'Female Chauvinist Pigs': Girls Gone Wild Reviewed by JENNIFER EGAN New York Times September 18, 2005 By
Reading "Female Chauvinist Pigs," Ariel Levy's lively polemic, gave me an epiphany of sorts. Finally, a coherent interpretation of an array of phenomena I'd puzzled over in recent years: the way Paris Hilton's leaked sex tapes seemed only to enhance her career; the horrifying popularity of vaginoplasty...
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full at --
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I'm really looking forward to reading Levy's book; it may provide insight into something my friends and I have been talking and theorizing about for several years: namely, what one of my friends calls the "woo girl phenomena" and the "pornification of everyday styles."
"Woo", taken from the party time battle cry of a woman who might, let's say, pull off her top at an intersection, lean out of a car window and yell "wooo!" at people standing on a corner as she shows her chest. Her date, in the driver's seat, is deeply puzzled (a story 'ripped from today's headlines'...or, more to the point, a friend's life).
It's possible to get side tracked by that little anecdote into discussions of womens' right to go topless (as of course, men can do without comment) or misinterpret the act as an explosion of youthful rebellion -- of some sort -- against patriarchal constraints.
Nope. It was part of a new behavioral continuum found in the conflicted, confused US: the "girls gone wild" approach to dating life.
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A good friend of mine -- an attractive bon vivant -- dates very widely and very often. The women he spends time with range in age from early twenties to mid fifties ("they're all so beautiful" he says "I can't discriminate based on age, ethnicity or whatever.")
A few years ago he began reporting, with dismay, some of the "clumsy, frat boy-esque behavior" of a sizable minority of the younger women he spent time with. They seemed to be acting out, he said, in a way "designed to attract dumb ass boys, not grown men."
He told a story, as an example, of going to a club with one smart, funny, beautiful woman -- around 26 years old. Once they arrived and she'd downed a few drinks she proceeded to dance with another woman, suggestively caress her and finally, begin a serious make out session.
This apparent display of bisexuality wasn't the issue. What was curious, and what caught my friend's sharply observant eye was the fact that the entire time his date was doing all these textbook dull acts of provocativa (could have been a scripted scene from Joe Esterhaus' "Showgirls") she was watching him quite closely. "For my approval" he said. "It was odd. As if the whole thing was not for her pleasure at all but 100 percent mine even though I never asked to be treated like some bizzaro sultan"
Later, during the drive home, she confirmed his interpretation when, concerned by his obvious lack of enthusiasm, she asked "didn't you think that was hot?" She explained how she thought all that would "get you excited" and ready to make love.
He tried to point out how, for pretty much any het guy whose libido was in the on position and who wasn't a jackass, the simple fact she was smart, funny and beautiful would be all the inspiration required.
As we talked about this, he sighed heavily into the phone; "Dwayne, where are these women learning they have to act like pornstars to get some attention? Where the hell is that coming from?"
There are so many stories like this, just from my small circle of close friends, that I've lost count. Clearly there's a larger cultural trend afoot, some monkey wrenching has happened, knocking feminist ideas almost entirely out of our daily consciousness and replacing them with crude, pop culture caricatures of feminine and masculine.
Hopefully, Levy sheds some light on this.
.d.