With all the postmodernism and feminist hype around lately, there was no way I was not exposed to Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. I would say I am about 50 pages behind everyone who started talking in just about every other serious conversation I had (at work and at uni). The book is different from the type of “entertainment” reads I would usually go for (as if uni books and texts not sufficient, why tire the mind some more?) but I must confess I adore this book and it is absolutely inspiring to be introduced to the so called latest cultural phenomenon – raunch culture.
I’m pretty sure on good and set days, I’m no way the described postfeminist in any way. However, I believe deep down inside of each and every one of us, there’s always been the rebel itch in us, and sadly the rebel phrase for the new age is apparently and unavoidably the raunch culture. I am kind of ashamed to say, the pressure of being perfect, beautiful, sexy, generally appealing to the opposite sex and of course, the object of every male’s desire gets to me and helped shape the way I dress or behave (but not all the time though). Raunch culture is more than the ideology itself, it has manifested with the pop culture and it is unquestionably the ‘culture’ of the teenagers and the young adults of late.
Yes, not very encouraging to see how the future for the feminist never really did happened instead it took a detour to raunch culture, talks about empowering your own sexuality which includes happily posting on Playboys and walking around town scantily clad, having no-strings sex and talk about sex publicly and freely.
Has the fight for freedom, independence and equality for women from men has pushed the fairer sex to expose themselves in a freakishly vulnerable state and seek for generally degrading ways to attract attention just so they can be heard of? How can man listen to someone who do not love thier own body and instead parade it on the media and on the streets? Would you take women clad in business suit or a porn star seriously? Would you pick a decent dressed women (by that I meant all covered up, no cleavages, no butt cracks) or a scantily clad women as your wife?
Ariel is no doubt the braidchild to question these ridiculous trends of raunch culture which sadly shaped the current ‘culture’ and of the near future.
A book that worth questioning your purpose of choosing that revealing top over the more conservative looking one. Next time, when you shop or when you shake your booty at the club, ask yourself, who are you really doing all that for? Yourself? or that group of guys prying on you and your girlfriends since you entered the club?
Last but not least, I have changed my blog’s templete (obviously) in order to celebrate the resistence of raunch culture I am trying to take each day. Baby steps. One at a time.
