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

[Molesworth]

Mumsnet Feminism Book Club

Next time (Wednesday 5th May at 9pm) we're discussing Ariel Levy's "Female Chauvinist Pigs: women and the rise of raunch culture". Everyone welcome!

Amazon link

Extract from the introduction on Ariel Levy's website

Synopsis

Today's young women seem to be outdoing the male chauvinist pigs of yesteryear, applauding the 'pornification' of other women, and themselves. This is a world where simulating sex for baying crowds of men on shows like Girls Gone Wild and going to lapdancing clubs - as patrons - is seen as a short cut to cool. Ariel Levy says the joke's on the women if they think this is progress. She tears apart the myth of this new brand of 'empowered woman' and refuses a culture-wide obligation for women to act and look like porn stars. This terrifically witty and wickedly intelligent book makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come - it proves only how far women have left to go.

I didn't get a chance to reread it in time for this discussion.
I remember being struck that women's sexuality has been stuck into another box. The pendulum has swung from repression to the other extreme, neither of them representative of the vast majority of women.

My DCs are teenagers (DD is 18, DS 16) so I feel that they've slightly evaded the full horror of all this, if that makes sense? I might be kidding myself there though, perhaps

Is she blaming women, though, Dittany?
I thought she was blaming the culture for shunting women down these particular tracks.

Shit, that's a good point dittany, although I never felt that she was woman-blaming - just describing this phenomenon whereby "being like a man" is the result of this 'choice feminism'. I'm afraid it all rang very true, but I can see what you mean - that taken on its own it doesn't give a big enough picture

"Well I liked it the first time round but this time it pissed me off, blaming women for our own sexual objectification."

I think that's a very good point. On the one hand I think it's valid to draw attention to the fact that women are choosing objectification, but it would be more meaningful (and less generally woman-blaming) with something about the context in which those choices are being made.

also the term itself, 'Female Chauvinist Pigs' is used without reflecting on the baggage it carries and what it might mean to call a woman that.

Oh yes, the scene Natasha Walter describes was just like Girls Gone Wild, wasn't it?

Yeah I was originally a bit wary of reading something with a woman-bashing title like that.

"Is she blaming women, though, Dittany?
I thought she was blaming the culture for shunting women down these particular tracks."

I think she treats various groups of women rather differently - the powerful women like Christine Hefner and that tv producer (can't remember the name) seem to come in for more stick than the teenage girls. But they are all under the umbrella 'female chauvinist pigs' which is problematic.

Oh dear, I do totally see what you mean, but I didn't pick up on any woman-blaming in the content of the book at all! I thought it was brilliantly written and picked apart what she calls that 'crazy feeling' I get when I'm told that something which is so blatantly misogynist in fact isn't.

it would be interesting to know more about the history of the title, whether it was the author's idea or imposed on her by the publisher, whether she was 100% comfortable with it. Am I being too cynical in wondering if part of the reason the book got a mainstream publisher and got heavily promoted was because the title would appeal to feminist-bashers and make them think it was a book for them, at a time when feminism itself was widely held to be old hat?

I find it very difficult to view it in an objective way because I am a parent. We do have to make choices, and I am at a loss as to how guide either my son or my daughter.

The bit where she described the event that was meant to be about women's sexuality, and many women turned up in their underwear, that was so depressingly described. I am at a loss at how to explain to my daughter (in a few years) the difference between sexuality and sexual objectification of women, because they have become so conflated.

My overall feeling about the book was that Levy is also at a loss - she can describe the situation but has no idea how to combat it or create an alternative, and men will not change this so we have to.

It is an inflammatory title - my feeling is that that was a deliberate choice. Wouldn't do sales of the book any harm. But if this book has had a wide readership then I think that's a good thing.

you see these girls on tv and they seem so confident but when I think back to what I was like when I was 17, one is so naive and inexperienced at that age....

"Levy hasn't taken into the account the backlash. Susan Faludi was writing about it at the beginning of the nineties and it's got worse, not better. There's never been a time of feminist utopia where women had equal power with men and the backlash has been happening almost since feminism started. Raunch, or the porno culture is one of the tools used against women this time around, to degrade us and keep us in submission to men."

But I think that's exactly what Levy is saying with this book - I'm now wondering if actually I read it that way because of all the other feminist stuff I've been reading though! I very much felt that she was talking about this as a backlash phenomenon.

I think perhaps it's confusing because she has a sort of potted history of feminism which skips a few years - she talks to all these second wavers who were active in the 70s and then suddenly it's 2005, with little about what happened in between.

It's depressing how notions of popularity are tied into how you rate as a performer.

The Susan Brownmiller chapter was the best bit of the book imo, I found that part really interesting

It's true she hasn't really put forward any new ideas about how to fight this, but - again I may have read this completely dfferently to everyone else - I interpreted her to mean that we need a return to the tactics of 2nd wave feminism.