Feminism Book Club - Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy - Weds 5 May 2010 @ 9pm

Will do SGM

Night both and thanks for the discussion - I really enjoyed it

Rosa, I wish I'd been more like you. But my past is my past, and hopefully my dd will be far more educated - and truly liberated.

Speaking of dd, she's stirring, so I'll sign off too. Thanks for a lively discussion: I'll make sure I join in the next one from the beginning.

Night all.

Larkin, very pertinent to the discussion though, the personal stuff - I've never quite been able to bring myself to do that stuff, not because of feminist principles but because it always did give me that 'crazy feeling in my head' and for quite a while I thought I was the one with a problem (not cool enough or whatever). So one of the things I loved about this book was that it made me feel vindicated in all my uncoolness. It articulated clearly why raunch never actually felt 'empowering' to me.

Of course I do look at it all completely differently now, thanks to feminism

I will try to get DD to read this, although I'm not convinced I'll succeed: she's got this face on - - whenever I start ranting on about feminism.

I don't think the anecdotal style is a bad thing - it does make the book very readable.

You know, one of the worst things, for me, reading this, is recognising myself in it, albeit when I was very young.

Many, many years ago (I was about 20), I remember being in Prague - I was living near there at the time - and thinking it amusing to head to the strip clubs after the bars closed, as the last places still serving alcohol. Being the only woman with a group of platonic male friends, striding into those sleazy places ahead of the group, sitting at the bar, etc etc. Similarly I recall smoking cigars at uni parties aware of how it looked to men, matching male friends drink for drink, joint for joint, etc. Kissing girlfriends when drunk. I remember (about 16 years ago) me and my teenage friends buying FHM/Maxim because they seemed so much more lively than womens' mags, and because it seemed rebellious. It's embarrassing to think back, and that I - who consider myself very much a feminist now - did those things. I had a good academic education, but women's issues were unknown to me.

Sorry to bring personal into this discussion, but when I first started reading this book, I felt it was very much USA-based and also a relatively new thing. But on reflection, it isn't - raunch has been around for years, and is just as present in the UK.

That's why I would have this book - or the others suggested - on school curriculum reading lists.

Ahh, night SSM!

I have to go now - baby calls!
good night everyone and thanks for a great discussion

MillyR, agree that the book is heavily anecdotal, doesn't give enough context (I think I read it differently because I've learned something about the context and history, perhaps), but what's so good about the book is the way it so clearly articulates this whole phenomenon of 'hotness' and how difficult it is to object to it. It put me in mind of that thread on here a while ago about lapdancing - the OP afraid to object to it because she did't want to look 'uncool'.

I also found the section about so-called "sex positive" feminism (a term that gets right on my wick!)useful.

I think Levy was breaking new ground in writing about it at all but there's been more time to reflect since 2005.
Just out of interest, how do the 'third-wave' type feminists regard Levy, eg Baumgartner and Richards?

I asked a couple of lesbian friends about the 'boi' thing and they hadn't heard that term, so I assume it's an American thing. Ditto the abstinence stuff: thankfully not enshrined in law here (yet?)

Larkinsky - I wondered about the boi movement being overstated too, or maybe it's just local to America, or was a briefly-flowering subculture.

Yes, I agree with SSM - I think the book is not a good introduction to these kind of issues. It is best read together with a few other books. I think it is likely to be easy for teenagers to read, because it has that magazine type, anecdote heavy style, but it hasn't got the most useful content to get the point across.

The issues with the bois was not that they were attempting to be masculine - it was that in order to be masculine they had to exert power over and demean women.

I would rather get them to read a book that has more context, either the new Natasha Walter or The Equality Illusion - books which have a chapter on all this stuff but because they put it into a wider picture it makes more sense.

I think if I was educating teenagers about sex I would also want to give them a historical account - all the stuff we take for granted about how once sex was seen as shameful and virginity was valued, through the ideas of sexual liberation. I imagine young people actually don't know a lot of the stuff we take for granted.

It was interesting where she pointed out that in the 60s they talked about free love.

To me whether or not women are to blame for any of this comes back to essentialist ideas about male and female, which is why Water's book was a good idea - combining the rise of porn culture with the revival of essentialism.

If we really believe men and women are essentially different then we accept that all the women who say they have an innate desire to please men, submit to men, and make an exhibition of themselves are telling the truth.

Or if we don't think these differences exist, then we imagine the roles of men and women reversed. If men were appearing in 'Boys gone wild' and wearing skin tight outfits and appearing fondling each other in Zoo at the eye line height of little boys, and male singers gyrated in thongs to a tween audience of little boys, would women still attempt to objectify themselves and make a huge effort to please/submit to men? I don't think so. I think the choices women are making are not real choices - I think they are the result of patriarchy, which benefits men - all men.

Yes, I agree with the strongest message being that liberated women act like men, not women.

But do you think the Boi movement was overstated by Levy? I've not heard of it anywhere else... although not being gay, or a part of a gay scene, maybe that's why.

On another note, it made me thankful we have school uniforms here in the UK.

So, do you think, as India Knight says on the cover, this book should be required reading in schools? I do think teenagers would read it, if it was given to them - it's lively and readable, for the most part.

I also thought the lesbian chapter was really interesting,the whole "men are best" feeling was so strong,and the idea that basically groups of women were being objectified by other women,just as heterosexual women are by men,felt very odd.

Did I read stuff into this book that wasn't actually there?