Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture in Our Shared Shelf

Feb 17, 2015 Brian rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: on-kindle

(3.0) 'Raunch' is the new feminism, but is it really?

Read for f-word book club.

Short version: many women have taken control of their sexuality by defining their image by it. Is that progress? I agree with the skeptical view on this.

A) Being more openly sexual, getting rich and famous as a result doesn't necessarily feel like a huge step forward. Okay, better than being ostracized for premarital sex/pregnancy, but are Paris Hilton, porn stars and Playboy Bunnies really role models?

B) Playing alon (3.0) 'Raunch' is the new feminism, but is it really?

Read for f-word book club.

Short version: many women have taken control of their sexuality by defining their image by it. Is that progress? I agree with the skeptical view on this.

A) Being more openly sexual, getting rich and famous as a result doesn't necessarily feel like a huge step forward. Okay, better than being ostracized for premarital sex/pregnancy, but are Paris Hilton, porn stars and Playboy Bunnies really role models?

B) Playing along to men's traditional views of women as sexual objects to better one's career is certainly a strategy, it can work, but it seems to cement the subordinate role rather than destroy it. Just because a woman can now choose to take that path and define herself in such a way, doesn't necessarily mean that (all/many) men feel any differently about her.

A few quotes from the book with some responses:

"I think we can safely assume that many more women appear in Playboy for the simple reason that they are paid to. Which is fine. But 'because I was paid to' is not the same thing as 'I’m taking control of my sexuality.'"
bp: I totally agree.

"We have simply adopted a new norm, a new role to play: lusty, busty exhibitionist."
bp: But that's it: is it a new role or have women just convinced themselves it's different because they were able to choose it? What about roles women haven't played but now can? Religious leader, surgeon, president, CEO? Why would be empowering to adopt the role that many men have wanted for women for millennia? Would it be more or less empowering if men took no interest? Booed the stripper, turned down the aggressive barroom proposition, declined the offer to repair to the 'titty bar' (reference to text)? I think too much hinges on the male response.

“But I would be happier if my daughter and her friends were crashing through the glass ceiling instead of the sexual ceiling,” Jong continued. “Being able to have an orgasm with a man you don’t love or having Sex and the City on television, that is not liberation. If you start to think about women as if we’re all Carrie on Sex and the City, well, the problem is: You’re not going to elect Carrie to the Senate or to run your company. Let’s see the Senate fifty percent female; let’s see women in decision-making positions—that’s power. Sexual freedom can be a smoke-screen for how far we haven’t come.”
bp: Yes. ...more

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Jun 04, 2008 MM rated it liked it

An interesting take on the "pornification" of culture, the commodification of sex, and general notions of lifestyle feminism. In general, Levy espouses a pro-sex feminism while rejecting the commodification of sex as feminist expression (i.e. what she thinks is the misguided notion that appearing on Girls Gone Wild counts as feminist empowerment). I'm not sure I buy her discussion of queer culture, but thought-provoking nonetheless.

...more

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Jan 12, 2014 Jas rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, sociology, female-authors

Porn chapter probably the weakest. Introductory read to a lot of feminist/sexuality/gender topics. Surprising how new and confusing trans issues were just a decade ago.

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