You Pig

There was such confusion yesterday between the fashion show coordination, students and busses, and administration (plus I had a sore throat from talking all day--which is the case everyday--my vocal cords are not cut out to be a talker) that the tryouts AND my post-ob were cancelled. That means that I got to go home at a decent hour on Friday! However, Monday is going to be another story because I have my rescheduled post-ob and it's back to school night. GOOD.

About those books I mentioned in my other post...

Last weekend I went to Washington D.C. For breakfast we ate at Afterwords Cafe. It's this trendy little place (which usually means unique yet expensive food--where your mimosa or bloody mary is on the house) in the back of a locally owned bookstore. My neck of the woods, for sure. It was excellent. I almost felt like I was in NYC. (Oh, I miss NY--even the orchards and farm land). Anyhow, I spent a lot of time checking out the feminist books. Why? I have no clue. Maybe to see what some of the new books were all about. Most of them I rolled my eyes at or chuckled aloud. But one of them I picked up and found interesting. I bought the book after reading the first chapter. I know, some of you reading this may be shocked that I bought a book marketed to feminist, but I have an explanation. The book is titled Female Chauvinist Pigs Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (by Ariel Levy). The author explores the rise of women exploiting (for lack of a better word) their sexuality, joining men at strip clubs, feeling empowered by appearing on a Girls Gone Wild video, olympic athletes posing for FHM, Playboy, etc. That's just the first 100 pages. Her arguement being that women think they're being feminist by doing the previous mentioned acts because it's their choices. However, she thinks this raunch culture is commercial, not progressive. She coins the term female chauvinist pig. Let me share a quotation with you.

"If I told you that I'd met someone who executive produces a reality show about strippers, who becomes irritable and dismissive when faced with feminst debate, and who is a ferocious supporter of lap dances, you might reasonable assume I was talkling about a man--the kind of man we used to call a Male Chauvinish Pig. But no. I'm talking about the Jewish Woman of Inspiration. I'm talking about an urbane, articulate, extremely successful woman who sits on a high perch in the middle of mainstream, and I could be talking about any number of women, because the ideas and emotions Nevins gave voice to are by no means uniquely her own: They are the status quo.

We decided long ago that the Male Chauvinist Pig was an unenlighteded rube, but the Female Chauvinist Pig (FCP) has risen to a kind of exalted status. She is post-feminist. She if funny. She gets it. She doesn't mind cartoonish sterotypes of female sexuality, and she doesn't mind a cartoonishly macho response to them, The FCP askes: Why throw your boyfriend's Playboy in a freedom trash can when you could be partying at the Mansion? Why worry about disgusting or degrading when you could be giving--or getting--a lap dance yourself? Why try to beat them when you can join them?" (93).

This, ladies and gentlemen, is funny to me. Not LOL funny, but more of a looking-in-the-mirror-chuckle funny. I'm the girl that buys the Playboys, goes to the strip clubs (falls in lust with a stripper named Gia, with big tits), and would be the first to tell a antifeminist joke. (How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb? None, let the bitch cook in the dark! That joke happens to be my fav. I laugh everytime).

Does this mean I am a "sort of feminist?" a post-feminist? an anti-feminist? I don't have a clue. I'm def. a FCP though. I, often times, stray away from the feminist debate. I don't consider myself a fem. Of course I don't think women should be beat up, and I've never experienced a difference of pay from a male cooworker doing the same job, but I don't believe in abortion, nor do I believe a woman can do the same things a man can (and vice versa). I'm def. not ready for a female president. Not because I don't think one would do a good job, but because I don't want the backlash of "what does this mean for women?" (As I mentioned in a previous blog). Sure, I wasn't around when women were considered less than human and didn't have the right to vote, and maybe that has something to do with my lack of understanding, but to go around and try to convince men that they shouldn't be telling sexual jokes, laughing at dumb blondes, or going to strip clubs because it's degrading to women, is beyond me.

I'm sure I've pissed a lot of people off, or have changed opinions of what some think about me, but I want to mention that I don't find feminists wrong. Fight for what you believe in; I admire that (like I admire Muslims for sticking to their ideals--sort through that comparison). This is why I stray from the feminism debate. I'm not ready, let me rephrase that, people I know are not ready for me to share these ideas. At least not the women. I find it easy to have this discussion with men. Am I some sort of feminist? I don't know. Is raunch culture progressive? commercial? I don't know. If I can't beat them, will I join them? Yes.

Maybe I'm just taking the easy way out. Maybe. But I' feel as though I'm having fun doing so. As for feeling empowered... I do so in other ways, not in fighting for somthing I don't understand.

The other book I wanted to mention is called The Average American Male: A Novel (by Chris Kultgen, I think). Haha, I leave you with that. I'll post about it later.