Female Chauvinist Pigs By Ariel Levy Summary

Does Gender Really Matter?

The articles, “Female Chauvinist Pigs” by Ariel Levy and “Parents Keep Child’s Identity Secret” by Jayme Poisson both discuss living outside the gender norms. Writer, Jayme Poisson, discusses in her article about parents keeping their child’s gender a secret. The parents, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, allow their children to choose the clothing they would like to dress in, as well as the toys they play with. Witterick and Stocker have three children, Jazz, Kio, and Storm; Jazz and Kio are both male and Storm’s gender is unknown. Poisson’s article discusses how raising their children this way will affect them in the long run through bullying and harsh judgement. Author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy, brings

up women resisting female, “girly-girl” gender norms and going along with the crowd of men by going to strip clubs and participating in raunch culture. There are both rewards and costs to the way these people are living their lives, as well as the way these parents are raising their children. I feel the good weighs out the bad for the way the parents are choosing to raise their kids. They're teaching the kids to choose their own way to look and dress and the kids able to play with any kind of toy. Although, people may ridicule the kids society is better off being more open minded. Their way of parenting is helping their children step fully into their true selves.
To begin, I feel there are many benefits to the way these parents are choosing to bring up their three children. By being exposed to this way of living at such a young age, these kids are given plenty of freedom to be comfortable with themselves by being allowed to wear different kinds of clothing and play with a variety of toys meant for both boys and girls. “Witterick and Stocker believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be” (Poisson, 366). It is awesome that these kids have been given a chance to choose who they want to be in this world. By choosing to be comfortable in their own skin and wearing whatever clothing they want they are able to spread out the positive aspects of growing up and choosing what kind of person they would like to be.
“[Stocker and Witterick] believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age” (366).

Witterick and Stocker chose to raise their kids this way, therefore, this is the only way these boys and Storm know how to live. Their children were not discouraged when they chose to play with “girl toys”, instead, they were accepted. They did not base their decisions on whether or not the toys should be played with by only boys or only girls. Female Chauvinist Pigs show similar behavior but they act this way to work their way up in the world. “What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious” (366). Witterick and Stocker completely support their children’s decisions and allow them to make most decisions on their own. The article “Female Chauvenist Pigs,” discusses how women, in today’s society, participate in “raunch culture”. “[Raunch is] in fashion, and it is something traditionally appealed exclusively to men and actively offended women, so producing it or participating in it is a way both to flaunt your coolness and to mark yourself as different, tougher, looser, funnier - a new sort of loophole woman who is ‘not like other women,’ who is instead ‘like a man’” (Levy, 269). A Female Chauvinist Pig (FCP) is the type of woman that will do whatever she can to work her way to the top. Although, I don’t believe in women objectifying themselves and I feel there are other ways of for women to work their way up to be recognized without participating in raunch culture and degrading themselves, people have to do what they have to do to provide for their families and put food on the table. “As if women taking off their clothes is disgusting and degrading. Not being able to feed your kids, that’s disgusting and degrading!” (267). Raunch culture is very “in” right now. We live in a man’s world and an FCP plays along as the man. An FCP is not the one on the pole, she’s the one out with a group of men getting danced on by

a stripper. A negative side to raunch culture is that an FCP looks at women, and herself, as sexual objects. She does this to gain recognition by the dominant power, males. Just like these woman choosing to participate in raunch, he two older boys, Jazz and Kio, are in charge of almost all of their decisions. For example, Poisson writes, “Jazz and Kio have picked out their own clothes in the boys and girls sections of stores since they were 18 months old… Jazz unearthed a pink dress… which he loves because it ‘really poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice’” (366). They can choose what they want to wear, if they would like their hair long or short, and if they want to play with dolls or action figures.Neither one of their parents interfere with how their kids decide to look and act. For instance, Storm’s oldest brother, Jazz, has long hair, “[he prefers] to wear it in three braids, two braids in the front and one in the back, even though both his parents have close-cropped hair. His favorite color is pink, although his parents don’t own a piece of pink clothing between them. He loves to paint his fingernails and wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear, despite the fact his parents wear no nail polish of jewelry” (367). Witterick and Stocker have gender neutral appearances so that it doesn’t interfere with the decisions their children make. By doing this they are giving their children the chance to explore interests and make their own decisions based on their intuition instead of copying what one of their parents is wearing. These kids set an example for families - an example- for kids to be exposed to a plethora of things that are not based on girl or boy clothing or toys. They are showing that it is okay to be a male that enjoys playing with barbies and wearing a tutu, as well as being a female that enjoys playing football and wearing boxers.
On the other hand, the way that Witterick and Stocker raise their children in this day and age can really affect their kids negatively. People tend to get uncomfortable when someone is doing something out of the ordinary and they don’t want to wake up and face the fact that their wrong for living life in such a linear fashion. “Jazz was old enough for school last September, but chose to stay home. ‘...[children and adults] would immediately react with Jazz over his gender.’ … the conversation would gravitate to his choice of pink or his hairstyle.’ … That’s mostly why he doesn’t want to go to school” (368). The judgement can seriously affect these kids, it can keep them from moving forward in their lives. The family resorted to “unschooling” which is a form of homeschooling based off of the kids interests. Although this is a great way of schooling their kids, and I completely support it, it still takes away from the interactions with other kids and can eventually make them antisocial. Unfortunately, these kids can potentially be faced with quite a bit of bullying by people that don’t care to understand their lifestyle. “...family friend Denise Hansen overhead two little girls at the park say they didn’t want to play with a ‘girl-boy’ [Jazz].... a saleswoman at a second-hand shop refused to sell him a pink feather boa. ‘Surely you won’t buy it for him - he’s a boy!’” (368). This is normal, everyday interaction with people and these kids do not deserve to be mistreated because of the fact that they are living their true authentic selves. I feel that the criticism that they face every day is harsh and a lot to carry on such young kids. “‘We spend more time than we should providing explanations for why we do things this way,’ says Witterick. ‘I regret that [Jazz] has to discuss his gender before people ask him meaningful questions about what he does and sees in this world, but I don’t think I am responsible for that - the culture that narrowly defines what he should do, wear, and look like is.’” (368). It’s sad to hear that people have to first question this small child on what his gender is, they don’t care about what his interests are until they but into others business and Jazz is clearly bothered by it. I do believe that the way their family is leading by example will be worth it because they are changing the world and making it more open minded and a better place. People should mind their own business and not judge others on how they dress, act, and what they believe. They especially shouldn’t be doing it to a young boy who is still trying to discover who he is in this world.
In conclusion, I feel the good weighs out the bad for the way the parents are choosing to raise their kids. They're teaching them to choose not to judge others by the way people look or dress. They are setting an example for the future and proving that you can live on your own terms and not follow these “gender norms”. Their way of parenting is helping their children step fully into their true selves.