January 2007: Female Chauvinist Pigs (Levy)

Post date: Jan 07, 2010 8:53:45 PM

Twenty readers filled Sherrill's living room on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007, with plenty to say about the observations and ideas in Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture and our own experiences and musings on the culture we are part of here. There was great interest across the generations, each wanting to hear what the other thinks about the phenomenon of women participating in the "raunch culture" and whether it's possible that is actually a way for women to take power over their sexuality. In some ways it seems like a backward slide from the staunch feminism of the '70s... or maybe it is a pendulum swing from which our culture can return to a more balanced position? Like the book, our group did not conclude with a solution for shifting "sexy" to a healthy relationship to sexuality, real women's empowerment, and true equality between the sexes. There's more work to be done!