Bad Bois

Behold! Gloria Steinem has had a love child- with whoever will have a love child with her. And this lovechild is named Ariel Levy.

I first heard about Levy's book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, in a review in a Bitch magazine from 2004. I remember the review being positive, so I was excited to receive a copy for this past Christmas.

And then I read it. Cue angriness.

I don't have a problem with Levy's main premise. I'm fine with that. Her idea is that women are buying into the “let's objectify women!” raunch culture so long adopted by some men. If you can't beat them, join them.

And while her studies of Girls Gone Wild positively reek of Steinem's “I Was a
Playboy Bunny” article, she makes some excellent points regarding the line between women reclaiming sexual power and women feeling like they're reclaiming sexual power, only to find that they are instead encouraging one another to be objectified. She feels like she veers into the overly conservative, easily angered side of her one sided arguments, but I can forgive her that.

It's her chapter “From Womyn to Bois” that I can't forgive. Okay, in this chapter Levy focuses on the raunch surrounding lesbians who identify as being boi. Of course, most of her examples are of rude, underachieving, immature people who treat feminine women like “hos” and act like all the worst aspects of dumbass teen boys.

I'll credit her that, even, because these folks are definitely out there. Her problem here- like her problem throughout the book- is that she never presents an alternate side, which dramatically weakens her argument.

Plus, she generally treats the concept of a “genderqueer movement” as if it is silly, trying to punch holes in the concept. She explains the genderqueer movement she sees, and then tries to back it up by describing an FTM transsexual and asking why someone would bother with surgery and testosterone if they were trying to destroy the gender binary.

I feel like Levy threw in the word “genderqueer” without any real research or consideration, and I'm pissed. Furthermore, she's taking case by case examples of people's lives and holding them up to represent an entire demographic of people. Did I mention that the transman she used as an example never once identified as genderqueer? Weak.

This chapter was enough to ruin her book for me, I'm afraid. Hell, a paragraph in this chapter was enough. Ariel Levy makes so many excellent points in her book, but completely alienates me and everyone like me, people who otherwise might have supported her.

It's 2010, Ariel. The hardcore 2nd wave feminists are thinning out, and my generation is a hell of a lot more fluid than you're expecting. I'm in line with Kate Bornstein's view on this, really. As long as there are two and only two commonly accepted genders, one will always usurp the power and oppress the other. I'm not looking for Sultana's Dream- I'm looking for a world with one last tag to be held against me.