pp 23 25 Camille Paglia Wolf Pack The New Republic April 13 1992 pp 4 5 Naomi Wolf and Camille Paglia The Last Words The New Republic May 18 1992 pp 4 5 a b James Caryn May 7 1991 Feminine Beauty as a Masculine Plot The New York Times Retrieved April 29 2021 Yalom Marilyn June 16 1991 Feminism s Latest Makeover The Washington Post Retrieved May 20 2022 Wolf Naomi 1993 Fire with Fire New York Random House ISBN 978 0679427186 Nemeth Mary December 6 1993 Who s afraid of Naomi Wolf Maclean s Archived from the original on November 23 2020 Retrieved March 13 2021 Benn Melissa February 5 1998 Making It London Review of Books Vol 20 no 3 Retrieved March 1 2021 Kakutani Michiko December 3 1993 Books of The Times Helpful Hints for an Era of Practical Feminism The New York Times Duffy Martha December 27 1993 Tremors of Genderquake Time Archived from the original on October 28 2010 Retrieved December 16 2010 Walter Natasha November 18 1993 How to change the world and be sexy Fire with fire The Independent London Archived from the original on June 18 2022 Retrieved January 21 2016 a b Wolf Naomi 1997 Promiscuities New York Balantine Publishing Group OCLC 473694368 Meredith Fionola May 18 2019 Naomi Wolf Never before have I seen so many threats to free speech It is chilling The Irish Times Retrieved March 13 2021 Macdonald Marianne April 12 1997 Not nearly naughty enough Naomi The Independent London Archived from the original on June 18 2022 Retrieved March 13 2021 a b Kakutani Michiko June 10 1997 Feminism Lite She Is Woman Hear Her Roar The New York Times Retrieved March 2 2021 Weaver Courtney June 8 1997 Growing Up Sexual The New York Times Retrieved March 2 2021 The Library Journal June 1997 a b Dederer Claire October 7 2001 What to Expect The New York Times Retrieved November 18 2019 Wolf Naomi 2001 Misconceptions Truth Lies and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood New York Doubleday ISBN 978 0385493024 a b Roiphe Katie September 10 2012 Naomi Wolf s New Book About Her Vagina It s as ludicrous as you think it is Slate Retrieved January 23 2021 Her 2001 book about motherhood Misconceptions in which she compared herself on the operating table getting a caesarian to Jesus on the crucifix did not connect in the same way as her first book permanent dead link Bakewell Joan January 28 2006 Daddy dearest The Guardian Retrieved January 23 2021 Revered as a feminist icon then slated for being an intellectual lightweight Naomi Wolf has experienced highs as well as lows and then she met Jesus The Herald Glasgow Scotland January 22 2006 Retrieved January 23 2021 Wolf Naomi April 24 2007 Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps The Guardian Retrieved January 4 2020 Wolf Naomi 2007 The End of America Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot White River VT Chelsea Green Publishing ISBN 978 1933392790 Wolf Naomi September 27 2007 Books The End of America The Washington Post Retrieved December 6 2009 I want to summarize why I believe we are facing a real crisis My reading showed me that there are 10 key steps that would be despots always take when they are seeking to close down an open society or to crush a democracy movement and we are seeing each of those in the US today Beam Alex November 23 2007 Is Bush Hitler I don t think so The New York Times Internal Herald Tribune Retrieved January 4 2010 a b Cooke Charles C W October 6 2014 The Fevered Delusions of Naomi Wolf National Review Online Retrieved October 6 2014 a b Nuckols Mark January 9 2013 No Naomi Wolf America Is Not Becoming a Fascist State The Atlantic Retrieved January 4 2020 a b c Moynihan Michael April 14 2017 October 11 2014 From ISIS to Ebola What Has Made Naomi Wolf So Paranoid The Daily Beast Retrieved January 3 2020 Wolf s path from respectability to conspiracy theory isn t uncommon Holden Stephen December 3 2008 When Laws and Liberties Test Each Other s Limits The New York Times Retrieved May 19 2010 Scheib Ronnie October 20 2008 The End of America Movie Review Variety Andrews Nigel January 17 2009 Naomi Wolf s philippic on Bushism Financial Times Archived from the original on December 10 2022 Retrieved January 23 2021 Moynihan Michael April 2 2010 Political Promiscuities Naomi Wolf and the Patriot Movement Reason Retrieved February 28 2021 Chait Jonathan March 31 2010 Crying Wolf The New Republic Retrieved February 28 2021 Obama has done things like Hitler did Let me be very careful here The National Socialists rounded people up and held them without trial signed legislation that gave torture impunity and spied on their citizens just as Obama has It isn t a question of what has been done that Hitler did It s what does every dictator do on the left or the right that is being done here and now The real fight isn t left or right but between forces of democracy across the spectrum and the forces of tyranny Wolf Naomi May 12 2018 April 2 2014 Women the kinder gentler fascists The Globe and Mail Toronto Retrieved January 4 2020 Felling Matthew November 27 2007 What About The Candidates CBS News Retrieved December 7 2009 That came to mind when I read the Washington Post s Outlook section this weekend and looked over Naomi Wolf s piece about how young people don t understand capital D Democracy According to a recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics only 47 percent of high school seniors have mastered a minimum level of U S history and civics while only 14 percent performed at or above the proficient level Pollitt Katha October 1 2012 Naomi Wolf s Vagina No Carnations Please We re Goddesses The Nation Retrieved November 18 2019 Bentley Toni September 14 2012 Upstairs Downstairs Vagina A New Biography by Naomi Wolf The New York Times Turner Janice September 8 2012 Who s afraid of Vagina Wolf or even cares The Times London Retrieved January 23 2021 Daum Meghan September 13 2012 Naomi Wolf s vaginal sideshow Los Angeles Times Retrieved March 2 2021 Moore Suzanne September 5 2012 Naomi Wolf s book Vagina self help marketed as feminism The Guardian London Retrieved March 1 2021 Heller Zoe September 27 2012 Pride and Prejudice The New York Review of Books Retrieved November 18 2019 Sandler Lauren September 19 2012 Naomi Wolf Sparks Another Debate on Sex of Course The New York Times Retrieved March 2 2021 Burleigh Nina September 13 2012 Who s Afraid of Vagina Wolf Why Female Critics Are Piling On Observer New York City Allen Gregg TV interview Naomi Wolf on her new book Vagina A New Biography January 18 2013 Quote starts 21min in Lewis Helen September 5 2012 A goddess shaped hole in Naomi Wolf s new work New Statesman London Retrieved January 23 2021 Wolf Naomi September 2 2012 Vagina A New Biography by Naomi Wolf The Guardian London Retrieved January 23 2021 Toibin Colm May 15 2019 Outrages by Naomi Wolf review sex and censorship The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved May 29 2019 Barber Lynn June 15 2019 Naomi Wolf is holed below the waterline The Spectator Retrieved June 21 2019 The Best Books by Women of Summer 2019 Oprah Magazine June 12 2019 Retrieved June 20 2019 Alter Alexandra June 13 2019 Naomi Wolf s Publisher Delays Release of Her Book The New York Times Retrieved June 16 2019 It s unclear whether Outrages will also be recalled in Britain where it was released in May by the publisher Virago BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Censorship and sex BBC Retrieved May 25 2019 Dzhanova Yelena May 24 2019 Here s an Actual Nightmare Naomi Wolf Learning On Air That Her Book Is Wrong Intelligencer New York Archived from the original on June 2 2019 Retrieved June 2 2019 When she went on BBC radio on Thursday Wolf the author of Vagina and the forthcoming Outrages Sex Censorship and the Criminalization of Love probably expected to discuss the historical revelations she d uncovered her book But during the interview broadcaster Matthew Sweet read to Wolf the definition of death recorded a 19th century English legal term Death recorded means that a convict was pardoned for his crimes rather than given the death sentence Wolf thought the term meant execution Wolf Naomi de Miranda Luis Parker Sarah May 22 2019 Censorship and sex Free Thinking audio recording Interviewed by Matthew Sweet London www bbc co uk Retrieved September 14 2019 BBC Radio 3 Arts amp Ideas Censorship and sex BBC May 22 2019 Retrieved May 29 2019 What s Missing In Naomi Wolf s Outrages Sex Censorship and the Criminalization of Love Public Seminar June 25 2019 Retrieved September 15 2019 Bartlett Neil August 20 2019 Creative scholarship TheTLS TheTLS Retrieved September 15 2019 Cain Sian May 25 2019 Outrages author Naomi Wolf stands by view of Victorian poet The Observer ISSN 0029 7712 Retrieved June 10 2019 Sayej Nadja June 21 2019 I don t feel humiliated Naomi Wolf on historical inaccuracy controversy The Guardian Retrieved March 13 2021 Leon Concepcion de May 24 2019 After an On Air Correction Naomi Wolf Addresses Errors in Her New Book The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved May 24 2019 Flood Alison February 8 2021 Naomi Wolf accused of confusing child abuse with gay persecution in Outrages The Guardian Retrieved March 22 2021 Italie Hillel October 18 2019 Naomi Wolf and publisher part ways amid delay of new book The Washington Post Associated Press Archived from the original on October 19 2019 Retrieved October 23 2019 de Leon Concepcion October 21 2019 Naomi Wolf s Publisher Cancels U S Release of Outrages The New York Times Retrieved October 23 2019 Sawer Patrick February 5 2021 Naomi Wolf faces new row as book confuses persecution of gay men with paedophiles claim historians The Telegraph London Retrieved February 6 2021 Flood Alison February 8 2021 Naomi Wolf accused of confusing child abuse with gay persecution in Outrages The Guardian London Retrieved February 8 2021 Grove Jack March 4 2021 Oxford faces questions as Naomi Wolf PhD stays under wraps Times Higher Education London Retrieved March 5 2021 Grove Jack April 28 2021 Oxford doctoral system criticised as Wolf thesis finally released Times Higher Education Retrieved April 28 2021 Grove Jake July 2 2021 Naomi Wolf sought to delay release of thesis Inside Higher Ed Retrieved August 5 2021 Sweet Matthew February 5 2021 Blind to bestiality and paedophilia why Naomi Wolf s latest book is its own outrage The Daily Telegraph London Retrieved February 6 2021 a b Wolf Naomi October 16 1995 Our Bodies Our Souls The New Republic Vol 213 no 16 pp 26 35 reprinted here 1 Wolf Naomi May 21 2005 Female Trouble New York Wolf Naomi October 9 2003 The Porn Myth New York Retrieved November 17 2019 Wolf Naomi August 30 2008 Behind the veil lives a thriving Muslim sexuality Sydney Morning Herald a b c Ditum Sarah October 7 2014 Naomi Wolf is not a feminist who became conspiracy theorist she s a conspiracist who was once right New Statesman London Retrieved April 1 2021 Wolf Naomi December 7 2010 Julian Assange Captured by World s Dating Police The Huffington Post Retrieved November 17 2019 Goodman Amy December 20 2010 Naomi Wolf vs Jaclyn Friedman Feminists Debate the Sexual Allegations Against Julian Assange Democracy Now Retrieved December 22 2010 Wolf Naomi January 5 2011 Julian Assange s sex crime accusers deserve to be named The Guardian Retrieved October 23 2019 Pollitt Katha January 10 2011 Naomi Wolf Wrong Again on Rape The Nation Archived from the original on October 23 2019 Retrieved October 23 2019 Penny Laurie September 10 2012 Laurie Penny on the problem with Naomi Wolf s vagina New Statesman London Retrieved March 1 2021 Wells Matt October 19 2011 Naomi Wolf arrested at Occupy Wall Street protest in New York The Guardian London Retrieved October 20 2011 Cherkis Jason October 19 2011 Author Naomi Wolf Speaks Out About Her Arrest At Occupy Wall Street Protest The Huffington Post London Retrieved August 21 2012 Ellipsis in the source Wolf Naomi November 25 2011 The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy The Guardian London Retrieved February 29 2012 Seaton Matt November 28 2011 Naomi Wolf reception responses critics The Guardian London Retrieved February 29 2012 Wolf Naomi December 2 2011 The crackdown on Occupy controversy a rebuttal The Guardian London Retrieved February 29 2012 Gandy Imani November 27 2011 Naomi Wolf s Shocking Truths on OWS Crackdowns Are False Balloon Juice Retrieved February 24 2015 Robin Corey November 27 2011 The Occupy Crackdowns Why Naomi Wolf Got It Wrong Retrieved February 28 2015 a b Wolf Naomi December 29 2012 Revealed how the FBI coordinated the crackdown on Occupy The Guardian Retrieved April 19 2013 Debucquoy Dodley Dominique December 26 2012 FBI considered Occupy movement potential threat documents say CNN com Retrieved April 19 2013 Schmidt Michael S Moynihan Colin December 24 2012 F B I Counterterrorism Agents Monitored Occupy Movement Records Show The New York Times Retrieved April 19 2013 Geigner Timothy January 2 2013 FBI Working With Banks Chose Not To Inform Occupy Leadership Of Assassination Plot On Its Leaders Techdirt Retrieved April 19 2013 Aronsen Gavin January 7 2013 What the FBI s Occupy Docs Do and Don t Reveal Mother Jones Retrieved October 6 2014 a b Seitz Wald Alex June 19 2013 Here come the Edward Snowden truthers Salon Retrieved January 4 2020 Wolf Naomi June 15 2013 Some aspects of Snowden s presentation that I find worth further inquiry an update naomiwolf org Archived from the original on June 30 2013 Retrieved October 6 2014 a b Berry Sarah October 6 2014 Naomi Wolf slammed for unhinged conspiracy theories The Sydney Morning Herald Retrieved October 6 2014 Peter Geoghegan Glasgow rally shows independence aspiration intact Irish Times October 13 2014 Wolf Naomi October 6 2014 My letter to some news outlets Facebook Archived from the original on February 26 2022 Retrieved October 7 2014 a b Burrell Ian June 5 2021 Who s afraid of Naomi Wolf Business Insider Retrieved June 5 2021 Covid Twitter suspends Naomi Wolf after tweeting anti vaccine misinformation BBC News June 6 2021 Retrieved April 12 2022 Kinchen Rosie June 13 2021 Naomi Wolf I m not a conspiracy theorist I m asking important questions The Times London ISSN 0140 0460 Retrieved April 12 2022 De Lea Brittany November 9 2020 Ex Clinton adviser questions Biden vote over his stance on more shutdowns Fox News Retrieved February 6 2021 Halon Yael February 22 2021 Ex Clinton adviser Naomi Wolf warns US becoming totalitarian state before our eyes under Biden Fox News Retrieved February 22 2021 Lockdowns are an invention of Xi Jinping Naomi Wolf Sky News Australia March 2 2021 Retrieved March 2 2021 It s been painful for me to watch the people of Australia being lied to over and over and tortured there psychologically Ms Wolf said Australia s democracy has been put on hold for illegal reasons Nowhere does it say in a sound and healthy society that you get to suspend civil liberties if there s a disease around That is not how it works in a democracy Sales Ben April 20 2021 Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf claims Anthony Fauci doesn t work for us and got 1 million from Israel Jewish Telegraphic Agency Retrieved April 21 2021 Fauci Rosenberg Win Dan David Prize NIH Record March 3 2021 Retrieved April 21 2021 for his exceptional contributions to HIV research being the architect of the U S President s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief heading NIAID fighting for the recognition of novel approaches such as mRNA vaccines and courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the challenging Covid 19 crisis Silverman Jacob March 31 2021 A Vaccine Passport Would Be an Ethical Disaster Right Now The New Republic ISSN 0028 6583 Retrieved April 29 2021 Boucher Dave Michigan lawmakers invite COVID 19 conspiracy theorist to testify on bill to ban vaccine passports Politifact Retrieved May 9 2021 Brumfiel Geoff July 20 2021 The Life Cycle Of A COVID 19 Vaccine Lie NPR News Retrieved July 21 2021 Brewis Harriet March 23 2021 Infamous anti vaxxer Naomi Wolf pranked into sharing a fake doctor s quotation from porn star Johnny Sins The Independent London Retrieved May 9 2021 Connett David June 5 2021 Naomi Wolf banned from Twitter for spreading vaccine myths The Observer London Retrieved June 5 2021 Rawnsley Adam July 28 2021 Anti Vaxxer Naomi Wolf Joins Trump s Doomed Tech Suit The Daily Beast Retrieved July 28 2021 On YouTube Naomi Wolf says that the WHO will occupy the U S next week and that could trigger a civil war Media Matters for America May 23 2022 Retrieved May 24 2022 Waterson Jim October 12 2022 GB News faces second Ofcom inquiry into Covid vaccine coverage The Guardian Retrieved October 14 2022 GB News in significant breach of Ofcom rules over Covid vaccine claims The Independent May 9 2023 Retrieved May 9 2023 DailyClout January 18 2023 The War Room DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis Volunteers Publish e Book Available on DailyClout io s Website DailyClout Retrieved March 20 2023 Wagner Laura September 11 2023 In Naomi Klein s Doppelganger Naomi Wolf is more than a gimmick The Washington Post Retrieved September 11 2023 D Addario Daniel April 30 2015 10 Questions with Harold Bloom Time Retrieved January 4 2020 a b Wolf Naomi March 1 2004 The Silent Treatment New York Retrieved May 19 2010 O Rourke Meghan February 25 2004 Crying Wolf Slate Retrieved January 4 2020 Gasso Jordi Yale under federal investigation for possible Title IX violations Archived December 24 2011 at the Wayback Machine Yale Daily News April 1 2 2011 Retrieved September 21 2012 Hostile sexual environment at Yale CBS News April 4 2011 Retrieved January 4 2020 Ariosto David Remizowski Leigh Yale settles sexual harassment complaint CNN June 15 2012 Retrieved September 21 2012 a b Taylor Kate January 16 2018 Beauty Myth Writer Says Yale Blocked Harassment Claim The New York Times Retrieved November 12 2018 Vanamee Norman January 23 2018 Will Yale Finally Listen to Naomi Wolf Town amp Country Retrieved January 4 2020 External links nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Naomi Wolf nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Naomi Wolf Naomi Wolf on Fake Democracies November 2014 Breaking the Set RT Column archive at The Guardian Naomi Wolf s blog at The Huffington Post Appearances on C SPAN Naomi Wolf on Charlie Rose Naomi Wolf at IMDb Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Naomi Wolf amp oldid 1206005439, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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