The Unbearable Lightness of Feminists.

Mensnewsdailly.com ^ | 10/26/05 | Bernard Chapin

[gdogdaily]

Politics and creativity are not always mutually exclusive. Recently, terms such as “South Park Republicans,” and “Trustafarians” have been coined, and now, Ariel Levy has unveiled, “FCP,” which stands for, “Female Chauvinist Pig.” The peculiarities of this peculiar cultural phenomenon are explored in her new book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. What exactly is a FCP? She is a woman possessing male sexual proclivities, who has, what can be described most charitably, as alternative cultural values. Often, she is an aficionado of porn, a habitué of strip clubs, or, in the case of one young lady, someone whose goal is to eventually sleep with 100 men; a goal as likely to be fulfilled as the IRS collecting taxes every April.

There is no mistaking that this book is the work of a feminist. Ariel Levy holds the feminist vanguard of the 1960s in the highest esteem. Yet, she believes that sex obsessed, trashy skanks are not what the original feminists envisioned female authenticity to be. Of course such a view is a dubious assertion as the early feminists were a neurotic, occasionally psychotic, throng of absolutists who did not agree on much of anything except that men were to blame for everything wrong in their lives (read: everything). They also could never be accused of recognizing the Law of Unintended Consequences. Although, the surviving bluestocking old guard will not be very comfortable with this book as Levy refuses to condemn men for the predicament women have found themselves in, and, as we all know, a feminist who denies universal male guilt is like a fish without an ecosystem.

As a citizen who regards radical feminism as being the most pernicious of cultural influences, I think it wise to praise and be support those feminists who are not visibly insane. That is why I give a lukewarm semi-endorsement to Female Chauvinist Pigs. Oh, certainly, it isn’t a book I’d recommend spending money on, but there are passages worthy of quotation. One cannot help but nod approvingly in Levy’s direction after she recounts her collegiate experiences of being, “…trained to look at the supposedly all-powerful troika of race, class, and gender.” Such a troika remains intrinsic to liberal arts education today. Another wonderful shared remembrance is when Levy goes to a meeting with members of the English department faculty to lobby for the inclusion of a classics course in the curriculum. The head of the department responded to her wise request by replying, “I would never teach at a school that offered a course like that.”

Perhaps unwittingly, Levy’s history of radical feminism, provided in the chapter, “The Future That Never Happened,” is a source of great hilarity, and provides their eternal enemies with more weaponry with which to combat them. It confirms to the reader that feminism has always been an Ed Wood production. They truly were as clueless as they were destructive. Our HerStory begins with Congress passing the Equal Pay Act in 1963 which was followed up with The Civil Rights Act of 1964. That such laws were passed negated the need to even consider The Equal Rights Amendment, which, luckily for the nation, was never ratified.

The laughs intensify when the reader is made aware that an early feminist engaged in sexist and illegal sales practices because she sold her Notes from the First Year to women for fifty cents while selling it to men for a dollar. Such discrimination and sexism foreshadowed much of the hypocrisy that would emit from the vile feminists of the seventies and eighties. Here we have Levy’s heroine, Susan Brownmiller, quoted in a remarkable passage:

Sometimes [there] were emotional defenses of free speech, but to our

bewilderment, we also saw that some women identified their sexuality

with the S/M pictures we found degrading,” Brownmiller wrote. ‘They

claimed we were condemning their minds and behavior, and I guess we

were.’”

Her recollection is reflective of how little feminists actually know about women, and how little they care for the needs of their supposed constituency. Their plans are usually confined to a desire to control and dominate others. Another uproarious moment is when Levy reveals that Betty Friedan, after she described lesbian feministas as being, a “lavender menace,” was humiliated by the New York NOW, those great lovers of equality, into becoming their delivery girl and having to fetch the boi’s their coffee. My favorite of these unintentional jokes is when we are treated to the fact that womyn’s consciousness-raising sessions were modeled on Mao’s Zedong’s “speak bitterness” groups. Who would have ever suspected such a thing?

In actuality, the biggest complaint I have about this book is that after setting out on a bipartisan road, Levy decides, about half-way in, to attack the political right. By doing so she turns a journalistic work into propaganda, and also illuminates just how little she knows about human nature. The reader may be shocked to discover that the solution for today’s Female Chauvinist Pig is to stop teaching abstinence based sexual education in our schools. I’m not kidding, that’s what Levy really thinks. And guess whom she casts as the heinous puppetmaster of abstinence? None other than George W. Bush …yawn. It seems that Bush, and his three federal abstinence education programs, are the phantom menace behind all the nipple rings and ubiquitous lower back tattoos that many of us are sometimes lucky enough to see. Well, now that we know, I just hope it’s not too late to get out the anti-war papier-mâché dolls and march on Federal Plaza.

Levy actually cites notorious clown and District of Columbia performance artist, Henry Waxman, as her source concerning abstinence education not working. You see, if we taught kids how to have more sex, then they wouldn’t have as much sex or be as raunchy. For the Female Chauvinist Pig to disappear, we can’t rely on parents or a village—what we really need are the unfettered efforts of government educators.

Allow me to disabuse our author of her mistaken femo-socialist belief that teachers can alter human nature. It would be practically impossible to prove that anything a teacher said in the classroom regarding peer issues would ever be internalized by students. As a matter of fact, if a teacher recommended a practice, in all likelihood, the students would do the exact opposite. Only on television do adolescents view educational staff as being cool or interesting.

Indeed, Ms. Levy appears to know absolutely nothing about our schools or the 2.7 million teachers who staff them. One of her goofiest observations is that schools teach children that “sex is wrong until you have a wedding.” I have never, in my entire life, met a teacher who would ever say something like that to anyone; let alone to a student. In fact, neither Levy nor her editors noticed that she refuted her own claim later in her book when she makes mention of a teacher in Palo Alto who brought in a stripper for career day as a means to advocate for the glories of that spandexed profession.

I believe that Levy’s exchange with an abstinence advocate will delegitimize her standing among many a reader. The advocate shares with the author the not so surprising news that she, “…heard of one woman teacher who tells kids how to masturbate. Explaining it! About fantasizing when you shower!”

Levy’s responds, “I asked Cowan [the advocate] if she was against teenagers masturbating.”

Um, gee, Ms. Levy, that really isn’t the issue. The issue is whether government employees should be instructing children about sex at all. We don’t pay taxes so teachers can provide our offspring with tours of human sexuality. Levy is every parent’s Madonna (nightmare) as she states, “Rather than only telling teens why they shouldn’t have sex, perhaps we also ought to be teaching them why they should.” No, maybe we should just teach them geometry instead. Anyway, only a feminist would regard sex as being devoid of innate appeal. Besides, the last thing anybody needs is for our government to get involved in anything, especially sexuality.

What this author does not appear to understand is that the early feminists are the ones who mothered today’s raunchy chick. What stems from the message, “Everything I do is great,” are tattoos, piercings, drunken orgies, and a future too far off to consider.

Why wouldn’t these girls go wild? If they were serious and sensible then they would be just like their grandmothers, and no one would ever approve of pro-social behavior like that. Feminism, as opposed to abstinence education, is to blame for the over-sexualization of western women. When girls are taught that genitalia is the basis for superiority, there is no reason why they should have to restrain themselves at all. In our society, women are affirmed for simply being alive. We have feminism to thank for these irrational days.

Radical feminists have always been confused by what they see moving around them. They look upon a chaotic world and try to tame it with theory. If feminists want to be taken seriously then they should stop soothing their inner and outer child, and, instead, examine reality. They should “speak bitterness” less, and see what is more often.

Bernard Chapin