When I was a teenager, I was a bit of a scamp. I had a cousin who was like an older sister whom I would tease frequently especially as this was during the time that feminism was a very important topic in our society. My statements were not serious. I never questioned equality of the sexes because it was immaterial to me. Equality isn't how I thought about a person but how that person thought about him or herself.
I am not particularly pleased with the direction that our society has progressed since then. When I was at university, I was the last Chairman of our student government. I refused to be called a Chair but that is the term that each would have been called afterward. I did not think there was any dishonour for a person to be called a Chairwoman although to call a woman Madam Chairman was more appropriate because "man" does not mean a male in this word but is "derived from the Anglo Saxon term “mann” which simply referred to a human being, regardless of sex". Source. It is people's ignorance that has corrupted the use of similar words such as mankind.
I also encounter similar ignorance when creating a webpage for an school board and the committee objected to the use of Sex and wanted to substitute the word Gender. Sex in this context had nothing to do with the "pastime". This was at the time when "Gender" was taking on the greater role of a psychological meaning and less the grammatical meaning. If still annoys me when a word is appropriated and becomes verboten/taboo (etc). Take the word "gay" which originally meant lighthearted or cheerful, was appropriated to be used to designate a sexual preference and now the expression -they are so gay (meaning light hearted and joyful)- now is an insult but cannot be spoken because it is discriminatory.
Sorry I digressed.
Camille Paglia is a feminist whom I admire from the old school. She is not a woman who needed a safe space. My impression is that she would have kneed an attacker in his safe space.
