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 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.

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.

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.

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

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?)

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?

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

Ahh, night SSM!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Will do SGM