Entry tags:

civil rights, sociology

Us & Them
This morning's essay from imomus calls into question the concept of "raunch feminism". Among the works he cites is the book Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy. At it's core and broken down to the most basic level, "raunch feminism" could be defined as female empowerment at the hands of Girls Gone Wild. I've long been interested in Camille Paglia's work from the early nineties and I did some further research into Ms Levy's treatise to try and determine, where the two concepts from post-feminism might intersect.

Ms Levy apparently takes the simplistic position that the women's movement split into two camps; the "sex-positive" and the anti-porn. The author defines "raunch feminism", as "the unresolved contradiction between the two sides". Something telling and according to everything I've read, appears to play toward the conclusion of the work can be illustrated with an included quote from Erica Jong.

I had to create the zipless fuck to rebel against my fifties upbringing. I told my daughter the other day, "Your generation does it, my generation only talked about it." I look at my daughter and her friends in their twenties and they are reveling in their sexuality. They don't feel guilty, and why should they? Men never did. Right now they're young and beautiful and full of energy and they don't necessarily want to have a relationship, or even have a guy stay the whole night!

But I would be happier if my daughter and her friends were crashing through the glass ceiling instead of the sexual ceiling. Being able to have an orgasm with a man you don't love, or having "Sex and the City" on television, that is not liberation. If you start to think about women as if we're all Carrie on "Sex and the City," well, the problem is: You're not going to elect Carrie to the Senate or to run your company. Let's see the Senate fifty-percent female; let's see women in decision-making positions—that's power. Sexual freedom can be a smokescreen for how far we haven't come.

Ms Levy apparently adds to the theme by saying;

In this new formulation of raunch feminism, stripping is as valuable to elevating womankind as gaining an education or supporting rape victims. Throwing a party where women grind against each other in their underwear while fully clothed men watch them is suddenly part of the same project as marching on Washington for reproductive rights.

I haven't read the book and based on some lukewarm reviews, I wish for access to a better library. Though I will argue that most of the women who take pole-dancing as an aerobic workout, or who are flashing their boobs for Joe Francis' camera are generally not those who will seek public office. People will take power any way it'll come and if some women can achieve their desires by wearing a Hooters tee, why should the route they take to happiness, somehow be viewed as inherently less valid?