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Above and beyond raunch
July 23, 2006
Is it still cool to blog about Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs? Eh, whatever – so I reveal that I’m horrendously behind the times. If something wasn’t published on the internet or in a book I read for class at grad school this past year, I haven’t read it. I am reading FCP now, so I will write about it now.
First let me say this – I do think Levy has a lot of interesting points and insights that have made me pause and think about my life and the weird worlds of sex and debauchery (paid and un) that I’m entwined with.
However, I’ve been thinking a lot about her frequent assumptions that women in raunch culture are trying to act “like men,” a phrase which she often italicizes. Tonight my understanding of what precisely is so irritating about this crystallized – at the Gotham Girls Roller Derby bout.
Though Levy does spend some time breaking down what “men” might mean and recognizes that “men” is a not entirely useful construction, she’s still very much dividing the world in men’s and women’s work (and play).
Are the Gotham Girls acting “like men” because they are athletic, competitive and strong? No, goddammit. They are acting like women – strong, sassy, stylish and amazing ones at that. One could argue that there’s an element of raunch in roller derby: short skirts! Boobs! Women getting physical! Woo-hoo! And this aspect is enjoyable, for certain.
But just because women are getting physical and even flaunting their sex appeal a bit doesn’t mean that they are trying to be like men or that they are being female chauvinist pigs and prioritizing the sexual over everything else. To assume that women enjoying themselves through enjoying their bodies is raunchy is narrow-minded and just kinda dumb.
So maybe its time to really look at and accept the ways that women express themselves in a different way – not trying to be like men and not being straight up raunchy, but something else, something that can be sexy and powerful but not demeaning. This is not to say that all forms of women showing off and showing their bodies are empowering across the board – they aren’t – but that maybe just calling it raunch is missing the point.
Posted by Dacia at July 23, 2006 12:33 AM
Comments
I started reading that book last fall and when grad school got in the way I put it down until about a week ago. I also felt that Levy got sort of knocked around in blogs by people that only maybe read the book. But I also agree with you in your final assessment. Clearly, there are choices that some women make that others would not be comfortable with - that is why we are individuals! It would be pretty unpopular to decry a woman trying to advance in the workplace or politics as trying to be “like men” (even though that argument probably has more factual grounding). I’m not sure why Levy falls into the trap of ascribing maleness to sexuality. I’m not sure I’d be too happy in a world where the cards fell out that way.
Posted by: Ellie at July 23, 2006 10:21 AM
Levy also doesn’t seem to be able to grasp that even if certain women are “prioritizing the sexual over everything else,” that they might be doing so for themselves, not for men. For as much time as she spends wringing her hands about women conceptualizing their sexuality only in terms of how it affects men or what men want, I find it hard to believe that she can really be that dense.
Posted by: Amber at July 23, 2006 04:45 PM
At the heart of it, a lot of feminsit criticism of raunch and porn is that it objectifies women, and perpetuates some fairly nasty ideas of women as sexual property.
The problem I have with the majority of ati-porn feminist criticism is that it’s too general. It it used to talk about what you do, which is does not perpetuate the more unpleasent objectifications and sexual concepts.
It would be helpful if, in talking about “raunch culture” among feminists, the author pointed out some specific examples. I’ve yet to read the book, so perhaps she does. If those examples are contrary to feminist ideals, it should be fairly easy to point out.
If you restrict pornography to exclude being sensitive to feminism and feminsit ideals, that creates a feminism that can never contain any sense of the erotic as public or marketable.
If that’s the author’s goal, then a critique of raunch culture feminists is a waste of time, because any raunch is going to be objectionable, and the book could be trimmed to about 3 paragraphs.
Posted by: Josh Jasper at July 23, 2006 07:04 PM
I read this book almost a year ago and enjoyed it, yet still felt troubled by the generalizations Levy makes about those things we sometimes do in the name of self-empowerment.
While I do recognize that there are a number of women out there who openly scorn “girliness” and do make their behavior a type of performance for the sake of men, it’s by all means not the case for everyone. In making the generalizations she does, Levy disparages the entire lifestyles of women like you and me.
I went to see Levy speak at McNally Robinson way back when, and I admired her for her intelligence, and for how articulate and at ease she was.
Yet when I asked her if it was possible for women to practice a sort of hypersexuality as a means of becoming more comfortable in their own skin (rather than for the benefit of others), she gave me a vague response, with the bottom line that we’re not evolved enough for this to be possible.
Argh! I had a convo w/ Jennifer Baumgardner about this when I was interviewing her for something else entirely. I wish I had my notes on me. Have to dig them up later tonight.
Posted by: steph at July 25, 2006 12:06 PM
