Ariel Levy's Femail Chauvanist Pigs

Teusday's talk given by Ariel Levy about her book Female Chauvanist Pigs and modern feminism tied together several themes from our class.

In her discussion, she explained the images of "sexuality" and "hot women" as portrayed by the media and the way its immitated by women in society. It reminded me of the video Merchants of Cool in that they capture some image of sexuality, re-package it, and sell it back to the public. That "image of an image," as Levy explained it, of sexuality and feminine power further distances women from the true confidence and skills that will make them equivalently powerful as their male counterparts. This point also coincided with the article about brand association and culture relations. The way sexuality is packaged and regurgitated back to society is similar to brand management in that it requires the people to relate to it culturally in some way. Coke related to the public for "always being there for America." Sex relates by showing people that it is always around and should be a huge part of peoples lives.

She also talked about reality TV shows like "Rock of Love" from VH1, where women "competed" for the "love" of Brett Micheals, former lead singer for Poison. She described the growing trend of unexplained and out-of context sex of "raunch culture" as it confuses younger generations into thinking of sex and attention as power. In reality, Levy states that these temporary fixtures are not anything close to real respect and only make for good, trashy TV drama.

Here is a clip from "Rock of Love" exemplifying her stance... These are not people to emulate. Levy argues that they really serve as examples of what TV and media can teach people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRPyqXet1BI&feature=related