Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture

by Ariel Levy

  17 “it was sexy stuff”: Seymour M. Hersh, “Escape and Evasion,” The New Yorker, November 12, 2001.

  18 “After Enron, Deregulation Is Looking Less Sexy”: Kirk Johnson, New York Times, February 10, 2002.

  19 “She’s a wonderful role model”: “Driven: Christina Aguilera,” VH1, August 6, 2002.

  20 Jay Leno sits floppy faced: Though Leno has maintained a long lead in the late night ratings, he has also announced that he will turn over The Tonight Show to Conan O’Brien in 2009.

  21 her $65 million contract: Michael Starr, “Matt Gets $5M Less Than Katie,” New York Post, May 2, 2002.

  22 I went to visit her in Chicago: I interviewed Christie Hefner, Linda Havard, and Cleo Wilson for about one hour each at the Playboy offices in Chicago on May 8 and 9, 2003.

  23 “Beginning with nude modeling”: Jenna Jameson, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale (Regan Books, 2004).

  24 recruited to be live-in hookers: Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh, “Poor Little Rich Kid,” Newsweek, August 17, 1998.

  25 “When you get yourself into the really contortionist”: “Centerfold Babylon,” VH1, October 12, 2003.

  26 “Our job is to go out and bring ’em back”: Ibid.

  Two. The Future That Never Happened

  27 “I would like to be in close association”: Mary Cantwell, “The American Woman,” Mademoiselle, June 1976.

  28 “theatrical bravura”: Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (Simon & Schuster, 1975).

  29 “Being good at what was expected of me”: Susan Brownmiller, Femininity (Fawcett Columbine, 1984).

  30 “Women as a class”: Susan Brownmiller, “Sisterhood Is Powerful: A Member of the Women’s Liberation Movement Explains What It’s All About,” New York Times Magazine, March 15, 1970.

  31 “Background, education, ideology”: Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (Bantam, 1987).

  32 “The position of women in SNCC”: I’ve heard Stokely Carmichael’s infamous quote reiterated in various, slightly different formulations (which always include the words “position,” “women,” and “prone”). The phrasing I quote here is the most common, cited by both Gitlin in The Sixties and Brownmiller in In Our Time.

  33 “Friedan, the mother of the movement”: Brownmiller, “Sisterhood Is Powerful.”

  34 “The momentum was extraordinary”: Telephone interviews with Susan Brownmiller, January 2001 and January 2004 and several subsequent e-mails.

  35 “I was committed to being a part”: Ayers was quoted in Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s remarkable film The Weather Underground (Docurama, 2003), for which the documentarians interviewed everyone from Don Strickland, the FBI agent assigned to stalk the Weathermen, to Kathleen Cleaver, a former member of the Black Panther party and the wife of Panther Eldridge Cleaver.

  36 “We served a mix of Italian”: Telephone interview with Dolores Alexander, December 1, 2003.

  37 “It was more than jubilant”: Telephone interview with Jill Ward, December 13, 2003.

  38 Hite distributed 100,000 questionnaires: Shere Hite, The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality (Dell, 1976).

  39 “our ferocious antisexuality”: Oriana Fallaci, “I Am in the Center of the World,” Look, January 10, 1967.

  40 “I was a feminist before”: Wil S. Hylton, “What I’ve Learned,” Esquire, June 2002.

  41 “rather alienating and dull”: Lisa Eisner and Roman Alonso, “An Eye for the Ladies,” New York Times Magazine, March 30, 2003.57

  42 “The rabbit, the bunny, in America”: Fallaci, “I Am in the Center of the World.”

  43 “If you’re somebody’s sister”: Hugh M. Hefner, “Introduction,” Playboy, December 1953.

  44 “Women were the major beneficiary”: Hylton, “What I’ve Learned.”

  45 “at a loss for words”: Inside Deep Throat (film), Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (Universal, 2005).

  46 “I looked at pornography”: Michael Moorcock, “Fighting Talk,” New Statesman & Society, April 21, 1995.

  47 “Suddenly, pornography became the enemy”: Interview with Candida Royalle, New York City, December 1, 2003.

  48 “[I]f one’s sexual experience has always”: Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse (Free Press, 1997).

  49 “Bill Clinton’s fixation on oral sex”: Andrea Dworkin, “Dear Bill and Hillary,” The Guardian (London), January 29, 1998.

  50 “The new sexual revolution is”: www.cakenyc.com/index nav.html as of March 23, 2005.

  51 “gooey, sweet, yummy”: 20/20, ABC, February 20, 2004.

  52 perceived weaknesses of Sex and the City: They write, for instance, “moving on to a [2004] episode of Sex and the City, women were treated to a rather unhealthy dose of what we like to call ‘Have your CAKE, but don’t eat it too.’ Samantha is told (by a male physician) that her breast cancer could be caused by the fact that she has not had any children—swiftly invoking the age-old idea that being sexually active without reproductive intentions may be threatening to your health. Unfortunately, the message ended there and did not in any way explain why, how, or if there is an increased chance of having breast cancer if a woman does not bear children. Moreover, what could have been a great opportunity to make a positive statement about women and their sexual choices quickly dissolved into a reactionary response.” I think they’re being weirdly literal here. The whole point of the episode was that being diagnosed with cancer is a shocking, destabilizing experience, so the character Samantha bolted from her male physician’s office before he could explain anything or offer any positive statements about women and their sexual choices, telling him, “You’re lucky to have touched my breasts!”

  53 the front page of the New York Post: John Lehmann, “Inside the Freak Box,” New York Post, June 12, 2001.

  54 “CAKE Underground”: October 3, 2003

  55 “serious sisters of the sixties”: Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000).

  56 “I was standing in the shower”: I interviewed Erica Jong on the telephone on February 15, 2002, and we spoke again in person after an event at the 92nd Street YMHA on November 4, 2003, in celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Fear of Flying.

  57 Maxim magazine’s “Hot 100”: June 11, 2003.

  58 “you try getting 800 people”: Virginia Vitzthum, “Stripped of Our Senses,” Elle, December 2003.

  59 “They kicked Betty upstairs”: Telephone interview with Jacqui Ceballos, January 2004.

  Three. Female Chauvinist Pigs

  Selections from this chapter originally appeared in the article “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” New York magazine, January 22, 2001, including my interviews with Sherry, Anyssa, and Rachel and my visit to the set of The Man Show.

  60 On the first warm day: The New York Women in Film & Television brunch for Sheila Nevins was held at The Society of Illustrators in New York on May 31, 2000.

  61 She was once profiled: Nell Casey, “The 25 Smartest Women in America,” Mirabella, September 1999.

  62 “a revered player”: “New York’s 100 Most Influential Women in Business,” Crain’s New York Business, September 27–October 3, 1999.

  63 In 2003, women held: This information comes from Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, a professor at San Diego State University’s School of Communications, who has conducted studies of both the film and television industries annually for the past decade.

  64 “I think really that your desire”: Nancy Milford, Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Random House, 2001).

  65 “from behind”: Gail Sheehy, “Flying Solo,” Vanity Fair, August 2001.

  66 “masculine kind of independence”: Carl Rollyson and Lisa Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon (Norton, 2000).

  67 “I have the biggest cock in the building!”: Judith Newman, “The Devil and Miss Regan,” Vanity Fair, January 2005.

  68 Erin Eisenberg, a city arts administ
rator, and her little sister Shaina: I met with the Eisenbergs at their parents’ apartment in New York City on October 8, 2001.

  69 “My best mentors and teachers”: Carrie Gerlach e-mailed a letter to the editor on January 30, 2001 in response to my New York magazine article “Female Chauvinist Pigs.”

  70 “the wrongheadedness, distortions and wishful thinkings”: J. C. Furnas, Goodbye to Uncle Tom (William Sloane Associates, 1956).

  71 “a Spanish gentleman”: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Norton Critical Editions, 1994).

  72 “in all other respects as white”: James Baldwin, “Everybody’s Protest Novel,” Partisan Review 16, June 1949.

  73 “theatrical industry called ‘Tomming’ ”: Mary C. Henderson and Joseph Papp, Theater in America (Abrams, 1986).

  74 “if civilization had been left in female hands”: Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (Yale University Press, 1990).

  75 “They have this stupid, pathetic”: Camille Paglia, Sex, Art, and American Culture (Vintage, 1992).

  76 “even made teeny-weeny bikinis”: Mary Wells Lawrence, A Big Life (in Advertising) (Knopf, 2002).

  77 “Mary Wells Uncle Tommed it”: Steinem made the comment on the local television news in Dallas, Texas. Wells Lawrence printed an account of her reaction in her memoir (ibid).

  Four. From Womyn to Bois

  Selections from this chapter previously appeared in the article “Where the Bois Are,” New York magazine, January 12, 2004.

  78 “a woman without a man”: this sardonicism—which was put on bumper stickers, T-shirts, and buttons in the seventies—is usually attributed to Gloria Steinem. It was actually coined in 1970 by Irina Dunn, an Australian politician and journalist whose phrasing was “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” a play on “Man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle.”

  79 “Lesbianism is a women’s liberation plot”: According to Susan Brownmiller’s account in In Our Time, the Radicalesbians shut off the lights at the Second Congress to Unite Women in May 1970, which was held at a school in Manhattan. When they turned the lights back on, members of their group wearing LAVENDER MENACE T-shirts were onstage and posters that proclaimed “TAKE A LESBIAN TO LUNCH” and “WE ARE ALL LESBIANS” lined the room.

  80 The first installment of The Furies: Ginny Berson and Charlotte Bunch, The Furies, January 1972.

  81 “I never really wanted to grow up”: Interview with Lissa Doty at the Lexington Club, San Francisco, September 19, 2003.

  82 “I think non-monogamy is a part”: Interview with Sienna, Brooklyn, New York, September 8, 2003.

  83 “It’s just wild to me”: Telephone interview with Deb Schwartz, October 10, 2003.

  84 “I’m so against the whole butch-femme”: Interview with Julien Rosskam, Brooklyn, New York, September 10, 2003.

  85 “I’ve noticed a lot of different levels”: e-mail from Ian sent on August 4, 2003. Our conversation in Brooklyn, New York, took place on August 23, 2003.

  86 she had met “maybe thirty”: I interviewed Sarah at my apartment in New York City on August 24, 2003.

  87 On a warm fall night, Diana Cage: I interviewed Diana Cage and her friends at the Lexington Club in San Francisco on September 18, 2003. I accompanied Gibson to Club Galia in San Francisco on September 19, 2003.

  Five. Pigs in Training

  88 In December 2002: Emma Stickgold, “Sexual Incident Reported on Silver Lake School Bus,” Boston Globe, March 26, 2004.

  89 1999 in Talbot County: Laura Sessions Stepp, “Parents Are Alarmed by an Unsettling New Fad in Middle Schools: Oral Sex,” Washington Post, July 8, 1999.

  90 two thirteen-year-olds in Beaver County: The Oprah Winfrey Show, Harpo Productions, Inc., March 25, 2004.

  91 an eighth-grade girl at Horace Mann: Daphne Merkin, “The Paris Hilton Effect,” New York magazine, May 10, 2004.

  92 senior at Manhattan’s Trinity School: I spoke with students from the New York City schools Trinity, Fieldston, Horace Mann, and Saint Ann’s in June 2004.

  93 “I don’t care if a baby”: Laura Sessions Stepp, “Playboy’s Bunny Hops Into Teens’ Closets: Sexist Symbol of ’60s Now a Hot Seller,” Washington Post, June 17, 2003.

  94 “i love their style”: e-mails from Jessica received August 6, 2004.

  95 “Plus I have a really great schedule”: Interview with David at the Royal Ground Coffee House & Art Gallery, Oakland, California, September 1, 2004.

  96 “Definitely girls hook up”: Interview with Anne at Jamba Juice, Oakland, California, September 6, 2004.

  97 “always the biggest dork”: Interview with Robin, Berkeley, California, September 7, 2004.

  98 “in the many hundreds of studies”: Deborah L. Tolman, Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk About Sexuality (Harvard University Press, 2002).

  99 “The majority of high school students”: According to the CDC’s 2001 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 60.5 percent of twelfth graders have had sexual intercourse.

  100 Eighty percent of Americans: Sexual Information and Education Clearinghouse of the United States.

  101 According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute: Teenagers’ Sexual and Reproductive Health: Developed Countries, www.agi-usa.org/pubs/fb_teens.html.

  102 “voluntary but unwanted”: 2003 National Survey of Adolescents and Young Adults: Sexual Health Knowledge, Attitudes and Experiences, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, www.kff.org/youthhivstds/3218-index.cfm.

  103 The April 2005 issue: “Harper’s Index,” Harper’s magazine, April 2005.

  Six. Shopping for Sex

  104 “This is not how women talk”: Ann Coulter, reprinted in How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) (Crown Forum, 2004).

  105 a feathery pair of mules: “I Heart NY,” Sexand the City, Season 4, Episode 66.

  106 Another episode was devoted: “A Woman’s Right to Shoes,” Season 6, Episode 83.

  107 “I don’t believe in the Republican party”: “Politically Erect,” Season 3, Episode 32.

  108 A do-gooder asked if Carrie: “Attack of the Five Foot Ten Woman,” Season 3, Episode 33.

  109 “should be on every woman’s night table”: The Oprah Winfrey Show, Harpo Productions, Inc., September 22, 2004.

  110 On the occasion of the thirtieth: “Sex and What Women Want Now,” 92nd Street YMHA, New York, June 17, 2003.

  111 “interviewed over three thousand women”: Pearlstein was rounding up. The Center for the Advancement of Women commissioned the Princeton Survey Research Associates, Inc., who interviewed 2,329 women for their 2001 report “Progress and Perils: How Gender Issues Unite and Divide Women.”

  112 “The fantasy of the porn star”: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Thinking XXX (HBO Films, 2004).

  113 between $8 billion and $15 billion: Joshua Kurlantzick, “Strip Club’s Cover Charge Is Voter Registration Card,” New York Times, October 5, 2004.

  114 presented to the American Psychological Association: Abigail Zuger, “Many Prostitutes Suffer Combat Disorder, Study Finds,” New York Times, August 18, 1998.

  115 “Pornography is a specific form”: Melissa Farley, Preface, Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress (Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press, 2003).

  116 “I literally have thoughts like”: Interview with Annie at her home in Massachusetts, August 4, 2004.

  117 “I hooked up with this guy in Vegas”: Interview with Meg at the Standard Hotel, Los Angeles, February 16, 2002.

  118 “The great thing about Miami”: Interview with Lynn Frailey, Miami, April 11, 2003.

  Conclusion

  119 which was already illegal: The gay marriage certificates issued in Massachusetts are not actually substantive, because they can’t offer crucial federal benefits like Social Security, parental rights, or inheritance protection, which we consider central to the institution of marriage.

  120 In opinion polls: According to Gallup polls in which people were asked “Would you favor or oppo
se a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman, thus barring marriages between gay or lesbian couples?” the percentage of respondents who answered in favor was 50 percent in July 2003, 53 percent in February 2004, and 50 percent in March 2004. In the November 2004 election, ballot measures banning same-sex marriage and/or civil unions passed overwhelmingly in eleven states.

  Acknowledgments

  First, thanks to Dan Conaway for making this book happen.

  I would also like to thank my talented editor Liz Stein for believing in this book, my agent Lane Zachary for believing in me, and my fact checker Yael Kohen for believing in due diligence. Thanks to Nicole Kalian and Dominick Anfuso at Free Press for the great gift of their enthusiasm.

  John Homans has been my friend and editor at New York magazine for eight years. We worked together on the article “Female Chauvinist Pigs” on which this book is based. He and Adam Moss, our editor-in-chief, were both gracious and supportive while I periodically disappeared to write this book. Working with them is deeply rewarding and, more often than not, a lot of fun.

  Amanda Fortini and Susan Dominus shared their insights with me and helped me to think about things in new ways. My former professors Joel Pfister, Richard Slotkin, and Khachig Tololyan generously held my hand through the research and writing of the Uncle Tom section. I am also extremely grateful to the following people for their favors, ideas, and encouragement throughout this process: Jesse Blockton, Kristina Dechter, Michael Goff, Isabel Gonzalez, Dee Dee Gordon, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Matt Hyams, Meredith Kahn, David Klagsbrun, Erika Malm, Craig Marks, Caroline Miller, Emily Nussbaum, Maer Roshan, René Steinke, Ahna Tessler, Jennie Thompson, Jennifer Wachtell, and Elisa Zonana. Special thanks to Emma Jemima Jacobson-Sive for a decade and counting of friendship and inspiration, and to M, whose talents as a writer and editor are exceeded only by his talents as a matchmaker.