The mistakes led to questions about how they were missed by Wolf’s supervisor and examiners, but her dissertation remained under embargo for six years after being examined in April 2015.
It was finally published this month on Oxford’s online research archive, alongside nine pages of corrections that address Wolf’s misreading of criminal records and cite several texts that contradict claims that the mid- to late Victorian period saw an escalation of Britain’s persecution of gay men. But the release does not reveal who examined the thesis.
Tim Hitchcock, professor of digital history at the University of Sussex, whose digital archive the Old Bailey Online contained the records misunderstood by Wolf, said the episode represented a “failure of supervision and examining.” He suggested that the unnamed examiners may have had backgrounds in English literature rather than legal history.
Naomi Wolf faces new row as book confuses persecution of gay men with paedophiles, claim historians
Author accused of misreading criminal records and writing a calumny against gay people
5 February 2021 • 9:00pm
Dr Wolf said she has accurately represented behaviour that was criminalised, and that her book was reviewed and checked by leading scholars
Credit: Simone Padovani/Getty Images
The American feminist Dr Naomi Wolf has been accused of ignoring evidence of crimes against children to support her view of mid-Victorian Britain as a time when gay men were victims of aggressive persecution by the courts.
In her book Outrages Dr Wolf presents the middle years of the nineteenth century as a time when homosexual men were terrified by the prospect of long prison sentences, including hard labour, because of criminal convictions for “unnatural offences”.
they re up to. they just stole a car. we re back live where police continue to investigate this shooting. almaden road remains closed. when these two suspects get out of the hospital, they ll be on their way to the county jail to face a number of charges. this is the third officer involved shooting in san jose so far this month. monty francis, nbc bay area news. thanks very much. new at 11:00, an 8-year-old north bay girl is telling nbc bay area, what it is like to be hit with an arrow. somehow an arrow went through the third grader s leg during a field trip. jeanne ellie is live with the girl s family, they re stunned but grateful the girl is okay. reporter: a bubbly third grader is home tonight recovering from her arrow wounds. and tonight her mother says she can t believe her little girl was hit by an arrow in berkeley. yes. really big. and i m on this one little part, sliding down, and then i got shot with an arrow. it may sound like nadine is telling a whale