I wrote a lengthy critique of Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs over at Babes & Books, but I have more to say and don't want to eat up all that space.

1. I think the funniest thing that was in Jennifer Baumgardner's critique of FCP was the cover:

Levy writes: "If the whole point is change and redefinition, then I wonder why the Cake imagery is so utterly of a piece with every other bimbo pictorial I've seen in my life." Levy uses the same imagery on her cover -- without any ironic flourish -- which leads me to believe that she may suffer from the same conflicts she is so troubled by in others.

I seriously laughed out loud when I read that because that is precisely MY biggest critique with Jessica Valenti's book. I don't agree with all of Baumgardner's critique, but right on the nose with the book cover. I won't buy Valenti's book because of the book cover and the only reason I bought Levy's was for book club. Plus a stupid trucker flap girl is very different than the disembodied belly of a skinny white chick.

2. Levy spends a good amount of time discussing that girls nowadays are dressing to impress each other NOT boys. I've heard this from many a mom. Anyone else hear this theory? I kinda see it already with Ella and I guess I did the same thing in high school. Once I got out of my "I-need-to-wear-a-different-color-of-every-piece-of-clothing-I'm-wearing" phase (yes, pink socks, blue shoes, white shirt, rainbow colored skirt...) I did try to dress to impress my girlfriends.

3. I do not believe that Levy is anti-sex, as I said in my B&B post. Rather I subscribe to her call for an expansion of of definition of sexy. It can't be just thongs and stripper poles. And I'm not saying it just because you so don't want to see me in a thong. Levy touches on something when she says we need something more than lust and fake lust at that, when we think of sex. If it's puritanical to say that sex should mean something, then it is. I do think that we can have healthy alternative sex lives that mean something and isn't just about the show or fake boobs.

4. The Girls Gone Wild mentality will lead to harm. Levy recounts an evening out with the film crew where woman after woman is essentially bullied into showing her boobs for a trucker hat. Sometimes for some guy to get a trucker hat. Crowds gather around, chanting "Show them! Show them!" and once she does, camera phones go clicking and she gets the trucker hat. It's not just mob mentality, but I believe an issue of safety for the woman involved.

Essentially, I think you should pick this up and see for yourself.

Labels: Books, feminism