Female Chauvinist Pigs

Do you ever read a book and spend the whole time wishing you had written it? Yeah, hot damn do I wish I was Ariel Levy. This book is a funny, smart, nuanced, and culturally aware look at how “girl power” has gone very, very wrong. This book is everything a sex-positive feminist (which is certainly how I identify) could want for help responding to people who want to know why the Pussycat Dolls aren't a good example of female empowerment. As Levy so eloquently says, “Raunch culture isn't about opening our minds to the possibilities and mysteries of sexuality. It's about endlessly reiterating one particular–and particularly commercial–shorthand for sexiness.” The only point where I felt she needed to tread more carefully was her discussion of porn stars. I don't think trotting out the old speculation that many of them may have suffered from sexual abuse is doing anyone any good. On that, she should have stuck with confirmable facts, like the disturbing one that although Jenna Jameson considers herself powerful, she still can't watch any of her own scenes. I finished this in two days, and would recommend it to anyone interested in a more in-depth analysis of the pop culture we ingest daily.

Well, I wanted to like this book. I've seen some people who might fit the basic idea of FCP. Never minding the unfortunate appellation of pig (because they are actual amazing animals), this book was less than impressive. Some of the more negative reviews I've read on Goodreads are quite good, and I agree with them, so I won't reiterate the opinions here, because I am lazy today. But she doesn't focus on the patriarchy enough, and she seems a bit naive at times. She doesn't spend much time talking about feminist porn, although she briefly acknowledges it. She also briefly acknowledges issues with societal perceptions of gender, but I've read far more astute treatises on it. Things that Levy wrote I've already read in more perceptively written, more academic books.

And the ‘Womyn and bois' chapter, frankly, confused me. I can only assume that, even though this book is eight years old, she only had a casual acquaintance with the wide spectrum of SGD community. Trannies was surely an unacceptable term. FTM transgender people don't use the ‘her' pronoun, and being FTM trans doesn't make you a female chauvinist. It doesn't even make you chauvinist. I hope that, after eight years, Ms. Levy has a better understanding of this.

There was some interesting historical stuff, though, since I'm still unfamiliar with feminist history. That's what happens when you grow up in a very conservative church.