female chauvinist pigs: women and the rise of raunch culture
by ariel levy
pocket books
isbn 1-4165-2638-2
reviewed by michelle mcgrane
in the opening paragraph of her introduction to female chauvinist pigs, thirty-year-old feminist ariel levy writes: “i first noticed it several years ago. i would turn on the television and find strippers in g-strings explaining how best to lap dance a man to orgasm. i would flip the channel and see babes in tight, tiny uniforms bouncing up and down on trampolines. britney spears was becoming increasingly popular and increasingly unclothed, and her undulating body ultimately became so familiar to me i felt like we used to go out.”
the author may be viewed by some as the latest in a long line of uptight radicals, old-fashioned moralists and prissy sissies, waving tattered, fishmoth-eaten flags for an archaic women’s liberation movement, but this is not the case. the provocative, contradictory subject of female empowerment in our plastic, pervasive, ‘post-feminist’ 21st century culture, is exposed in a fresh, articulate and well-researched book.
“if you were to put the last five or so years in a time capsule, womanwise, it would look like a period of explosive sexual exhibitionism, opportunism, and role redefinition.”
in this celebrity-obsessed, reality tv world, where lusty, busty pole-dancers, outsized breast implants and waxed vaginas are de rigeur, feminism is considered ‘uncool’. but, levy demands, how far have we come when women are socialised to objectify themselves in order to be more desirable? it’s about sexual power and consumerism, she writes. now, more than ever, sex sells. yet “‘raunchy’ and ‘liberated’ are not synonyms.”
female chauvinist pigs is an important polemic which calls out for our attention and examination. it is an arch, yet profoundly serious, thought provoking and, ultimately convincing read.
ariel levy writes for new york magazine. her work also appears in the new york times, the washington post, vogue, slate, men’s journal and blender magazines.
August 25th, 2006 at 11:28 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haWv0Wf14IA