Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy

Title: Female Chauvinist Pigs
Author: Ariel Levy
Publisher: Free Press
3.75 stars


I'm a sucker for documentaries, especially ones that lead me to other resources on the material. A few days ago I watched a documentary on porn and the effects it has on relationships and societies. They had people defend pornography and oppose it. I took notes on the references they used and they interviewed the woman who wrote Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy. FCP was an intense book, many parts of it made me angry and other parts made me feel ashamed for what I have done that, according to Levy, makes me a FCP and yet other parts made me question if what she was saying is really true to society. Her argument is that women are just as responsible as men are for creating a raunchy society where women are viewed as sex objects. Girls Gone Wild is a particular interest of hers and she cites that as one of the major ways in which women are subjecting their bodies as a viewing pleasure men and therefore backing up the common stereotype presented in porn and the sex industry, that women are sexual beings that only want to please men.

In the afterward section of the book she claims that she is not against porn though that was not the impression I got from reading the entire book. That note would have been better placed at the beginning of the book. Had it been in the forward I would have read the book differently. However, every point she raised was well thought out and well researched. She provided many literary analysis's on the subjects she addressed and even criticized the material that supported her argument when she felt it was going overboard. 

I was pleased with her writing and I checked out several other books from the library that were analysed in the lit review section of the book; ones that both supported her view and opposed it. I'll be reviewing a few of those books later. It's important to keep in mind that she is not fighting porn or women in it, she is simply analyzing the effect it has on how society views, treats, and values women.