Ariel Levy is a contributing editor at New York magazine and author of the book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Vogue, Slate, Men's Journal and Blender. A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. ... This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... The Washington Post is the largest newspaper in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. ... Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine published in several countries around the world. ... Slate Slate is a fine-grained, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low grade regional metamorphism. ... Mens Journal Mens Journal is an American magazine founded in 1992 that caters to 25 to 49 year-old men. ... Blender is an American magazine that bills itself as the ultimate guide to music and more. ...

Levy was raised in Larchmont, New York, and attended Wesleyan University in the 1990s. Her experiences at Wesleyan, which she says had "co-ed showers, on principle," strongly influenced her views regarding modern sexuality. After leaving Wesleyan she was employed by Planned Parenthood for about a week but was fired because she is "an extremely poor typist." [1] She was hired by New York magazine shortly thereafter. Levy has explored issues regarding American drug use, gender roles, lesbian culture, and the pop culture popularity of U.S. staples like Sex and the City and Gwen Stefani. Some of these articles allude to Levy's personal thoughts concerning the status of modern feminism. emblem, Village of Larchmont Larchmont is a village located in Westchester County, New York. ... Wesleyan University founded in 1831, is a private, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. ... See also 1990s, the band The 1990s decade refers to the years from 1990 to 1999, inclusive, sometimes informally including popular culture from the very late 1980s and from 2000 and beyond. ... Look up Sex on Wiktionary, the free dictionary A sex is one of two specimen categories of species that recombine their genetic material in order to reproduce, a process called genetic recombination. ... Planned Parenthood is the collective name of organisations worldwide who are members of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). ... This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... Recreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational rather than medical or spiritual purposes, although the distinction is not always clear. ... A bagpiper in Scottish military clan-uniform. ... A lesbian is a female who is exclusively emotionally, sexually, romantically and/or aesthetically attracted to other females. ... Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in a modern society. ... Sex and the City was a popular American cable television program based on the book of the same name by Candace Bushnell. ... Gwen Stefani[1] (born October 3, 1969) is an American singer, fashion designer, actress, and is the frontwoman of the pop/ska/rock band No Doubt. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

The video series Girls Gone Wild got some searing criticism from Levy after she followed its camera crew for three days, interviewed both the makers of the series and the young women who appeared on the videos, and commented on the series' concept and the alleged debauchery she was witnessing. For many of the girls Levy spoke with, "bawdy" and "liberated" were synonymous; for them, Girls Gone Wild was only one example of something that was happening all across popular culture. Levy herself felt that these women, and women as a whole, had forgotten that sexual power is only one variety of power, and that "this spring-break variety of thongs-and-implant exhibitionism" is only one variety of sexuality. ^{[citation needed]} Girls Gone Wild logo The Girls Gone Wild franchise, created by Joe Francis, is a series by the production company Mantra Entertainment. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion, because: it is just a definition; Wiktionary already has it If you disagree with its speedy deletion, please explain why on its talk page or at Wikipedia:Speedy deletions. ... Liberation means to be freed (or change from a state of lacking freedom to having freedom), see freedom. ... Breast implant diagram A breast implant is a prosthesis used in cosmetic surgery to enhance the size and shape of ones breasts or to reconstruct the breast (for example, after a mastectomy). ... Exhibitionism is the psychological need and pattern of behavior to exhibit naked parts of the body to other people — that is, parts of the body that would otherwise be covered by clothes according to the standards of the local cultural norms. ...

Female Chauvanist Pigs

Not surprisingly, Levy's experiences amid Girls Gone Wild appear again in Female Chauvinist Pigs, attempting to explain "why young women today are embracing raunchy aspects of our culture that would likely have caused their feminist foremothers to vomit." In today's culture, Levy writes, the idea of a woman participating in a wet T-shirt contest or being comfortable watching explicit pornography has become a symbol of feminist strength; she notes she was very surprised at how many people, both men and women, working for programs like Girls Gone Wild told her that this new "raunchy" culture marked not the downfall of feminism but its triumph, as it supposedly proves U.S. women have become strong enough to express their sexuality publicly. Pornographic movies Pornography (from Greek πόρνη (porni) prostitute and γραφή (grafi) writing), more informally referred to as porn or porno, is the representation of the human body or sexual activity with the goal of sexual arousal. ...

On the other hand, Levy does not feel it is good for women to resurrect stereotypes of women's sexuality that the original feminists fought to break free of. "It is worth asking ourselves," she writes, "if this bawdy world of boobs and gams we have resurrected reflects how far we've come, or how far we have left to go." Stereotypes are ideas held by some individuals about members of particular groups, based solely on membership in that group. ...

Her book has met with mixed reactions. It was criticized for its assertions regarding the nature of sexuality and gender: critics said that women are not playing into a male-dominated sexuality through these practices, but only expressing their own desires and personalities, and that public displays of sexual power are indeed a valid and proper expression of empowerment. Levy's work has notably drawn fire from the proponents of entertainment groups such as CAKE, which describes itself as "Committed to examining and demystifying the politics of female sexuality." ^{[citation needed]} Empowerment refers to increasing the political, social or economic strength of individuals. ...

Outside of this, however, there are many who have given Female Chauvinist Pigs excellent reviews, calling it "smart," "closely argued," and "accurate." There are also several other authors who have written similar critiques of modern feminism, such as Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty and Christina Hoff Sommers' Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women. ^{[citation needed]} Wendy Shalit (born 1975) graduated from Williams College with a BA degree in Philosophy. ... Christina Hoff Sommers is an American author who researches culture, adolescents, and morality in American society. ...

Bibliography

New York magazine: This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...

• "The Other Sexual Revolution"
• "Rise of the Soft Man"
• "Me Tarzan You Jane"
• "Makeup Breakup"
• "The Single Girl"
• "Pill Culture Pops"
• "Get Sweaty"
• "The Devil & St. Anne's"
• "The Prisoner of Sex"
• "Cameo"
• "The Pretty-boy Syndrome"
• "Where the Bois Are"
• "The Blonde Who's Had More Fun"
• "Carb Panic"
• "Sly Fox"
• "Miss Independent"
• "The Charmed Life of Nick McDonell"

Blender: Blender is an American magazine that bills itself as the ultimate guide to music and more. ...

• "Queen of the Boob Tube"
• "The Coronation of Gwen Stefani"

Slate: Slate Slate is a fine-grained, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low grade regional metamorphism. ...

• "Lipstick Lesbians"
• "Dispatches from Girls Gone Wild"

• Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

External links

• Author's website
• New York Magazine -- The Ariel Levy Archive
• Dispatches from Girls Gone Wild