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Lunch » Tags » Books » Reviews » Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

1 rating: 3.0

A book by Ariel Levy

Ariel Levy’s debut book is a bold, piercing examination of how twenty-first century American society perceives sex and women. Writing vividly, she brings her readers to places she visited to make her assessment; the elevator of Playboy Enterprises … see full wiki

Tags: Books, Feminism, Sexuality, Young Women

Author: Ariel Levy

Publisher: Free Press

1 review about Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise...

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The reductio ad sexum of feminism

Oct 20, 2005

by Cascadian
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

Rating:

This is an interesting and well-written book. Ariel Levy makes some important points, ties together a number of significant trends, and provides a believable answer to the timely question of "Why the heck are so many women -- and young girls -- dressing and behaving LIKE THAT?"

In so doing, Levy makes some depressing discoveries about what the ideal of the "empowered" woman has been reduced to, and why strippers and "adult actresses" -- porn stars -- have been adopted as role models. The key conclusion is that it doesn't really have anything to do with sex, per se. Levy quotes Paris Hilton's remark, "my boyfriends say I'm sexy but not sexual." In other words, "being hot" is a pose, an act, a tool, and entirely divorced from either physical pleasure or romantic love. Levy quotes one adult woman who cannot understand why she cannot bring herself to have sex with a man to whom she's not attracted, and a teenaged girl who can't grasp how a woman can "get the guy" without dressing (and acting) like a "ho."

Levy does a great job explaining the costs and consequences of America's all-pervasive "raunch culture." Where she did an incomplete job was in explaining the causes. Levy traces a fairly straight line from the feminism of the Sixties and Seventies to the "post-feminism" of today, with the requisite nods to "Sex and the City" and "Playboy" magazine (causes or symptoms?). But as I was reading this, I kept thinking of a much larger web -- a litany of cultural and political failure of which raunch culture is just a part.

Why do so many young people seem incapable of creating a sense of self that isn't driven by the media? More than raunch culture, wouldn't a society that idolizes Pamela Anderson, Kid Rock, or the aforementioned Ms. Hilton be better described as "moron culture"? Isn't raunch culture an inevitable consequence of the effort to separate sex from ethics ("if it feels good, do it!" to quote the cliché)? What has rendered generations of fathers incapable of modeling to their sons *and* their daughters how a man properly and respectfully treats a woman? And -- as my wife asks every time we take a trip to the local mall and see teenagers dressed in "skanky" clothes -- "What mother would let their daughter dress that way?"

Indeed, parents are notably missing from Levy's analysis. I recall one mention early on of a mother who, I think, bought her daughter a "Brazilian wax" for her birthday, and a few passing references to Levy's own parents. But how do 14-year-olds get the money to buy themselves thong underwear? How are they paying for the Internet connections they evidently are using to send each other naked pictures of themselves? In the litany of failure, the failure of parents to set standards and model good behavior is the dog that didn't bark in "Female Chauvinist Pigs."

I suspect Levy wouldn't agree with that analysis. Given her dismissive opinion of abstinence-based education and obligatory disparaging comments about George W. Bush (can't get published without 'em!), I think the proposal that what we could use here are a few "traditional values" is not something she'd be interested in entertaining.

That's too bad, because "Female Chauvinist Pigs" is an interesting and important book as far as it goes. But at the risk of double entendre, it doesn't go all the way.

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