This afternoon I was listening to Terri Gross's program, "Fresh Air" on NPR. She was interviewing Ariel Levy, the author of "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture." From the interview I gathered that the book challenges the raunch culture that you see in America today and views it from a feminist perspective. The interview was very interesting and unfortunately I had not heard of this book until then. This book is now on my wish list. It puts things in perspective when people like Paris Hilton are role models for today's teens. You know how her popularity rose after her infamous sex romp tapes were leaked.
As soon as the interview ended, I went online to read more about this book. For those who are interested, I found the synopsis on the publisher's site. For your convenience I have included it later in this post, the rest can be found here.
Publisher Comments:
Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig — the new brand of "empowered woman" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women — and of themselves. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them.
Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig — the new brand of "empowered woman" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women — and of themselves. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them.
In her quest to uncover why this is happening, Levy interviews college women who flash for the cameras on spring break and teens raised on Paris Hilton and breast implants. She examines a culture in which every music video seems to feature a stripper on a pole, the memoirs of porn stars are climbing the best-seller lists, Olympic athletes parade their Brazilian bikini waxes in the pages of Playboy, and thongs are marketed to prepubescent girls. Levy meets the high-powered women who create raunch culture — the new oinking women warriors of the corporate and entertainment worlds who eagerly defend their efforts to be "one of the guys." And she traces the history of this trend back to conflicts between the women's movement and the sexual revolution long left unresolved.
In the tradition of Susan Faludi's Backlash and Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, Levy pulls apart the myth of the Female Chauvinist Pig and argues that what has come to pass for liberating rebellion is actually a kind of limiting conformity. Irresistibly witty and wickedly intelligent, Female Chauvinist Pigs makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come, it only proves how far they have left to go.
Among other things:
I am currently reading this wonderful book, Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India’s High Tech City (University of Minnesota Press, 2001), by Smriti Srinivas, who is an Associate Professor at UC Davis. I just got that yesterday and couldn't put it down. Those of you who are interested in urban studies, anthropology and cultural juxtaposition between the modern and traditional, this is the book! It is an academic work with years of research, I honestly preferred it to the book that I was previously reading, Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat." I have picked this up and once I am done then I shall go back to Friedman's book.
18 comments:
Whoa, Sai, you just made me add two books to my TBR mountain, but they sound much too good to pass up, so thanks! :))
I will have to find the Terri Gross interview in the archives, I am truly interested in hearing what Ariel Levy has to say. When I was in India this August I was stunned by how assertive (and sometimes even aggressive) young Indian women have become - whenever we went out to eat or drink, all I could do was sit around and watch them, the anthropologist in me was just in awe of how much is changing for the Indian city girl.
Anyway, coming back to North America, let me listen to the interview and maybe then I will have a more cohesive comment. Thanks for the book suggestions!
Hey Lotus:
I have linked the interview to my post but here is the url:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6549015
I just thought that the book seemed too good to be missed and apt too, especially given the superficiality and vacuousness of Generation Right now!
About women in Mumbai....they will just blindly ape the west!
I heard part of the Teri Gross interview on NPR too, and did have a passing thought to blog about it.
I have a slightly different take on it. I am not about to judge women who are in to this so called "raunch culture".
If you are a believer in the ethos of individuality and of choice then you also have to let people be free to make the choices and live with them.
I did not find myself being moved as much by the interview. I do agree with the part about role models marketing and pop culture issues. But a central credo of feminism is also the freedom of choice that the woman has.
For the author to claim she is coming at it from a feminist perspective is not entirely true (in my opinion). Her concern maybe justified but the way to fight the issues are at an individual and a family level.
While she may have a valid comment abt the role of women in videos (am no gonna talk about rap.. some rap is misogynistic), even in so called "conservative" cultures like in India, there are similar things to be seen with their own cultural flavor.
Sorry about the long comment.
Sanjay:
You have raised a valid point and I will answer them and justify my take on this later in the day.
Do not worry about the length as your comment has a lot of substance and I get to see it from a male perspective.
I really appreciate your input so I am glad you are candid about how you feel.
Thanks. I am not sure this is essentially a male perspective. But its more of a each one left to their own devices kind of perspective. I will probably get the book and might do a longer post about it sometime.
Well when I said from a male perspective I did not mean from the patriarchal male perspective or that men are from mars perspective.
What I meant was that most women react strongly the way I did. So for me, you had a different point of view because you can step back and look at the issue in a better fashion than us. I will reply later this evening about my take on it.
I'm enjoying the discussion via the comments and am even more curious about the interview now - just have to make time to listen to it!
Yeah, I don't think you meant that either. I was just trying to take the whole "gender" thingy out from a part of the argument.
My 2 cents
BTW Tom Friedman is sort of out of it at times. I think while he sometimes does write well on a number of issues he is given a bit too much respect.
He was a cheerleader for the Iraq war and was wrong about it. When asked about what would happen next there he said the next 6 months are critical. The thing is he kept saying that at different points in time going forward with no one holding him accountable for his previous predictions.
link here. (Search for Friedman just above Trivia)
Let us not forget that were it not for a more vigilant press/pundits (like the moustache of understanding) this debacle in Iraq might not have happened.
re: world is flat. If you read him regularly in the Times, you will notice he is an unapologetic advocate of free trade, with only a cursory nod to the fact that there are folks here in the US who have been hit hard by free trade that has gone on with scant regard for what it does to them.
The tough economic situation in the midwest and the election of some democrats with a economic populist shade to them had happened because of an increasing unease about free trade. People want free trade but they want it to be fair. Friedman hardly ever pays attention to this.
My point.. don't accept anything from Friedman just cos he says so.. ;)
Oh and Lotus please do chime in :)
Sanjay:
That was absolutely my point when I said I prefered an academic book with several years of research to Thomas friedman's book. When I said I will get back to the book was that I do want to read it after I am done reading Prof. Srinivas's work.
BTW I have heard his interview on NPR and do remember his stand on Iraq. I never take anyone opinions blindly unless there is convincing data provided to substantiate it. I do not believe in "truthiness" at all! While reading the book I had my own doubts and thats why I kept it aside.
Longing to chime in but my real player has gone crazy and won't let me access the interview. However, the title of her book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs" intrigues me...I always thought a chauvinist was someone who considered one's gender superior to the other, but in this case, aren't these girls actually pandering to the men by stripping for them (OK so they say they are stripping for other women and themselves, but are women actually watching these "Girls Gone Wild" videos?) I have to run now, I might be back!
Just so you know my comment about Friedman is just my opinion and does not reflect upon you.
Lotus.. Good point about fcp. I think they are being called fcp here in a different context?
@ Sanjay:
I do know that your comment on Friedman was your opinion.
As I promised this morning to comment about the interview and to the points that you were so kind to raise. First of all let me clarify that I haven't read the book as yet.
@Sanjay:
Although I agree with you on an individual's right to choose; I would consider that in context to a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion or not and other rights that feminist in our previous generation worked so hard for. They worked hard to fight gender stereotyping and empowering women to work and to be treated as equals and not as sex objects. For e.g. previously women couldn’t have a checking account without the signature of their spouse, couldn’t get contraception before marriage etc. This has changed now.
The argument she is making is that exhibitionism is not empowerment.
She has quoted girls from “The girls gone wild” video where she went to the beaches to do her research during the Spring Break. These girls are not paid to do this but would on an instinct make out in front of a camera or simulate sex in front of a camera. When asked why they did that they said that it was a reflex and thought that it was cool. They also said that they didn’t care as they didn’t want to be in politics. This becomes an obligation and not an option! This is sort of pressure created by popular culture. She interviewed some students in an Oakland school who said that they made out and gave their classmates lap dance during the proms. They are mirroring the popular culture. Case in point being Ms. Paris Hilton whose claim to fame was her last name and inheritance. After the infamous sex romp tapes, she became an A-list Hollywood star. Contrast this to Vanessa Williams having had to relinquish her title after her photographs were leaked in the 1980s. This was the time I was growing up while today’s young teens and prepubescent girls are exposed to the culture that equates trashy with sexy!
@Lotus Reads:
She was using female chauvinistic pigs as a play of words of the patriarchal male chauvinistic pig, a stereotype of a man who objectified women. Her take is that these women are objectifying themselves and are saying that if we cannot beat them then let’s join them.
I am not disputing some of what is being said.
There is always peer pressure and not everyone succumbs to it.
As for Paris she is just a celebrity and not everyone is enamoured by her, she is not a Hollywood A-lister in that sense.
I agree there are problems with some of this but am not sure how they should be handled. I am against any kind of censorship and believe that individuals should decide for themselves how to conduct their lives and aware of the consequences they have.
Oh and one person's trashy lifestyle is another persons cool.
Sanjay:
I absolutely agree with you about censorship! Yes I do believe that individuals should decide for themselves. I definitely don't agree to moral policing. Having lived in Bombay during the Shiv Sena regime and how annoying all that nonsense was!
Her observation, to which I agree, is that these images are being fed to impressionable youth in popular culture.
About Paris, well I would safely say that adults don't care about her. This author's target group were teens.
Ahh teens.. that figures.
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