I agree with the author that there's probably better ways to be feminist than for women to dress/dance/act provocatively in a manner in which they think men will like. I do wonder if this stance can lead to a puritanical anti-sex position. (To her credit, Levy does not take that position, I'm just speculating that it *might* lead to it.) I also like that she identifies most of these trends more with commercialism than with any real sense of sexuality and freedom. Since I know very little about m...more I agree with the author that there's probably better ways to be feminist than for women to dress/dance/act provocatively in a manner in which they think men will like. I do wonder if this stance can lead to a puritanical anti-sex position. (To her credit, Levy does not take that position, I'm just speculating that it *might* lead to it.) I also like that she identifies most of these trends more with commercialism than with any real sense of sexuality and freedom. Since I know very little about modern feminism, this book served as a good introduction to modern controversies in feminism, and it provided some of the historical background to these controversies. All in all, a very well-written and engaging sociological survey.

(Levy appeared on the Colbert Report a few years ago to discuss this book-- very funny, and she handled Colbert quite well. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colb... ) ( )

Snappy writing, but really problematic, especially the stuff on transmen and butches. That isn't to say that there isn't something worth looking at there, but it came off as a little transphobic to me. Levy is dead-on in that our culture is shoving harmful stuff at women while calling it "empowering," but her analysis felt a little superficial at times. ( )

One of the best books of theory I have read in the last decade. Levy situates the contradictory experience of young women being sold the myth of liberation and empowerment through the commodification of their bodies and ideals. Awesome ( )

http://bookchronicle.wordpress.com/20... ( )

This is a very thought provoking book. Interesting to see how the author ties past feminist movements to the explanation of why many of my peers objectify themselves and each other today. Having grown up in this culture and seen first hand how many young women act, I agree with the author on many of her points and am also amazed that so many young women act this way. I'm not totally untouched by the raunch culture - in fact I own Jenna Jameson's autobiography, but that's more out of morbid curiosity than the idea that she's some kind of role model. Having two teenage sisters, I worry how this kind of society affects them and will recommend reading this book to them so they can see where it's coming from. ( )

Felt like I learned a lot about what was going on with younger women. ( )

Like many others, I wanted to like this more. Maybe it is just that I am an attorney, so I see way too many women who feel they must act, look, and talk like men to get ahead. But I wanted an analysis of that macho bravado in the female. Instead, what I got was bois and girls, and very few women.

Now, I am not a cloistered little nun. I knew what a boi was, thank you. I did not need an often erroneous dissertation on the LGBT community. I hope that some bright person of some persuasion sees this book in a store, buys it, and is dissapointed enough to do the subject justice. Show me how to integrate these girls gone wild into the worldplace. Show me how to rechannel their inappropriate measures of self-worth into something that transcends all the four letter words they can stand. Show me how to stop the next crop from going through this breast-flashing notch-carving phase at all. At the very least, show me the "rise of raunch culture" and not just its semi-current iteration. I really, really wanted to like this book. But I clearly do not. ( )

While this book was interesting, it was equally annoying. first of all, let me state that FTM transexuals are not "becoming" men, as Levy states. They ARE men, just with the wrong equipment. Levy completely devalues this and seems to feel it is another way women are feeling forced into being "like a man." This kind of faulty reasoning is commonplace in this book and caused me to want to throw it accross the room on more than one occasion. Yes, I think it's terrible that we're sexualizing our children. Yes, I think it's terrible that we're teaching abstinence-only sexual education without any information about birth control and protection from STDs.

Yet Levy completely discounts personal choice in her discussion of these topics. She takes a men-as-enemy stance as often as not. EVERYONE has a choice. Even those girls who drank too much and were "convinced" to take their clothes off in front of cameras. They had a choice to drink and a choice to take the high road. No one would have faulted them. That they chose to get naked is their perogative. If they regret it later, then they have learned something. Please, they are NOT victims.

Much of this book hit me as narrow-minded propaganda. And it had such potential. ( )

http://www.thetruthasiseeit.com/2006/... ( )

The author had some good ideas but they were far too unfocused to make this worth reading. Many of her observations were intriguing but she didn't really connect them to her thesis sufficiently. There were many times that I got frustrated reading the book, wanting Levy to take that extra step to make her book rise above just a collection of observations. Also, the individual chapters did not flow together well and the one about "bois" seemed particularly out of place. I would recommend Bitch Magazine for better analysis on this issue. ( )

‘Female chauvinist pigs’ is an absolute treasure – illuminating, challenging, and above all else relevant. Levy avoids the stuffy, humourless, self absorbed tone found in so much feminist theory, and opts instead for a modern and witty call to arms. ( )

A wonderfully intelligent and well written book that explains once and for all why passionless promiscuity, dressing "sexy" without really feeling sexy, and acting like a porn star are neither sexy, liberating, nor workable methods for obtaining true sexual fulfilment. This book is a must read. ( )

This book is amazing... I think the author summed it up when she said:

"This is not a book about the sex industry; it is a book about what we have decided the sex industry means....how we held it up, cleaned it off, and distorted it." (Ariel Levy, excerpt from book page 198)

What is feminism to you? How does it equate to our existence as a woman? Why do we strive so hard to be "manly" in our daily activities? How did sexuality become feminism? When did Porn Stars become the Cool Role Models? Why are our kids driven to look sexually "hot", when half of them don't know what sex is all about?

All these questions are looked at in this witty book written by Ariel Levy. She takes the reader inside behind the scenes to talk to the people who are putting out the images we are all striving to be like. You get a view into the inner sanctums of playboy, girls gone wild, CAKE, old school feminist,Strippers, Porn Stars, Teenagers, Lesbians and much much more. If you think you know feminism and how it equates into a woman's sexuality or just curious about it all, this book is a must read for you.

I have to admit, I have never been stopped and asked by so many strangers "what is that book about" as I have been with this one. It is guaranteed to cause a sensation just from the cover alone. I loved the witty tone it had as the author explained some of the really absurd norms we have these days. I found each chapter a pleasure to read and Ariel posed a tons of questions which set me to pondering the reason behind all the madness these days. One question she did not really address is "why is this happening". We see a big jump from conservative feminism to raunchy feminism; she show a great picture of what it was and what it is now but no history on the between time; how we changed over to what it is. I enjoyed the section she had on the teenage girls and was pleased to a section from a boys perspective. What the male interviewee said made a lot of sense. As I read the statements from the women who were interviewed I couldn't help but wonder why they needed to be so "manly" in their behaviors, why do they feel they need this trade off. I found the book to be a very informative book and will recommend it to may of my friends. ( )

Ages since I read some good feminism and this is it. It could have been a bit more 'academic', but its chatty style was pretty easy to read and it doesn't take away from the issues she covers. Without sounding preachy this is the sort of thing teenage girls should be reading, they need to understand that wearing tops saying 'porn star' isn't a sign of how far we've come, it's a sign of how far we have to go.

In my opinion a must-read for every woman.
I sometimes had the feeling the author wrote down my own thoughts. ( )

The very strength of this book's thesis is what made the entire thing so frustrating. Levy has a great concept and great supports, but her writing and follow through sound more like arguments at a cocktail party-all a bit disjointed, poorly tied together.
I wanted to like this book more. I wanted to recommend it to everyone-male, female, coworkers, parents-everyone. But I just can't. Maybe once it goes through another couple of drafts or gets filtered through a better writer, this book will cause the right kind of social change. ( )

This is a book review I wrote for my Gender Studies course:

Women in Control of Their Own Objectification:
Female Chauvinist Pigs
Into the underbelly of the Girls Gone Wild Company, to the lobby of Playboy Enterprises, and inside the booming fascination of the porn industry, Ariel Levy throws light on what debasement women are engaging in the name of empowerment. In her groundbreaking work of non-fiction published by Free Press, (a division of Simon and Schuster) Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Levy powerful states her indignation of the sexualization and porno-fication of pop culture. America is place where porn stars are idolized and have best-selling memoirs, and where women view stripping as exercise. There is no outrage, only cheering as women get positive reinforcement for objectifying themselves for the entertainment and viewing pleasure of others.
Levy does not explicitly define “raunch culture,” but she provides ample examples of it in action. It is not confined to one cultural space; its influence has permeated every possible sphere. Raunch culture has always existed, whether in the darkened “adult only” spaces of video stores or on the air waves with Howard Stern. Levy writes that this aspect of culture is no longer hidden, no longer shameful, but highly marketable:
"Some version of a sexy, scantily clad temptress has been around through the ages, and there has always been a demand for smut. But this was once a guilty pleasure on the margins—on the almost entirely male margins. For a trend to penetrate political life, the music industry, art, fashion, and taste the way raunch culture has, it must be thoroughly mainstream, and half mainstream is female." (Levy 34)
Sex has always sold in marketing, and now it is sold without curtains, or boundaries in every aspect of media culture. No one thinks twice. Celebrities know only too well the nature of the beast, you can be famous for a leaked sex tape or posing nude, whereas years ago that would have marked the end of your career.
Levy devotes a chapter of her book to the strides and advances women have made in the feminist/women’s movement. The chapter is titled “The Future That Never Happened.” This title is especially telling. As women gained more rights like legalized abortion, FDA approved birth control, and learned more about their once mysterious and shrouded bodies, there was the assumption that things will just keep improving and women go further. But that requires work and “future never happened” as strong as the movements of the past had propelled women.
Women are taking what has been gained by the feminist movement and enjoying
the freedoms gained in its wake–whether they identify themselves as feminists or not. Women that Levy declares as Female Chauvinist Pigs are using their bodies and objectification as a power play in a way men never had to. Much like the in a way a woman might flash cleavage to get out of a speeding ticket; women are objectifying themselves and mislabeling it as power, or even worse empowerment in their everyday lives. Levy writes that just because women are now in charge and are free agents of their sexuality it is not necessarily a win for women. “That women are now doing this to ourselves isn’t some kind of triumph, it’s depressing.” (Levy 44) There is no man in a trench coat wielding power over these women; they are doing it on their volition.
The phrase “like a man” has been used in common vernacular as a compliment. The phrase refers to toughness, power, and strength. “Take it like a man” Levy writes of this usage in accordance of many powerful women such as Edna St. Vincent Millay, Hillary Clinton, and publishing executive Judith Regan. These women did not just do things like a man, but like powerful women. This difference is not recognized. “Women who’ve wanted to be perceived as powerful have long found it more efficient to identify with men than to try to elevate the entire female sex to their level.” (Levy 95) That is definitely easier said than done. Most women given that backhanded compliment will take it and not strike up a feminist debate, the comparison will always be made. In the popular television show Sex and the City, the topic of “having sex like a man” is discussed in the first episode.
Samantha: “If you’re a successful single woman in this city you have two choices, you can bang your head against the wall and try to find a relationship or you can say ‘screw it’ and just go out and have sex like a man.”
Charlotte: “You mean with dildos?”
Samantha: “No I mean without feeling”
Samantha is notorious for her sexual exploits and nonchalant attitude about sex and relationships. Upon hearing this comment Carrie, the main character of the show bases her newspaper column that week on the idea of using men as sex objects, just as some men do to women. After she had felt she succeeded in having sex like a man, Carrie states in her interior monologue that she feels “powerful and potent.” Later in the show when she sees the man she had used for no-commitment sex she muses to herself “Do all men want their women promiscuous and emotionally detached?” She realizes this maybe a way of life for some women but it is probably not for her. “Like a man” is just not the same thing in action as it is in theory.
With the “rise of raunch culture” already on the horizon Levy looks to the future in the chapter entitled “Pigs in Training.” Adolescent girls have already been exposed to sexualized media and have very few non-sexual or sexually indifferent role models. Even premarital and virginal Britney Spears sang about sex while claiming that she was not having it. Without her denials many people assumed otherwise and had reason to. In the introduction of Naomi Wolf’s book, Promiscuities, Wolf writes about why she felt compelled to write this work. She writes about the process of “becoming women” and how misleading messages can truly be to developing women.
"Bombarded as we are by scripts that we did not write about becoming women sexually, we struggle to create meaning out of our ‘becoming women’ through a rich, active, raunchy, subversive, even slapstick inner process of storytelling. Happy, sad, or, most often, paradoxical, these thoroughly crafted sexual autobiographies are as familiar to our most private selves as are our favorite books or songs." (Wolf xviii)
When will raunch culture decline? Will young girls just adopt raunchy sensibilities and act out what they see? To some extent young girls already have. Levy brings forth incidents of teen girls as young as thirteen performing fellatio on school buses. (Levy 140-141) Surely these girls are receiving altered cultural messages about what is expected of them sexually.
One main criticism I have for Levy is contained in her chapter also entitled Female Chauvinist Pigs. I had thought this chapter was going to get to the root of Levy’s argument; instead this chapter quoted ordinary women that did not share Levy’s beliefs. After their sometimes shocking confessions, such as Erin Eisenberg who is quoted as saying that she felt that she has a “higher tolerance for sexual harassment” than others, Levy uses their words to show why these women are detrimental to feminism and the way in which women, as a group, are viewed in society. (Levy 100) Eisenberg, Eisenberg’s sister, and women working in male dominated workplaces are profiled negatively in this chapter. I feel as though Levy took cheap shots on other women to prove her point where the rest of the book proves that she can navigate herself and her ideas without singling out women as Female Chauvinist Pigs or FCPs, as Levy uses as shorthand. In reading the book and living our own lives we know these women exist without them being called out by name for their opinions.
As a woman in college I struggle with my own identity, the way in which I carry myself, and are perceived by others. I see “Female Chauvinist Pigs” lounging on the quad and the spring, some wearing sorority letters, or some with words like “Juicy” written on the backside of their pants and I wonder what sort of attention are they after and if it is as positive as they think. Paris Hilton is not my role model, my dog does not wear clothes and my cell phone is not pink and sparkly, but I do not believe I am as harsh to these women as Ariel Levy comes off in her book. These women are different than me and although they sometimes display not so fabulous behavior, and may use their sexuality as one might use a sledge hammer to get a desired effect, but I am still glad these women exist. They are a contrast and create a spectrum of experiences. I do however get upset when the name of feminism is used incorrectly. Because feminism has such a malleable definition it is highly misinterpretable. Levy writes in her book a question that struck me as a feminist-minded individual “Why is this the ‘new feminism’ and not what it looks like: the old objectification?” (Levy 81) I cannot answer this and do not think anyone else really can either. I think what we are seeing now is mass confusion, now that women’s roles are not so clearly delineated; women are doing many things with their new found power that each generation is inheriting. I can only hope that women are happy where their lives are going and in the choices they make.

Works Cited
Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free P, 2005.
"Sex and the City." Sex and the City. HBO. New York City. 6 June 1998.
Wolf, Naomi. Promiscuities. 1st ed. New York City: Random House, 1997. ( )

Interesting, scary, and very true assesment of how "liberation" has gotten misconstrued in "Girls Gone Wild" culture, but the book doesn't offer any conclusions on how this shift can be combated. I feel like there's still a lot more to be said on the subject--this book is just an overview. ( )

An interesting critique of the weird tangent feminism has taken in many areas of Western society in our new millenium - now it is considered 'empowering' for women to judge themselves and others by some 'sexuality yardstick' where you are just not with it if you are not hyper-sexualised: tarty clothes, tarty attitude, sex is for power not for pleasure. While much of this book relies on anecdote rather than established facts (though there are those in the book too) it tells what needs to be told - that we are raising teenagers in a society where (in the US at least) they are expected to act sexual yet have to rely on the abstinence only message as the sole form of sex-ed; where women are expected to emulate strippers and porn-stars and this is 'empowering' rather than demeaning or at the very least vapid; where feminism somehow means sexuality has become more commodified rather than less.

While Levy has few recommendations for overcoming this trend, the book itself is a good start - maybe if we just own up to the fact that this happening, and start thinking for ourselves, women can claim back their own happiness and desires. ( )

If you're as gobsmacked as I am by the idea of 'Girls Gone Wild' as female empowerment or Paris Hilton as a role model for teens' sexual expression, this book will probably speak to you and frustrate you as much as it did me. It has some enlightening (and deeply disturbing) interviews with middle school and high school girls, singletons in NYC, and lesbians in California. I do find it genuinely upsetting that this air-brushed, overwaxed, silicone vacuousness is increasingly displayed as the only acceptable form of 'sexy' (esp because I don't think this is even truly what a good chunk of people consider desirable). I also find it really mind-blowing that, as is clear from the interviews, this conception of sexiness seems almost by definition divorced from any notion of sexual fufillment or even desire on the part of the women emulating it, and yet it is supposed to be 'empowering'. Attention ladies, if flashing your boobs at hooting frat boys for a camera crew makes you feel icky, bored, or contemptuous? Then you did not just find it 'liberating'. If that happens to be your thing, bully for you, but try to tell me it's feminist self-expression for everyone and I will try to restrain myself from poking your eyeballs out. ( )

must-read for every woman ( )

Easy to read, entertaining and interesting. Made me think and I think I gained some insight. It's basically a collection of research expeditions where Ariel interviews people taking part in various aspects of raunch culture. She goes filming with 'Girls Gone Wild', visits Playboy headquarters and talks to the female executive staff, interviews lesbians and transexuals about gender, attends a female liberation sex show, goes to a sex crazed high school, interviews feminists with various points of view and sums up with her own take on it all. ( )