You’ll recognize the female silhouette that leans against the title on the cover of Ariel Levy’s new book, Female Chauvinist Pigs. She’s the girl who in recent years has made the move from the mud flaps of big rigs right into pop culture, gracing trucker caps, baby tees, and gold necklaces as an emblem of sexy, empowered womanhood. Or at least that’s what she’d like you to believe. But Levy doesn’t buy it, and Female Chauvinist Pigs offers her opinions on why this new symbol of postfeminism—the girl gone wild, the party-like-a-porn-star striver, the woman who populates HBO’s “educational” reality shows like Cathouse and Pornucopia—isn’t nearly as groundbreaking as she thinks she is.
A film studies professor once told me that everything you need to know about a movie is revealed in the first five minutes. This is particularly true of The Stepford Wives.
In the opening scene of Bryan Forbes’s 1975 original, Joanna Eberhart (Katharine Ross) takes a long, scrutinizing look at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her reaction is one of mild surprise, then subtle resignation, as if she’s thinking, That’s me?…Oh, well. She appears wistful and introspective as she walks around the silent Manhattan apartment that has been emptied for her family’s move to the suburbs. Compare this to the start of Frank Oz’s 2004 version: Joanna (Nicole Kidman), a powerhouse network executive, struts like a supermodel up to a podium, delivers a self-congratulatory speech, and previews the coming season’s reality shows to a huge industry crowd. The mood is loud, flashy, and in-your-face. The difference between the two scenes is night and day, and therein, as my professor foretold, is everything we need to know.
When i was 8, my father organized a present for my sisters and me to give my mom for Mother’s Day: a pressure cooker, wrapped up with other fun kitchen items like tea towels, pop-up sponges, spatulas, and an apron. It seemed like a good idea—Mom was the one who was always in the kitchen, and this was the day to celebrate her. But the minute she opened her present, even I knew we had the wrong idea.
Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation
This book will remind you that when the mainstream media talks about post-feminism and the apathy of twentysomethings, you’re not the only one who responds by shouting, “What the fuck are you talking about?” Ok, some of the writing is disappointing—but some of it’s fabulous, and all of it’s thought-provoking. The ethnicities and sexualities of the contributors are more widely varied than in any anthology I’ve seen, and racism in the feminist movement is confronted with a directness and fierceness rarely seen in an integrated setting.
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