[lbo-talk] The "Raunch Feminism" floating debate party

[Dwayne Monroe]

A little while ago, some of us discussed a review of Ariel Levy's new 
book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs".

The thread began here:

<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050912/020264.html>

If you're interested, you can follow all 50 thread entries by clicking:

http://tinyurl.com/9ml6n

..

Unsurprisingly, things quickly became contentious.  Catherine Driscoll 
expressed dismay that the men discussing Levy's book (or at least, the 
book review) seemed eager, from her point of view, to impose a new set 
of strictures on women's behavior.

 
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20050912/020389.html>

.

With that background in mind, I was fascinated to follow the discussion 
of "Female Chauvinist Pigs" that unfolded yesterday on Click Opera, the 
Live Journal blog of an artist who calls himself Momus --

<http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/148296.html>

The debate flowed, more or less, down the same stream seen here at LBO: 
between those who think Levy is onto something and those who believe 
this is, at best, needless kvetching and at worst, yet another attempt 
to restrict women's freedom of action via supposed concern over 
'pornification'.

I now imagine similar discussions, splitting along similar lines, 
occurring wherever Levy's work is on the table even when all the 
participants are women as happened here --

<http://slate.msn.com/id/2126570/entry/2126575/?nav=ais>

I suppose it remains to be seen whether this is a useful development or not.

.d.