In Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy argues that objectification of women is not only exploited by men, but also by women. Today, most women are willing to exploit their own bodies and degrade their sexuality. There has been a huge change in the way women present themselves today in comparison to the 1970s. Levy stated that she would turn on the television and see strippers explaining how to lap dance a man to orgasm or channels with babies in tight, tiny uniforms bouncing up and down on trampolines (1). Vulgarity by women is advertised on television without any shame. “ I asked female viewers and readers what they got out of the raunch culture ….They wanted to be “one of the guys”; they hoped to be experienced “like a man.” Going to strip clubs or talking about porn stars was a way of showing themselves and the men around them that they are not “prissy little women” or “girly-girls.”(2). Most women think that this behavior is a way of expressing freedom and liberation; however, their raunchy behavior shows that men are still in control of what women do. Women are acting in that manner not to be “sexually liberated” but to gain the attention of men. They are slowly accepting a “Patriarchy culture” that feminist leaders have fought so vigorously to end.
Levy proves that Female Chauvinist Pigs is a huge movement in today’s generation by talking about the teen culture. The title of this chapter is “Pigs in training”. This chapter’s title implies that the message teenagers receive from the media is influencing their thoughts and behaviors. In Female Chauvinist Pigs, Levy interviewed many different teens who expressed how freshmen girls are hooking up with senior boys in their school. Most of these girls were around the age of twelv...
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...not sufficient to say that women have mistaken their sexuality as liberation. Her argument is not strong enough because of her generalization of women. Her argument is biased as it only focuses on one set of women. Not every woman degrades their sexuality or use raunch culture as a way of expressing their freedom.
Levy’s book is an eye opener of how most women accepts pornography and raunchy behavior. Levy wants a society where women are free to embrace their own sexuality without indications from the media. She wants women to stop mistaken liberation as engaging in vulgarity behaviors. Her thesis is clear throughout the book and she uses examples to prove her argument. However, her argument is not strong because she lacks concrete data and analysis that would allow her readers to see different groups of women instead of the only group of women she presented.
In modern day society, popular culture has gained equal status to world issues and politics. Music, movies, and literature have started cultural revolutions and challenged the straight-forward thinking many individuals have accepted in the past. But while popular culture can advance new ideas and create movements, it also has the ability to challenge advancements society has made. Imani Perry’s essay, The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto, focuses on hip hop and its negative impact on women and body image.
Women have been forced to conform to social and gender stereotypes for centuries. In part of that, they some times re-enforce those stereotypes by being the personification of those stereotypes. Saying that women belong in the kitchen or that they are less intellectual than males creates an inappropriate expectation towards women. These stereotypes cause women to be the stepping stools for men making women seems inferior when they are compared to males. This affects women by being unable to reach the higher standards that men possess. In “Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture” written by Ariel Levy, she speaks of women who have become aware of these higher standards; thus, conform to male stereotypes. This causes them to become female chauvinist pigs. Contrasting Levy would be Jayme Poisson and her article “Parents Keep Child’s Gender Secret”. In her article she details a baby named Storm and his/hers parents push to create a genderless baby. Making Storm this way is their desire to have their child be free of social and gender stereotypes. Whether a female is conforming to stereotypes or simply disregarding them, they will
Females who are over-sexualized often seek attention and acceptance. Raunch is less about female sexual liberation but instead it is fulfilling the male fantasy of unlimited female availability contributing to the stereotypes of gender roles. Raunch Culture is often seen in movies, various forms of advertisements, and through female celebrities. For example, young girls are influenced by Disney’s hidden sexual messages. This creates a negative image by making it acceptable to objectify women. Through the media women expose their bodies, using liberation as an excuse to support raunch culture contributing to the stereotypes of gender roles.
Since the advent of the word “sexist”, the label itself has carried numerous negative connotations, regardless of whether or not it has been applied to the male or female set. This idea of the modern teenager became initiated by the proliferation of visible sex symbols in the 1950’s such as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe and has since become increasingly more prevalent in American society. While the connotations may be well deserved, we as culture rarely seem to remember that most stereotypes are originated as a result of an observed pattern in the behavior of certain groups of people. John Updike is merely trying to embody the mind of the modern American teenage male in “A&P”, and not expressing his own opinion as to whether the thoughts going through Sammy’s mind are acceptable or not.
To do so, Levy turns to the experiences of several young women whom she interviews. From her interpretations of these experiences, Levy reaches the conclusion that these women’s sexual nature revolves around their need to feel wanted and to gain attention rather than to satisfy their own sexual needs (Levy, 194). But by drawing her experiences from only a small subset of the population, her analysis is ultimately restricted to that of a simulacral woman: specifically, one constructed from the characters that actively participate in raunch culture.
[3] Since the 1950’s, a sexual revolution has spawned in America, accordingly downgrading previous anathemas in society, like pre-martial sex, masturbation, and homosexuality. For example, according to an article describing the sexual revolution, “In the 1950s, less than 25 percent of Americans thought premarital sex was acceptable; by the 1970s, more than 75 percent found it acceptable” (Stossel 74). Norman Podhoretz recounts how in the early 1950’s obtaining pornography was like trying to buy illegal drugs. But Playboy changed all of that, as it emerged as an “acceptable” form of pornography in 1953.
An analysis of the relationship between pornography and the American culture reveals that the industry is blamed for dozens of social ills for the men of our society. Those ills also work to damage the women in several irreparable ways. Some of the damages to men include: illegal sexual behavior, illegal non-sexual behavior, callousness, sexual harassment, casual sex, and multiple sexual partners. The problems for the women directly involved in the industry are long term and long lasting, creating overall issues that affect women’s economic and social status. But what are there damages caused by the type of movies most women love, the type of movies they drag their boyfriends and husbands to, the type of movies millions watch unashamedly in public-the romantic comedy?
Kristol’s article writes that pornography and the pornographic industry has always been dominated by men (491). Throughout the history of the United States, men have taken precedence over women in many aspects. Men were considered the workers of the family while women stayed home and acted as housewives or catered to the men. The idea of feminism and women’s equality, however, is growing throughout the nation. With feminism and women’s equality at large, society must progress toward eliminating male domination and allowing the extension for women's opportunities; therefore, pornography and the male-dominated industry should be limited by the government. Aside from men and the power statuses they hold in pornography, Gail Dines in her article “Facts and Figures” discloses information about the male tendencies after watching pornography. Men have been reported to support female rape, have aggressive behavior toward women, have a decreased sex drive toward wives or girlfriends, and desire forced sexual acts after viewing pornography (1). Despite America’s best effort to protect all citizens, in reality, females are typically victims of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and pornography is a cause of such violence. Although it is a key factor that plays a role in causing violence and aggressive behavior toward women, Americans are able to easily access videos or films instantly because of modern technology and the lack of pornography censoring. Because of the tendency to cause abuse in the real world, pornography must be censored in order to ensure that women are granted equal amounts of safety and
... control in the eye of male viewers . Regarding Rihanna’s “S&M” music video, radicals would argue that even though Rihanna seeks to show enjoyment through her sexual action and lyrics, she limits female empowerment and promotes sexual violence in the form of bondage against women. Furthermore she supports gender inequality by acting for men satisfaction through her sexual talk and actions . Radicals believe that the common sexual images seen in current pop culture prove that women have not yet reached liberation and are still being manipulated by men, as by acting in sexual ways, women seek to impress their male audiences . By doing so women limit and hide their real personal identity, therefore any belief that women have achieved liberation is a false one, since they are still acting for the benefit of the society in instead of their own, in order to be successful.
New Woman was written by Alexandra Kollontai in 1918. She was born in 1872 to an aristocratic family. Kollontai is sort of an unsung hero of feminism in Russia. In this time, feminism was not what it is today; especially in Russia. She begins the work by describing what the “new woman” is and what the “new woman” is not. She uses this phrasing throughout to describe Russia’s past and future. To Kollontai, the “old woman” is a woman’s role in Russian in the past and the “new woman” is the future of women. In her description of the “new woman”, Kollontai uses the women from popular Russian literary works. Kollontai lists all these women and describes how they go against the Russian patriarchy. For example, Kollontai mentions Theresa and she says,
Accordingly, “pornography can be considered mainstream” (page 460, paragraph 1, line 5), said the author. However, there were problems brought up since the pornography glorify the violence and crimes, and it had no difficulties in being shown in mass media. Jean Kilbourne, though, did not place all the blame on advertising when she pointed out: “Ads don’t directly cause violence, of course. But the violent images contribute to the state of terror” (page 466, paragraph 2, line 1). Such erroneous attitudes are known to be existed as: “women are valuable only as objects of men’s desire, that real men are always aggressive, that violence is erotic, and that women who are the victims of sexual assault “ask for it”” (page 478, paragraph 5, line 2). The impact it made on women well-being is dreadful when it comes with them along their journey through life starting from being misbelieved as young to ending up with self
The image of female sexuality in our society has been corrupted in Levy’s opinion, tainted by the countless industries profiting off of the sexualization of women, who are the main driving force behind our current day raunch culture. Take Girls Gone Wild (GGW from henceforth), GGW is a perfect example of how the younger generation of women is effected by our current day raunch culture. GGW often targets women whom they see as the average looking girl, “the girl next door” so to speak. They are often college students ...
When women’s desires are less worthy of concern or not worthy of concern at all, it becomes evident that the hookup culture promotes women being used as a tool or a means to an end for male satisfaction. According to the Kantian moral theory, the culture is immoral because the woman is no longer being respected. The ambiguity of the hookup culture couple with societal effects of inegalitarian porn, according to Eaton’s “A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminist” and power imbalances in the sexes creates a culture that fosters rape. Women are placed in predicaments where they have to give in to pushy, coercive behavior by men who want to go further than the women intends to. Even if a woman feels liberated by participating in the hookup culture, that doesn’t mean she wants to go all the way, with every partner, every time. The objectification of women and rape are two serious and harmful effects of the hookup culture.
A common trend in the entertainment industry today is the objectification of women in society. Sexualizing women are seen in media such as; movies, advertisement, television show and music video, where their main focus is providing the audience with an image of women as sexual objects rather than a human. This is detrimental to society since the media is producing social stereotypes for both genders, which can further result in corrupted social habits. Objectification in media are more focused on females than male, these false images of women leave individuals with the wrong idea of the opposite sex. As media continuously use sexual contents regarding women, the audience starts underestimating women. Specifically movies, it allows media to shape the culture’s idea of romance, sex and what seems
The combination of liberal and radical feminism is not one that often comes to the mind, but it can be useful to consult various viewpoints when tackling complex issues. Despite drastic differences between them, these two views of feminism do hold some similarities with each other by virtue of their common goal (when that goal is simplified to simply equality of the genders). In this paper I will be outlining some of the basic similarities and differences between these two ideologies of feminism and I may not cover all of the connections and gaps between the two for the sake of length. Moving forward from this explanation of liberal and radical feminism, I will use it to explain their views of pornography and how it aided my own understanding