"Female Chauvinist Pigs" - Feminism Triumphant - or its Downfall?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Ariel Levy is an American journalist and author. She took part in a TV documentary series in which she and the camera crew documented the behaviour of a group of young women, and she later wrote a book, 'Female Chauvinist Pigs' in which she criticised what she saw.

For her, the raunchy, boozy behaviour of these women was not what feminism was supposed to be about. From the Wiki entry-

At The New Yorker magazine, where Levy has been a staff writer since 2008, she has written profiles of Cindy McCain and Marc Jacobs. At New York magazine, where Levy was a contributing editor for 12 years, she wrote about John Waters, Donatella Versace, the writer George W. S. Trow, the feminist Andrea Dworkin, the artists Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow, Al Franken, Clay Aiken, Maureen Dowd, and Jude Law. Levy has explored issues regarding American drug use, gender roles, lesbian culture, and the popularity of U.S. pop culture staples such as Sex and the City and Gwen Stefani. Some of these articles allude to Levy's personal thoughts on the status of modern feminism.

Levy criticized the pornographic video series Girls Gone Wild after she followed its camera crew for three days, interviewed both the makers of the series and the women who appeared on the videos, and commented on the series' concept and the debauchery she was witnessing. Many of the young women Levy spoke with believed that bawdy and liberated were synonymous.

Levy's experiences amid Girls Gone Wild appear again in Female Chauvinist Pigs, in which she attempts to explain "why young women today are embracing raunchy aspects of our culture that would likely have caused their feminist foremothers to vomit." In today's culture, Levy writes, "the idea of a woman participating in a wet T-shirt contest or being comfortable watching explicit pornography has become a symbol of strength"; she says that she was surprised at how many people, both men and women, working for programs such as Girls Gone Wild told her that this new "raunch" culture marked not the downfall of feminism but its triumph, but Levy was unconvinced.


Yeah - I think she has hit it on the head. Go read the 'Ariel Levi' entry in Wiki for the full story, but I think she has encapulated what I have tried to say on here before: namely that the sexually promiscuous, drink and drugs culture that callow young men of all ages rejoice in is not a good thing.

Perhaps Femisists revolt at the double standards that expect women to be civilised, polite and demure while men are allowed and even encouraged to behave like pigs. If that's the case- I agree that the double standard is wrong and ought to be ended in society.

But rather than allow women to lower their own standards and behave as badly as their male counterparts, I would hope that society would instead insist that men behave with the maturity and intelligence that we have traditionally expected of women. It is not enough to say that 'women should not be having casual sex and wild drinking parties' - men should not be doing this either.

Yes, I agree with Levi - 'bawdy' and 'liberated' are not synonymous, and I would hardly call this sort of behaviour acceptable in men. The rock stars who go and trash hotel rooms and get paralytically drunk are just behaving like spoilt kids in my book, they are not some sort of hyper masculine males that the rest of us should look up to or try to emulate. Seriously, if people all go down the bar after work, have a few drinks and let their hair down after ma hard day at work, that's fine. but when the bar gets wrecked in a fight afterwards, or people get sent to casualty to sober up, or wake up with a hangover in the police cells - I think society has every reason to be concerned, whether it's men or women involved.

In the UK, relaxing the drinking laws has not led to a drop in crime - in fact we are seeing drunkeness and its attenndent violence on the increase, and increasingly, women getting involved as participants in violent , drunken behaviour. And while we should not blame feminism for that, we should expect more Feminists like Ariel Levy to stand up for civilised behaviour and not join these male louts of many age groups and social classes in a race to the bottom.

But that's my view - what's yours?

Comments

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Really? *sigh*

Let me grab a coffee because it's insanely early here and then I'll tell you what I'm thinking. Plus I should take the time to phrase my thoughts in a more civil (ladylike?) manner anyway.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

It is not enough to say that 'women should not be having casual sex and wild drinking parties' - men should not be doing this either.

You've missed the point of feminism entirely if you think it's about enforcing societal standards.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't.
Societal norms are not something that are all ok or all wrong - we need to look at each one on a case by case basis and say ' keep it' or ' change it', depending on what it is and how it impacts people for better or worse.

Double standards? Out.
Adults are expected to ... do what ? And why?

Ok - adults are expected to refrain from getting insanely drunk and passing out in the gutter? Good call - whatever gender said adults happen to be.
Because it is horrendously draining on the NHS to have to deal with masses of druken ppl every saturday night - that's why !

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

You seem to have missed the point of Ariel Levy's book entirely. Perhaps you only read a newspaper summary written by a man promoting his own agenda. It was not about women engaging in drinking and casual sex it was specifically lambasting the rise in a culture where we're primarily concerned with fulfilling male desires. She points to things like Girls Gone Wild, Maxim, emulating strippers and porn stars, the rise in breast implants and cosmetic surgery and brazilian waxes.

I agree with her to a point. I too have noticed a trend in recent years of women doing all they can to appear as sex objects for men and yes, it bothers me. But only as they are doing it to please men. I personally have no issue with any behavior a woman may choose to show as long as she is doing it for herself, because it is what she wants to do, not because she is trying to please a man. That's what feminism is, allowing women to make their own choices for their lives, free of male interference or influence. I'm just not sure that some of the young girls today know the difference.

You seem to have a very strong personal dislike of women engaging in drinking and casual sex. You have couched it in terms here of also not liking it in men but I have to wonder how much time you spent criticizing the behavior before you noticed women were doing it too. Your opinions are your own and you are free to have them but please don't try to make such things into a feminist issue because they are really not. Feminism allowed us to have those freedoms, to make those choices, even if other people think they are the wrong choices.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I find this argument extremely interesting as this is the exact argument a good Islamist would make in favor of the Hijab, that it permits the woman modesty and freedom from the Male GazeTM. Western modernity hails this as how "progress" in women's rights is concerned, that if women want to wear low-hanging tops and skirts up to their upper thighs, they're free to do so.

And then just like the Carrie Nation feminists they turn around and start bashing what they defined as progress. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

I read Levy's book — well, most of it — hoping that she would have something interesting to say about this phenomenon, but I was badly disappointed. She offered decent reportage of events she saw, which was enough to get the GGW creators to hang themselves with their own words, but didn't seem to have much analytical to offer beyond that it squicked her out and was therefore Not Feminist. I didn't see her making the key distinction you have about whose gaze and desires women are addressing in their actions.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

And what if they are doing it to please men because pleasing men is what they like to do?

One need look no further than the growth in popularity of BDSM to see that a significant number of women derive significant pleasure from being treated as a sexual object with no free will.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

You seem to have a very strong personal dislike of women engaging in drinking and casual sex.
Hhmm... I have a strong dislike of *people* doing this.
Ok, men have done it for generations and got ' boys will be boys' as a response. Sorry, that isn't good enough.

As someone who belongs to an Oppressed Minority (TM) myself, I would say that we in the the Working Class need to realise that we don't get 'somefink for nuffink' as some seem to think - if we want a more egalitarian society and a fairer economic system we all have to work to make it happen. Us workers included. It involves being disciplined and making a contribution to the greater good.

Now, if it is socially harmful and destructive behavior, then it is not ok for anyone to be doing it ' because' - and yet here are women doing this and saying "We are doing what men have done for generations- isn't this great?"

Er - no, it was appalling when men did it, and women doing the same leads me to express dissapointment that people I thought better are dropping to a lower standard instead of getting men to raise their game... however, maybe women are the ones who can say that without getting the 'who the hell are you?' card played - just like I can slam 'working class people', because turn round and point out that I'm working cass myself.

But yeah , I agree with Levy on this. As to the bit about ' being sex objects.. well, supposing if a guy really wants to impress women - does wild , crazy things like shower and shave every day, and change his socks regularly. i mean , he want's to make an impact with women , so why not? Ditto, if a woman gets some pleasure out of strutting her stuff, i mean it is *her* stuff, so why not?

When a bar owner insistes that women wear stuff that they are not comfortable with so it can increase sales - a line has been crossed, but if a woman wants to wear something that's a bit more revealing out of her own free choice, i don't have any problem with that.

But, *everyone's* choices are fair game for critique if we count the social costs. Is it right that people of either gender should smoke and pollute the social environment? i don't think so. Get so drunk that medical services have to intervene to save their lives, and thus divert funds and stuff that could be sent elsewhere? again , I am not in favour.

Being an adult means being socially responsible, not being a drunken lout.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

I don't think we can avoid the situation that an individual's desires are interwoven with their impression of other peoples' desires, nor that these interrelationships are both (generally) gendered and (in particular) sexual.

What we might hope to change is the interpretation of our desires that identifies femininity inherently with some variety of manifestations of submissiveness.

This is an interpretation that ought to be concern to us generally, by which I mean that while it is undeniably an instance of gendered oppression, it is a gendered oppression which is harmful (in different ways) to everyone. Men certainly experience alienation from their own sexuality when they are led to understand that being pleased by strong, independent partners (in particular but not only women), or that experiencing a sexual connection to the experience of their own passivity, are effeminate postures.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I could introduce you to an entire porn company staffed by women, and you will be hard pressed to find stronger and more liberated women.

My take on what's happened is that it has become OK for women to be sexually liberated; and so it should be. I think where it has gone wrong is that there is an expectation of "liberation" that can often lead to people being exploited. I don't even think it is a male/female thing now. It's about reaching an understanding that what consenting adults do to each other is just fine, but that not everyone has the same desires. Sex and sexuality should be about what feels good for you, not what you've been told should be good.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

When individuals are released from having to conform to arbitrary cultural standards you often get behavior that is inconsistent with said standards.

I have to accuse Levy of paternalism here. Levy makes the implicit statement that pornography and wet T-shirt contests are bad things. She is entitled to her opinion, but she is not entitled to expect people to behave the way she wants them to behave. The range of human behavior is very broad. If an individual finds a wet T-shirt or topless dancing or having lots of sexual partners liberating, why is it up to others to validate those feelings?

Edit: I posted this before blue_mango above. I did not read the book, I am just going by the OP. So I apologize if Levy was not making those stated claims, but the point IMO is still valid.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

You do have a good point, but to be fair Levy said nothing about women enjoying watching pornography, just emulating it to please men. But yes, something about her views do not sit right with me either, because as long as a woman is making that choice for herself because it pleases her then who are we to judge?

[cill-ros.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm a new poster here.

The thing is, there have been recent studies linking the culture of hypersexuality to chronically low self-esteem in women. Again, with a focus on the UK, Natasha Walters wrote a book called 'Living Dolls' in which she argued that women are disempowered and degraded, not liberated, by this culture (an exerpt is here (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1245807/Land-living-dolls-The-generation-believe-bodies-passport-success.html) - sorry, it's the Daily Mail).

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

First of all, welcome! And secondly, thanks for the tip. That sounds like an interesting read.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The fruits of modern society. Where what kinds of lightbulbs I use is made for me because it's too important for me to make but boozing it up and partying till I'm barely functional is considered a sacrosanct choice.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because the older-school choice of which brutish, warmongering, badsmelling lord you worked yourself to death for was such an improvement, Miniver Cheevy.

[medea34.livejournal.com]

I see the girls gone wild as women adopting less than great 'male traits' (raunchy and wild) much like I see 'metrosexuals' as men adopting less than great female traits (preoccupied with appearance and tame). However, what we see on tv are extremes - not the norm, and I think that everyone, regardless of gender should be able to enjoy a manicure & pedicure, get drunk out of their skulls and watch porn together, without fear of the patriarchy or the feminists wagging their fingers and tut-tutting.

[raven-blue.livejournal.com]

I agree with you up to a point but I would challenge you to think about this. What currently exists as the norm frequently grows to become extreme before it becomes the new norm. A decade ago the international porn expo would never have been televised. Now it shows up in the afternoon on basic cable channels. When it first began to be televised it was shown in brief and focused on mainstream pornography. Now hoever multiple hours are devoted to it and it shows not only main stream pornography but also explores the various sellers of fetish toys and other taboo subjects as if the taboo were actually the normal. If we fast forwad a few years imagine what the norm will be?

Just food for thought.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Er.....those were the same feminist foremothers who were at the forefront of the Volstead Act but wanted free love (which means exactly what it means). The feminist foremothers were always considered promiscuous and kind of sleazy (in an era when men went into "bathouses" and did the nasty with each other but looked like Good Christians on the outside). In fact that was usually thrown against Suffragettes and then the early feminists of the 1970s, that they wanted to break down "traditional" (read: early 19th Century Middle Class, not upper or working class) morality.

My thinking on this is that getting smashed and making a damn fool of yourself is a problem regardless of which gender does it and that both if given the opportunity would leap to do it in a heartbeat. Usually women have not been, now they are.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I might note that progress in women's rights will truly be here when women have equal rights with men to make damn fools of themselves and both men and women are seen as damn fools for the same reasons.

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

For time immemorial, men have had liberties and priveleges women have not. Men could own land, burp in public, have promiscuous sex, flaunt themselves, etc.

It was considered 'unladylike' and 'unbecoming' for women to indulge in the social 'freedoms' of men. Men could have promiscuous sex, be rude and otherwise be mad hedonists. But, if a woman engaged in that type of behavior, she was labeled with negative stigmas: whore, slut, etc.

I think the rampant drinking and flamboyant behavior is liberating. It reinforces the notion women have the freedom to engage in the behavior adopted by many men. And flows against many negative stereotypes and cultural stigmas.

Its considered 'ladylike' for women to be responsible, conservative and thoughtful, why? Probably because it allows men to be the complete opposite. Its a gender stereotype which likely represents oppression and exploitation of women to a certain degree.

The responsible and level headed women are left at home watching the kids while the man goes out and parties and gets drunk. The frugal and thoughtful woman spends responsible and saves while the male gendered spends irresponsibly. Much of what constitutes 'ladylike' and 'womanly' are stereotypes designed to ensure women make most of the sacrifices and do most of the work, while men are out having all the fun.

It is dumb for women to complain about being treated like sex objects when they're participating in nude marchings and showing their breasts to the entire world, thinking it 'liberates' them.

But, I do think that its too early to write it off as being a failing of feminism so much as a triumph.

[raven-blue.livejournal.com]

That is actually not entirely true. In various places and at various times men were restrained by law. Public belching was against the law in many places in America. Among native Americans land ownerships such as it was was given to women. Even drinking for men has been frequently outlawed (Prohibtion in the US made it illegal for anyone to drink and that was created in large part as an offshoot of the womens equality movement). Among Puritans public druenkeness for men and women was a punsihable offence. In fact the puritans depsite their bad press are almost champions of womens rights. A woman could own land and pass it to her children; she could initiate a divorce and even conduct sermons in church. Oddly enough it wasnt until secularism began to spread in the 18th century that women began to lose much of the freedoms they enjoyed.

[kinvore.livejournal.com]

I'm really at a loss as to what this has to do with chauvinism, male or female. I thought chauvinism has to do with feeling one is superior to others. And while the behavior of debauchery may not be what early feminists had in mind, I think if it's what they truly want to do and if they aren't hurting others then more power to them.

On a side note I hate the whole idea of the Girls Gone Wild videos, they are beyond creepy. I'm no prude and I like the female figure as much as the next person, but making a girl plastered in order to get flashed is beyond Loserville.

[raven-blue.livejournal.com]

The problem with the label "feminism" is that like any social movement, once it is labeled that label can easily be coopted by almost anyone and subverted. What we term as feminism today is very much changed from what it was in the 1970 and what it was in the 1970 is very different from what it was a decade earlier, or even earlier. To really understand feminism in its proper context we must go back to the beginning with the women’s suffrage movement which was not about gender as sexuality but about political equality as it relates to gender. The original “feminists” were free thinkers of their time yet would be viewed as rather conservative by a feminist of the 1970s. Today however their views are becoming more in line with modern feminism. By this I mean that for a brief period the movement was usurped by a small group of women who wanted to turn it into a superiority movement that in effect women were the better of the sexes and that men were actually sexual slavers rather than victims of their own time and social mores. This tends to happen to any movement when it becomes socially acceptable and loses it claim of edginess. After all, few revolutionaries want to settle into the comfortable life of a post-revolutionary world and so continue to create fights long after the war has been won.
I say all this to give a brief background before expounding on the topic at hand. Some posters have mentioned that this seems to miss the point of feminism entirely yet that argument actually misses the point of feminism which is a fluid social movement. In fact linking anti drink and promiscuity sentiments with the feminist movement is perfectly in accord with its earliest history. The first champions of women’s suffrage (the first feminists) frequently connected drink with the male sphere and drink, in their mind led to sexual promiscuity which resulted in the diminishment of the women in general. What Ariel Levy is talking about (thought I don’t agree with her on all levels) is I think suggestive of feminism turning a circle back to its earliest manifestation. This brings me back to what I talking about earlier with the way feminism has shifted over time but especially during the 1970’s when it suddenly became connected to sexual liberation, which is not really liberation at all. After all sex requires two partners and anything involving two people also requires a certain amount of co-dependency (this can be good and bad). When Levy talks about “girls gone wild” she is actually making a good point. Sexual liberation that allows a woman to feel comfortable to bare her body to a mostly male public who then objectifies that girl is hardly liberation at all. The same holds true for the rise in popularity of pornography, or of little girls dressing in ever more revealing attire.
And while I don’t actually agree that drunkenness and violence are automatically related or that women are increasingly becoming involved there is no denying that something is amiss in society in general. In the US there is a rising trend in girl fights, not mild cat fights mind you but violent, often filmed outbursts of physical violence that almost always occurs in public and is almost always accompanied by the forced removal of an opponent’s clothing (usually the top to reveal her breasts) and in some cases the victor removing her own shirt while in most cases groups of men and women look on encouraging them with overtly sexual and usually sexually degrading remarks.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"Many of the young women Levy spoke with believed that bawdy and liberated were synonymous."

Um, maybe because for them it WAS liberating


"namely that the sexually promiscuous, drink and drugs culture that callow young men of all ages rejoice in is not a good thing."

Yes it is a bad thing, but only in part. What makes it bad is when it is done as a means of losing yourself, where the goal is to not have to exist in the real world for a little while. On the other hand there are those who engage in alcohol and drug fueled parties and never get so wasted they lose themselves because their goal is to enjoy themselves and that is part of who they are.

There is nothing wrong with drinking, or promiscuity, or even doing drugs as long as you are doing it responsibly but somehow feminists of Levy's sort (note: this does not mean all or even most feminists, and by "Levy's sort" I am referring to those who have somehow managed to reject the patriarchy of the past but still maintain it's core morality) always seem to lose sight of this and assume that anytime a woman does something that a man likes she is debasing herself.

"Yes, I agree with Levi - 'bawdy' and 'liberated' are not synonymous,"

Who says? Sure the words do not mean the same thing, one refers to an act or a way of behaving, the other refers to a feeling. However there is absolutely nothing preventing bawdyness from producing a liberating feeling in anyone, male or female. This is especially true if they grew up in a strict religious household. Just because it doesn't make you feel liberated doesn't mean it doesn't make the girls being discussed here feel that way and neither you nor Levy get to tell them any differently.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

All of this.

[il-mio-gufo.livejournal.com]

Any type chauvinistic behavior, especially when linked to one's sexuality, really sickens me to the point of wanting to vomit. Beware, they are still monkeys among us!

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

But rather than allow women to lower their own standards and behave as badly as their male counterparts, I would hope that society would instead insist that men behave with the maturity and intelligence that we have traditionally expected of women.

Except that's not what "freedom" means, is it?

One of the biggest reasons why previous waves of feminism have met with so much resistance — beyond the obvious fact that it's opposing the institutionalized patriarchy — is that it's traditionally wedded itself with a succession of puritanical movements intended to "civilize" everyone.

It's hard enough to get selfish sexist asshole men to agree to share power equally with women, even before you start cracking down on EVERYONE'S freedoms — the suffragettes basically screwed themselves by tying themselves so closely to the temperance movement, not in the least because Prohibition pretty much gave birth to organized crime in America, so sexist asshole men were able to hold back a great deal of further progress for women by accusing feminists of metaphorically giving birth to gangster culture, and second-wave feminists made a real deal with the devil by allying themselves with folks like Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority in their anti-pornography crusades, which turned off many men and women alike by going against the prevailing sexual permissiveness of the '70s.

Perhaps more importantly, trying to "civilize" people to as puritanical a degree as you're suggesting is kind of a completely fucking insane goal, because one of the few constants in societal evolution is its progress toward ENTROPY — when homosexuals and racial minorities and women gain greater measures of societal acceptance in certain roles, it's not so much because we've become more enlightened as because we've become more apathetic, to the point that we don't CARE if our coworkers or soldiers or elected officials are women or black or gay or whatever, so long as they do a good job — so when certain feminists talk about forcing men to improve their behavior by drinking less or having less "vices" in other respects, I find it laughably absurd, because not even MEN, who had ALL the power in the world to do so, were able to force other men to "behave better."

For fuck's sake, we've had GUNS and WARS and COUNTLESS DEATHS that couldn't get guys to stop drinking or acting like assholes, so yes, when third-wave feminists looked at male privilege, of COURSE they said, "Yeah, I'd like to enjoy the SAME freedom that men have to be binge-drinking, casual-fucking, shallow-as-hell assholes," and however much you or I might not choose such lifestyles for ourselves, what we should be criticizing is the fact that the only women right now who seem to be getting away with being "female chauvinist pigs" are the ones who fit the patriarchy's definitions of conventional attractiveness. A fat guy slob can get hammered and have a one-night stand and all his buddies will cheer him on for "gettin' some," but a fat GIRL slob who does the same will be met with men AND women criticizing her for her life choices and subjecting her to all sorts of bullshit armchair psychoanalysis.

[yelena-r0ssini.livejournal.com]

I agree with Levy to a degree but not with her fundamental reasoning. I don't think that women should somehow be "better than" or "above" boozing, raunch, slobbishness, etc. - but I also don't think that choice is the be-all and end-all of feminism, and I don't think that every choice is necessarily an empowering or healthy one.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

If they're feminist, shouldn't they be "swines" rather than "pigs"? O.O

pigtionary

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

swine can be male or female. a sow is a female pig.