"Female Chauvinist Pigs...

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Jacques Roux's picture
Jacques Roux
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Jul 15 2006 16:38
"Female Chauvinist Pigs...

... Women and the rise of raunch culture"

Has anyone seen this book? Im a few chapters through and its quite an interesting read in a subject i find pretty interesting. Her main point seems to be that society we live in (america/europe) values sexiness over sexualness. So that the ability to act in a certain way is much better than actually being able to do the real thing, and how this can be used to make a hell of a lot of money. Coupled with the increasing emphasis on sexiness and how women must strive towards it in all realms of society. Porn has left dodgy site on the internet and can be found wherever you look - in different guises.

- Amazon link (buy with this link and we get some money wink)

- Observer review

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ticking_fool
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Jul 16 2006 13:34

Saw the author interviewed on TV and she irritated the crap out of me. The interview seemed like an extended essay in stating the bleeding obvious, whilst avoiding saying the 'P' (patriarchy, just realised that it's not obvious) word and talking about systems, but I suppose that could have been the questions.

It does seem to me, though, that using formulations like 'values sexiness over sexualness' and talking about 'society' is a bloody good way of ducking questions of power and who benefits from this (porn industry, capital developing new forms of social control in the wake of the women's movement etc, etc, etc).

But, no, I haven't read it.

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Lazy Riser's picture
Lazy Riser
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Jul 16 2006 21:43

Hi

Quote:
using formulations like 'values sexiness over sexualness' and talking about 'society' is a bloody good way of ducking questions of power and who benefits from this (porn industry, capital developing new forms of social control in the wake of the women's movement etc, etc, etc).

Given that those questions are being asked by the usual set of boring loser lefties, I’d suggest they’re not being ducked, just ignored.

Love

LR

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Jacques Roux's picture
Jacques Roux
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Jul 17 2006 00:45
ticking_fool wrote:
It does seem to me, though, that using formulations like 'values sexiness over sexualness' and talking about 'society' is a bloody good way of ducking questions of power and who benefits from this (porn industry, capital developing new forms of social control in the wake of the women's movement etc, etc, etc).

Hmm from what i've read so far, she would be talking about those things you mention if she that was part of her own agenda, but i think she is going for a different more watered down market here.

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jef costello's picture
jef costello
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Jul 18 2006 11:03

They had an article about this in The Guardian as well, it is fairly obvious and she seems to miss the point entirely, sticking to a rather odd gender based view of things, based around an idea of woman that she never attempts to define. I'm not saying woman needs to be defined, simply that you can't treat something as defined and stable without defning it, especially in a case like this.

I hate this raunch culture crap so much.

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Nemo's picture
Nemo
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Jul 18 2006 11:13
Jef Costello wrote:
I hate this raunch culture crap so much.

That's what Jordan said during one of her feminist diatribes.

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Jacques Roux's picture
Jacques Roux
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Jul 18 2006 17:55
Jef Costello wrote:
I'm not saying woman needs to be defined, simply that you can't treat something as defined and stable without defning it, especially in a case like this.

Thats interesting - because in the book she specificaly says its something which isnt stable or defined. Which she says is where the problem originates from. However i agree that while she recognises it she doesnt do much to get around it - she doesnt define it, yet writes about it as something definable, yet says it shouldnt be definable at the same time. And has wierd 'women = nature' things going on sometimes. Still i've read 75% and its pretty interesting.

Quote:
I hate this raunch culture crap so much.

I find it fascinating tongue

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0001
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Jul 19 2006 05:21

From what I've read of her book (I haven't finished it yet) she doesn't like the fact that a lot of people (men and women) find very attractive women showing off their bodies in terms of sexuality to be more worthy of attention than very fit women who show off their bodies in terms of athleticism.

She also doesn't like the fact that women who are very physically attractive are considered more worthy of attention that women who are very intellectually attractive.

This phenonema is a step backwards, she argues, for 'women'.

She hasn't got around to why it is backwards yet. I think she expects the reader to simply nod along with her.

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Jacques Roux's picture
Jacques Roux
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Jul 19 2006 11:54

0001 - i think her point is less to do with these actual ideas - i.e. of how women are valued, but more to do with how these ideas are manifested in real life activity. And that there is more than one way to express these kind of concepts, and she doesnt agree with how they are being expressed atm.

Instead of women competing for power with men from a standpoint of atttractiveness through performance (i.e. not actual attractiveness, but pretending to be something which appeals to men and other women), people (men AND women) would be better off getting rid of that power dynamic by just being attractive as they wanted to, or in a really empowering way - as opposed to something which was a dead end. I dont think she makes herself very clear confused

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magnifico
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Jul 19 2006 11:59
revol68 wrote:
Does she think women slide off their chairs when Richard Dawkins is on tele
Quote:
"Wow. I had no idea Dawkins was so good looking," said another. Even my blog's male commentors grudgingly confessed, "Dawkins is cute!"

http://www.ypsidixit.com/blog/archives/2005/10/email_to_richar.html

grin

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Lazy Riser's picture
Lazy Riser
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Jul 19 2006 12:04

Hi

Quote:
there is more than one way to express these kind of concepts, and she doesnt agree with how they are being expressed

I prefer the way they’re currently expressed. I think mingers deserve to feel worse than their sexier peers. I mean, I don’t want to be around people who aren’t going to make an effort to sexually arouse me, especially at work.

Love

LR

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Jacques Roux's picture
Jacques Roux
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Jul 19 2006 12:05
Lazy Riser wrote:
I mean, I don’t want to be around people who aren’t going to make an effort to sexually arouse me, especially at work.

how about on libcom?

Not much choice here is there wink

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petey
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Jul 19 2006 15:49
0001 wrote:
She also doesn't like the fact that women who are very physically attractive are considered more worthy of attention that women who are very intellectually attractive.

by whom? i went to grad school, not least to meet the sort of women who go to grad school. much feminist writing engages in this broad-brush-ism, the very objectification they protest when directed at themselves, heavily employing passive voice constructions like the one above. the point is to have as few preconceptions as possible about whomever, not to want to reproduce objectifying/power relations only in the other direction.