Feminism, Femininity, Sexuality, “Raunch” and Empowerment

Ariel Levy wrote a book called Female Chauvinist Pigs, which received the following review from Publisher’s Weekly:

What does sexy mean today? Levy, smartly expanding on reporting for an article in New York magazine, argues that the term is defined by a pervasive raunch culture wherein women make sex objects of other women and of ourselves. The voracious search for what’s sexy, she writes, has reincarnated a day when Playboy Bunnies (and airbrushed and surgically altered nudity) epitomized female beauty. It has elevated porn above sexual pleasure. Most insidiously, it has usurped the keywords of the women’s movement (liberation, empowerment) to serve as buzzwords for a female sexuality that denies passion (in all its forms) and embraces consumerism. To understand how this happened, Levy examines the women’s movement, identifying the residue of divisive, unresolved issues about women’s relationship to men and sex. The resulting raunch feminism, she writes, is a garbled attempt at continuing the work of the women’s movement and asks, how is resurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeavored to banish good for women? Why is laboring to look like Pamela Anderson empowering? Levy’s insightful reporting and analysis chill the hype of what’s hot. It will create many aha! moments for readers who have been wondering how porn got to be pop and why feminism is such a dirty word.

Not every self-defined feminist agrees with Levy, though; not even close. The Guardian recently published an essay by Kate Taylor entitled: “Today’s Ultimate Feminists are the Chicks in Crop Tops” with the subtitle: “Raunch culture is not about liberation gone wrong; it’s about rediscovering the joy of being loved for your body.” Here is an excerpt:

… Instead of desperately longing for the right to be seen as human beings, today’s girls are playing with the old-fashioned notion of being seen as sex objects.

This is not terrible news. In fact, to me, this is the ultimate feminist ideal, which Levy would realise if she stopped shouting at MTV for a moment and thought about it. She proclaims that boob jobs and crop tops “don’t bring us any closer to the fundamental feminist project of allowing every woman to be her own, specific self”. But what if a woman’s “own, specific self” is a thong-wearing, Playboy-T-shirted specific self who thinks lap-dancing is a laugh and likes getting wolf-whistled at by builders? What if a woman spends hours in the gym to create a body she is proud of? Is that a waste of time, time she should have spent in a university library? No.

Levy is not alone in raging against raunch. The f word, a British feminist website, last month launched a tirade against lads’ magazines such as Loaded, Zoo and Nuts; they “relentlessly promote the message that women exist solely for the sexual gratification of men and boys”, argued Rachel Bell. “By internalising this one-dimensional male construct of sexuality, both sexes are losing out; but it is girls and women who will pay the heavier price.”

I’ve worked for GQ and the Sun, and in neither place did I see women being exploited. Does Bell have any idea how much money women make when they take their clothes off? How much freedom and independence these girls can earn in an hour? Abi Titmuss and the new breed of totty generally own the copyright to their naughtiest photos, so with each publication they rake it in. Look at lads’ mags from a different perspective and you see that what’s being exploited are men’s sexual responses, to give money to women.

It has always been like this, and it always will be, because men’s achilles heel is that they go to pieces when a woman drops her top. Old-style feminists never understood this, but their way is not the only way to achieve equality with men. The world is different now, and we should follow the trends instead of waving the banners of 20 years ago. …

In turn, blogger Laurelin in the Rain had strong reactions to Taylor’s essay, retorting in pertinent part:

…Feminism seeks to tell the truth about femininity, and Ms Taylor has missed Feminist Lesson No.1- female and feminine are not the damn same. One is biological, one is cultural. It’s not rocket science.

This ridiculous article completely ignores the very exploitative, violent and callous base upon which FHM and its ilk are built. Taylor is blind to the women suffering from the denigration of the female to a despised sex object and the behaviour of men who enjoy degrading them. Abi Titmuss registers with her; the rape survivor does not. She clearly either knows nothing about the treatment of women as a result of this patriarchal ethic, or she does not care. But then again, she’s not likely to want to piss off the pornographers who pay her salary.

Obviously these issues are emotional laden and difficult for the feminist community. I can’t offer any useful suggestions for bridging this divide here, but it seems better to acknowledge the conflict, rather than ignore it, and it is in that spirit that I offer this post. Update: below is a apropos quote I found at “Fetch Me My Axe“:

“I find myself continuing to wonder how our lives might be different if we were not constantly subjected to the fear and contempt of being sexually different, sexually dangerous, sexually endangered. What kind of women might we be if we did not have to worry about being too sexual, or not sexual enough, or the wrong kind of sexual for the company we keep, the convictions we hold?”

–Dorothy Allison, “Public Silence, Private Terror,” from Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature, 1993.
–Ann Bartow