Amazon.com
Ariel Levy's debut book is a bold, piercing examination of how twenty-first century American society perceives sex and women. Writing vividly, she brings her readers to places she visited to make her assessment; the elevator of Playboy Enterprises with women auditioning to be Playmates in the fiftieth anniversary edition, a Florida beach where sunbathers urge a woman to take off her bathing suit for the camera crew of Girls Gone Wild, a San Francisco Italian restaurant where a lesbian worries she's not dressed up enough for her date, a CAKE party in New York, with women grinding each other's pelvises in time to pulsating dance rhythms, and outside a juice bar in Oakland where a beautiful high school student shares disappointment at her experiences with sex.
Levy cleverly leads us to explore the role models women aspire to emulate. We are not pursuing the confident, self-determined, powerful, free ideal the women's liberation movement would have dreamed for its daughters. Instead, our icons are porn stars and strippers and prostitutes. Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson flaunt their successes in the pornography industry, and in doing so seem to earn our adulation.
Levy relates our embracing of this raunchy culture to unresolved tensions thirty years ago between the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement, and amongst feminists; joy at discovering the delights of our clitoris conflicting with disgust at pornography's objectification of women. She creates a convincing argument by analyzing a diverse spectrum of material; presents a fascinating palette of interviews with revolutionary women's libbers, nouvelle raunchy feminists, and everyday women and men. Detailed facts and recurring names are sometimes cumbersome, albeit worth ploughing through for the `a-ha moments'.
The reality that we model ourselves on images whose "individuality is erased" is harsh, yet Levy's work is imbued with hope - hope that women can celebrate their uniqueness instead of their `hotness', explore their sexuality as delight rather than consume sex as currency, and succeed professionally because of their brilliant minds and personalities, not because of their brilliant bodies.--Megan Jones Ady
Book Description
Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig -- the new brand of "empowered woman" who embraces "raunch culture" wherever she finds it. In her groundbreaking book, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that, if male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -- and of themselves. Irresistibly witty and wickedly intelligent, Female Chauvinist Pigs makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come; it only proves how far they have left to go.
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"Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig--the new brand of ""empowered woman"" who wears the Playboy bunny as a talisman, bares all for Girls Gone Wild, pursues casual sex as if it were a sport, and embraces ""raunch culture"" wherever she finds it. If male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women--and of themselves. They think they're being brave, they think they're being funny, but in Female Chauvinist Pigs, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy asks if the joke is on them. In her quest to uncover why this is happening, Levy interviews college women who flash for the cameras on spring break and teens raised on Paris Hilton and breast implants. She examines a culture in which every music video seems to feature a stripper on a pole, the memoirs of porn stars are climbing the best-seller lists, Olympic athletes parade their Brazilian bikini waxes in the pages of Playboy, and thongs are marketed to prepubescent girls. Levy meets the high-powered women who create raunch culture--the new oinking women warriors of the corporate and entertainment worlds who eagerly defend their efforts to be ""one of the guys."" And she traces the history of this trend back to conflicts between the women's movement and the sexual revolution long left unresolved. In the tradition of Susan Faludi's Backlash and Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, Levy pulls apart the myth of the Female Chauvinist Pig and argues that what has come to pass for liberating rebellion is actually a kind of limiting conformity. Irresistibly witty and wickedly intelligent, Female Chauvinist Pigs makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come, it only proves how far they have left to go. "
Customer Reviews:
Horror.......2007-09-18
This is one of the few books which has me claiming that I am a reader of horror... I read non-fiction.
Regarding the book itself though, the reason why I choose such a designation for it is because there were at least four times in the book at which I just stopped, with a feeling of despair, much like I would feel if I was reading a novel where the protagonist dies. The reason for this phenomena though, was because of the social insights which Ariel Levy reveals.
Not too long ago, I decided to get involved with feminism, and I found it odd that there were a lot of cases of activities within its embodiment which seem to support things which serve to objectify women, under the name of empowerment. This is one of the points Levy points out, although I think it's equally said for both society in general, modern feminism, and the gay community.
Additionally she points out in great detail how the commercialization of sexuality today is expressing itself in many women, which is unfortunate because it has less and less to do with trust and comfort (the minimum I think required for a meaningful sexual encounter) and more to do with accumulation of status and power.
Overall though, I highly recommend this book.
finally, somebody showed that sexuality isn't about being a stripper........2007-09-11
the fascinating thing about this book is the way it challenges its readers...men AND women...to broaden their sexuality. sexuality should never just be strippers, prostitutes and sex workers, or scantily clad women who don't know what they want. after reading plenty about women who are in these professions and chose to be (withOUT a history of abuse plaguing them), it was more noticeable to me that levy was making her main point that these women are doing this because we are told that this is what sexuality is...not because women WANT to do it. as a matter of fact, she touches very explicitly on the fact that most women DON'T know what they want, other than to be wanted...and that they will do anything to feel that desire from others. What happened to a woman's individual sexual desire and why must it be captured in raunch culture? With raunch culture, no one wins--men are told that they're not men if they don't love strippers and fake boobs, so this is all they've got to be turned on by. women aren't sexy then, if they're not doing these things that are supposed to be "sexual." it's a vicious cycle--women give the men what they are supposed to want, and men continued to be attracted to what they are 'supposed' to be attracted to...and no one wins. it's amazing that many men asked levy to write a book about men and raunch culture as well--the segment on 'the man show' really said it all.
not only this, but the ideas of what is 'masculine' and 'feminine' are really challenged in this book. women are either trying to desperately to be a caricature of a man or a caricature of what a woman is supposed to be sexually. you don't have to be frigid to be a feminist...you just have to know that you WANT what you're asking for...that it turns you on, arouses you...that you DESIRE it for more than just being wanted. but stop trying to be a 'man.' the pinnacle in levy's work is when she begins to quote women who don't want to be 'girly girls,' and instead are sleeping with men haphazardly and not caring--not because it arouses them, mind you...but because they don't want to be the committed girly girls--in order to be more like 'men.' but who, levy asks, is this mythological man we are all trying to be like?
women who consistently try to identify traits of theirs as more 'masculine,' will hopefully feel differently after reading this book--if you are a woman, you are feminine...no matter what...by virtue of BEING a WOMAN. and a man who likes to read and dress nicely is still masculine...by virtue of being a man.
excellent read.
Trying To Keep From Drifitng Away While Celebrating Freedom From The Anchor.......2007-07-16
Let me state that this is a combination of a book review and a commentary of Ariel Levy's book "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture."
First, this is a book that does need to be written. It does give plenty of slop and mud to wallow in like a pig (I'm trying to score some humor points here): This is not for children. It deals with sexuality not to titilate but to expose, but it still is pretty graphic.
The theme of this book is that true feminism is not expressed by sleaziness, by complete lack of physical and sexual restraint. Levy is right on the money here.
The book is well written, and keeps one's interest. It is well documented, and the documentation does not come across as manipulative. I applaud this book's purpose.
Now for my commentary, which leads to a problem. In pointing out the problem of when one drifts too far from the standard, Levy ignores that this is a natural consequence of rejecting the standard. I can tell she feels the influence of evangelical Christianity in politics is a danger, and she takes the normal stand that abstinance alone doesn't work, ignoring the obvious fact that the only time abstinance fails is when it isn't practiced.
In other words, the real solution to the raunch culture is not to try to be balanced in our rebellion from our Judeo-Christian ethic, but rather a return to it. Levy's system cannot condemn the raunch culture as wrong (at least consistently).
There is much we agree on, but I believe Levy is trying to solve the problem without applying the solution.
Great!.......2007-07-11
Not perfect, though.
Mothers who buy brazilian waxes for their daughters and let them dress like whores are trying to live through them. Too simplistic? Too obvious? The truth can be just that. Mature women are almost openly despised at this point in time, and it is a major feat for a middle aged woman in America to get through her day with all her self-esteem intact.
Historically, women were what men rebelled against; that is, women enforced social rules of decorum, manners, sexual restraint. (as men demanded!) Women also were charged with maintaining order, peace and harmony in the family. Past that, men were charged with protecting their young daughters from sexual predators.
Now, since feminism has become an insult and teenage women are valued for acting out men's pornographic fantasies for approval and money and women think that being like a man is the key to social power, the notion of protecting young girls has become a joke. Over and over the author states that the women screwing around do not do so out of pure sensuality and honest lust. Over and over she reveals that there is a disturbing attitude of misogyny permeating this FCP/"raunch culture", as in, for example, the chapter on lesbian "boyz". The message is that what MEN want and the way MEN act, is of central and overwhelming validity in this culture, and is something for all females to aspire to and imitate at whatever cost to their safety, sanity, intelligence and self respect. Just as I do not consider a male to female transsexual to be a woman, I do not buy the specious "gender" arguments that put down all differences in male and female as culturally conditioned. Specifically,women's sexuality is MORE powerful than men's, as researchers like Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey and Rebecca Chalker, among many, many others, have revealed. But as I stated before, and as the author repeatedly states, the women in their slutgear putting notches on their headboards are not driven by PLEASURE. Most of them do not have orgasms, and she even quoted a teenage girl as saying that it would be "weird" to go after sex out of a simple passionate desire for the experience in and of itself..bliss, orgasm, sensuality, delight.
The book is not perfect; the 60's "sexual revolution" cannot be entirely to blame for "raunch culture". But thank God she wrote it. I hope others, from other authors, will follow.
Great book.......2007-06-19
You don't need to be a feminist to love this book. If you watch the world around you, you will notice that something in it is not right: the way a lot of women define their sexuality. Levy's book contributes to give an explanation of why some women find attractive or think that's necessary to exploit a limited part of their sexuality in order to feel liberated and empowered ... when actually they're contributing to perpetuate those stereotypes and ideas that keep women in disadvantage in our society.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent colletction of essays
- Hooks and Hate Speech
- The Road Is Long
- Critical Analysis of Teaching to Transgress
- Essential for teaching freedom
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Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
bell hooks
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ASIN: 0415908086 |
Book Description
In this book, bell hooks, one of America's leading black intellectuals, shares her philosophy of the classroom, offering ideas about teaching that fundamentally rethink democratic participation. Hooks advocates the process of teaching students to think critically and raises many concerns central to the field of critical pedagogy, linking them to feminist thought. In the process, these essays face squarely the problems of teachers who do not want to teach, of students who do not want to learn, of racism and sexism in the classroom, and of the gift of freedom that is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent colletction of essays.......2007-07-31
I couldn't put this book down! The essays were very thought provoking and interesting. The only section I skipped was the one on Paulo Freire. It was a little too dry from the beginning. I feel that the only people who won't like this book are the ones who choose to judge hooks on her word choice and try to read her words with their own connotations rather than the way she intended. Yes, she uses terms like "white supremecist" a lot. If you take that in the way we tend to use it in common language, you would think she believes that white people knowingly have some sort of racist agenda against other people; to draw that conclusion, you have to assume that she's just another black person blaming white people for their situations. It is clear that hooks is not at all playing a blame game, but is instead just calling it how she sees it. You have to read the book in its entirety to grasp the points she's trying to make. I also really liked how she included little stories from her own personal experience. She also attempts to explain her theory with support from events in history. Overall, I thought it was a great book. The vocabulary wasn't extremely difficult, so it could really be read by anyone, yet the points are very difficult to understand if you come to this book with preconceived ideas of how black women think or believe that your own life experience is the only truth. I would recommend this book to ANY college student, anyone interested in education, and also people who enjoy thinking. Definitely not a book for someone who doesn't want to have to think as they read.
Hooks and Hate Speech.......2005-09-27
We read this book in class at the graduate level and her ideas caused a great deal of controversy. Some loved her and others were sure she was radical with no agenda except for blaming others for her anger. I thought that her book was non-academic because it was not an academic piece of writing. Color or gender have nothing to do with it. I was not impressed by her ranting against white middle class educational values because she was a beneficiary of a scholarship that helped her achieve her education. Besides, at least in this book, she can't get past her anger to give real examples of transformative education in the classroom, except to assure the reader she practiced it. Not good enough. Playing the race-card, flagrant self-promotion and hate speech is not enough. Being a revolutionary requires more than a polemic against the things you don't like. I wasn't impressed.
The Road Is Long.......2005-07-12
If you teach--whatever you teach; wherever you teach--please consider reading this book. Some of these reviews demonstrate the urgency of cultural transformation. Transformation begins with dialogue among learners--in a field, by the side of the road, in an urban classroom, even in the academy where transformative learning is most deeply challenged.
Critical Analysis of Teaching to Transgress.......2005-04-04
Bell Hooks is an a highly achieved academic who overcame the oppression of a family that discouraged free thought (p. 60), being a black woman in a "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" (p. 71), and an education system wrought with oppression to teach a variety of courses as an adjunct in ivy league universities. Hooks states that education is the practice of freedom and challenges her students by aggressively opposing authorities, parents (p. 61), fraternities (p. 20), social norms, white oppression (p. 32), the English language, and white feminists, to name a few. By practicing engaged pedagogy, Hooks successfully rebels from the "banking system" of education that states students are to learn information provided by the professor. The system also-according to Hooks-encourages professors to remain uncontroversial as a means of ensuring security and tenure in their academic posts.
The following pages will investigate and critically review several positions proposed by Bell Hooks within the text, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom.
Self Actualization
Though she does not define self actualization in her work, acknowledge the work of Abraham Maslow who spent a great deal of his career writing on the characteristics of self-actualized individuals, or mention the prerequisites to self-actualization (being devoid of psychopathology, using the extent of your natural abilities), Hooks refers to self-actualization and her disappointment in the lack of it with "the university" (p. 16). She states that as opposed to promoting self-actualization, academic institutions are instead havens for persons who are book smart and introverts-which Hooks describes as "unfit for social interaction" (p. 16). This addition of "necessary extroversion" for self-actualization is a dramatic and much needed contradiction to Maslow's study of self-actualized individuals, which shows self-actualized persons are generally more detached from others, as compared to the norm.
Regarding self-actualization still, though Maslow's subjects were profoundly non-religiously oriented, Hooks promotes an integration of spiritual and intellectual education, stating that separating spirituality from learning is to do a disservice and-in her educational experience-to find a professor that attuned to integrating his/her spiritual nature in teaching is a "rare treasure" (p. 17). She states further and brilliantly convolutes her point with a totally unrelated topic of dominance in the classroom: "Most of my professors were not the slightest bit interested in enlightenment. More than anything they seemed enthralled by the exercise of power and authority within their mini-kingdom, the classroom" (p. 17).
Though some white patriarchal academics maintain Hooks' work is non-academic solely because she is a black feminist (p. 71), Hooks proves otherwise by discovering the phenomenon of introverted academics becoming oppressive tyrants in the classroom.
In continued regard to dominance issues, they are exclusively presented as a characteristic of white males, as Hooks states:
It was particularly disappointing to encounter white male professors who claimed to follow Freire's model even as their pedagogical practices were mired in structures of domination, mirroring the styles of conservative professors even as they subjects from a more pedagogical standpoint (p. 17-18, italics added).
Safety
Hooks states regarding safety, "It is the absence of feeling safety that often promotes prolonged silence or lack of student engagement" (p. 39) and writes that with transformative pedagogy-which she encourages-the classroom is a democratic venue where all students have the obligation and privilege to participate. Though safety is important, a professor's focus should be on community, and a binding commitment to the common good (p. 40).
Community, according to Hooks promotes diversity, and students (as well as professors) need to spend time learning "different epistemologies" that are held by students, as well as "other ways of knowing." Reportedly, many of her students are dissatisfied with the time Hooks spends off topic during her classes and may state something to the degree "Why are we talking so much about feminism in a math class?" Hooks states that she has learned throughout the years to ignore these complaints, and that students who do not desire to talk about feminism in non-feminism related courses will realize it is good from them at a later time, and will often contact Hooks to tell her how right she is (p. 42).
Some additional interesting points by Hooks; who writes her text based completely on her experiences and reactions to others' works she has read that are based (I can confirm with many of them, Thich Nhat Hanh for example) completely on the reflective experiences of those authors, Hooks finds that her courses on feminism often go well except "those times when students abuse the freedom of the classroom by only wanting to dwell on personal experience" (p. 15).
Later, hooks criticizes white male students for valuing essentialist standpoints of logic, which oppress the "knowledge of experience" possessed by the minorities in the classroom (p. 81). It is stated voices from marginalized groups are given space to "speak from experience" only then the basis of experience is needed in a discussion. Instead, Hooks suggests that the "knowledge of experience" should be equal to any factual knowledge white male students possess. In addition, regarding the experiences of white male students-though white male students are preoccupied with objective knowledge-Hooks states:
The politics or race and gender within white supremacist patriarchy grants them their "authority" without their having name or desire for it. They do not attend class and say, "I think that I am superior intellectually to my classmates because I am white and male and that my experiences are much more important than any other group's." And yet their behavior announces this way of thinking about identity, essence, subjectivity.
These are very insightful points by Hooks, and her ability to read the minds of white students is compelling, trumped only by her ability to realize all white male students are homogenous in their perspectives of supremacy and dominance. Putting Hooks' tenets together in sum; white male students do not state that they are dominant even though they oppress, are attuned toward non-experiential objective knowledge, and incorrectly challenge minorities in the class who have "useful" experiential knowledge with their un-useful "white" experiential knowledge.
Lastly, such arrogance does not end with white males but transcends even to female white feminist academics, for Hooks states
Talking with academic feminists (usually white women) who feel they must either dismiss or devalue the work of Freire because of sexism, I see clearly how our different responses are shaped by the standpoint that we bring to the work (p. 50, italics added).
Language
Hooks most brilliant arguments are those regarding language. Hooks states, "This is the oppressor's language yet I need it to talk to you" (p.167), and repeats this line as a dramatic special-effect that is well placed in her academic literature (that is wrongly labeled by white supremacist researchers as "not academic enough").
English is the language of conquest and domination, and "it is difficult not to hear in standard English always the sound of slaughter and conquest" (p. 169) because the white people murdered Native Americans, according to Hook's knowledge of experience.
More profound than the claims Hooks makes is the information that Hooks omits from her writings. For example, black people are allowed to speak their native languages if they desire. It is not discouraged, and is comparatively equal to the situation of Caucasian men who's ancestors are indigenous to countries that do not speak English (France, Italy, Russia, etc.). Second, African persons do not speak one language that binds them as a group, but many different African languages. Third, the Americans that went into physical battle against the Native Americans are many years deceased. Fourth, English, the language of oppression, is not really spoken in America for English (from England) is significantly different than American English that this country speaks as its official language, and American English is constantly evolving/changing. Therefore, American English is different from the language used to exterminate Native Americans. Fifth, though it is true an academic submission written in Ebonics would not be accepted as appropriate, such may have to deal with the fact that Ebonics is promoted as a second language among its promoters-such as Russian or any other foreign language, which also would not be accepted in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published for English speaking readers. Sixth, if Ebonics is considered an ethnic dialect of English, it is not alone in being considered not appropriate for academic submission-for even white "hillbilly" or "country" dialects are not accepted as proper academic language. Seventh, regarding the "bounding limitations" (p. 171) of the English language, much research contests the notion that language can be "binding." For example, it was believed people speaking English could not understand snow to the depth that northern Native Americans can, for northern Native Americans have seven (approximately) words for snow, while the English language has only one. It was later found the additional words were descriptive, such as "wet snow," "soft snow," etc. Eighth, rap music, which according to Hooks "has become one of the spaces where the black vernacular is used to invite the dominant mainstream to listen-to hear-and, to some extent, be transformed" (p. 171) may not be embraced by everyone-not to oppress blacks but-because rap music is often blatantly violent, promotes hatred, greed, and sexual promiscuity. Also contributing may be the high incidence of rap music producers and performers becoming involved in illegal activity, or gang warfare. Ninth, not addressed by Hooks is that poets, musicians, and other writers often create and alter English words in their works, and this is considered acceptable-even encouraged. In fact, some commonly used words in the English language originated as "new" words in music and literature. Lastly, having one language that a nation understands and can communicate with together mutually may not be intrinsically oppressive, but liberating.
Conclusion
The 10 rebuttals above are not written as a sincere challenge to Hooks. Instead, they are a blatant "devils advocate" written to display how claims contrary to Hooks' positions are obviously incorrect. That stated, it is difficult for me to clearly see the truth of the situation, being an educated white male. After reading Hooks work Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, I am convinced of my oppressive white supremacist attributes; the domination, slaughter, and conquest of my native tongue; and of the uncontestable value of Hooks' experiential knowledge.
Essential for teaching freedom.......2004-08-17
This book is essential for faculty who believe in libratory education. When I got my first job as an instructor I read a few books on college teaching and they were fine for nuts and bolts like how to plan a syllabus. However, hooks writes about heart-matters that really affect teaching and learning like engagement, multiculturalism, theory, feminism, community, class, and eroticism.
For example, she discusses teaching which engages the learner (why is this taken for granted preK-12 but abandoned at grade 13?) and being a diverse teacher with diverse classes in a predominantly white male academy (if you're female, or not white, or not straight, or 'political', this is you), and other topics essential to understanding the undercurrents which happen every day in lectures across the country.
I must say that I am struck by the strongly negative reactions of some reviewers. For me this book was an oasis in the desert.
Book Description
For a generation of teenage girls, Sassy magazine was nothing short of revolutionary—so much so that its audience, which stretched from tweens to twentysomething women, remains obsessed with it to this day and back issues are sold for hefty sums on the Internet. For its brief but brilliant run from 1988 to 1994, Sassy was the arbiter of all that was hip and cool, inspiring a dogged devotion from its readers while almost single-handedly bringing the idea of girl culture to the mainstream. In the process, Sassy changed the face of teen magazines in the United States, paved the way for the unedited voice of blogs, and influenced the current crop of smart women’s zines, such as Bust and Bitch, that currently hold sway.
How Sassy Changed My Life will present for the first time the inside story of the magazine’s rise and fall while celebrating its unique vision and lasting impact. Through interviews with the staff, columnists, and favorite personalities we are brought behind the scenes from its launch to its final issue and witness its unique fusion of feminism and femininity, its frank commentary on taboo topics like teen sex and suicide, its battles with advertisers and the religious right, and the ascension of its writers from anonymous staffers to celebrities in their own right.
Customer Reviews:
Once Upon A Time.......2007-07-27
Long, long ago (not really, just the early 1990's, but it feels like forever!), there was the most fantastic teen magazine ever: SASSY!!! For girls like myself (this is William's wife Jen writing, by the way, in case anyone is wondering "Huh?") who were not the upper class WASPs of America with money to burn, perfect tans and bleached hair and New Kids lust, Sassy was such an amazing outlit for our social, political, and emotional frustrations. I was a girl who didn't gave a darn about 90210, Debbie Gibson, Prada, Calvin Klein, social conformity, and Sassy really helped to open up a whole nother world. The staff at Sassy became like our cooler older sisters in the hip underground: they knew all of the cool bands, fashions, actors, etc before the mainstream media had a clue. Also, I must add, that Sassy was the first place where I had read about Wicca which is now my spiritual path in life. In a time which I was an outcast demiJew interested in paganism and Buddhism but forced to going to a very Conservative Catholic school full of the standard cheerleader types (their solution to life was just to follow whatever nonsense the nuns and their parents proclaimed, no matter how braindead, and never to think for themselves), Sassy was literally a Goddess send where I finally felt connected.
On another note, I was very happy to see that they added a bit about how many girls felt alienated by the ultra- underground and alternative aspects of Sassy. Towards the end of the magazine, it seemed to me (and after reading, I'm glad I'm not the only one) that if you liked any song that managed to get on the radio, any show that had appeared in TV Guide, or wanted to dye your hair with Clairol instead of funky Kool Aid colours, then you were deemed terminally uphip (I remember as if it were yesterday how they trashed my then favourite band Roxette). I think that that exclusiveness, rather than any boycotts about the sex columns, were the cause of Sassy's demise. Still, it was an amazing magazine and so uplift and often soulsearching for its readers and sadly no magazine has come close to filling that void for today's young women (although B*tch is great. Check it out if you can).
Media Revolution Girl Style.......2007-07-01
Before female adolescents in America had Oakland/Portland's Bitch or Chicago's VenusZine for feminism 101, there was New York City's Sassy. In How Sassy Changed My Life, readers are given a magazine-size book that reads like a nostalgic love letter chronicling one of women's crucial marks in journalism's history. Known as the 80s lovechild of founder Sandra Yates of Australia's Dolly and then 24-year-old Jane Pratt, the youngest editor-in-chief of a magazine, Sassy shunned the "come get me boys" themes of teen publications with blonde, blue-eyed, bulimic models. For the first time, two female writers carefully analyze Sassy's impact on insecure, teenage girls seeking refuge from YM and Seventeen through interviews with former staff members and the many readers that created an online cult following.
How Sassy Changed My Life starts off by answering the frequently-asked question: why would anyone write a book about a teen magazine? While Jesella and Meltzer give a brief, but convincing explanation for exploring Sassy's rich, cultural history in American media, the chapters remain faithful in giving an in-depth look behind the magazine's main competitor. With Seventeen's "Where to Spy Guys" and "Learn How to Be a Secretary" ads, Walter Anneberg, the publication's owner (who had a gold-plated toilet seat in his private plane), surely wasn't risking his sales with features on homosexuality, AIDS and premarital sex. Yet, when Sassy arrived at 1 Times Square in 1988, they covered "The Dirty Scummy Truth on Spring Break (or, Where The Jerks Are)," included ads for Doc Martens and featured pixie-haired models with bandanas. Jesella and Meltzer manage to successfully show with crisp, tight language, the staff's many personalities that collectively provided a voice for those wanting to learn about their inner girl power with "13 Reasons Not to Diet." Former reader Sarah Kowalski commented, "The magazine was so personal it felt like a community, like people that you hung out with-that was very important. I was kind of an outsider type. I didn't have a lot of friends in school. You wanted to find your people."
One of the major concerns in How Sassy Changed My Life was Pratt's portrayal in the magazine's birth and downfall. Pratt, initially viewed as "the extremely charismatic leader," who made her writers "go through as many as 15 story drafts," was detested by Sassyites for the betrayal known as Jane magazine. Jesella and Meltzer spoke with Jane's arch-nemesis, Lisa Jervis from Bitch, who retaliated against Pratt's vision for a more girl-friendly periodical that even included a column by Pamela Anderson. In responding to Bitch's "10 Things I Hate About Jane," Jervis explained, "Those of us salivating in front of the newsstand were hoping for something that took Sassy's early vision of self-confident girl power and critical thinking a step forward." Ultimately, How Sassy Changed My Life concluded with Pratt being a pretentious publisher whose feud with Bitch magazine seems more appealing than her celebrity-fueled glossy. While the conclusion leaves readers torn, Jesella and Meltzer lets their audience decide whether Pratt should be celebrated for her role in leading Sassy or hated for her false promise in keeping the dream alive.
Whether you grew up reading Sassy or are just discovering its famous April 1992 cover of grunge's Sid and Nancy, How Sassy Changed My Life is a cultural tour de force that embodies the best of modern feminist writing. Readers will finish Jesella's and Meltzer's testimonial feeling confident about their femininity and hopeful for womankind's future, just as Sassy did for six years.
One to check out from the library.......2007-06-04
Read it in two sittings - it's fast, with more gossip in it than I expected. It was surprisingly balanced in terms of pointing out how Sassy may have just promoted a new alterna-girl conformism with their backlash against the Seventeen ethos.
I am sort of surprised that there was no mention that lots of readers' political views matured beyond the ones pushed by Sassy. Perhaps that's because the authors' views are still stuck in teenage years, too? (The tone of approval given by the authors to Ian Svenonius's Marxism was another cringe-worthy moment.)
My only wish: A scrapbook of clippings from various issues, or at least pictures of the staff, and a where-are-they-now? chapter. Okay, that was three wishes. With those features, the book would have been worth purchasing. Now I just wish I'd sent the money to charity instead.
A celebration of the magazine which influenced a generation of liberal, activist young women.......2007-05-21
The central thesis of How Sassy Changed My Life is that the one-of-a-kind teen magazine created a club of kindred spirits during its short 6-year tenure, and that it has had a lasting effect on a generation (or two) of American women. Authors Jesella and Meltzer write "Upon meeting a fellow Sassy fan, we feel like we understand something essential about that person: their life philosophy, what their politics might be like, what their artistic preferences are, what they were like in high school, what kind of person they wanted to grow up to be. (By contrast, we find non-fans of a certain age slightly suspect.)"
Since this title is about how Sassy changed our lives, it is necessary for me to reflect on my own Sassy readership. I picked it up for the first time at age eleven, when the magazine was just two years old. My best friend and I were immediate converts, and even created our own short-lived dozen-wide-circulation `zine in the Sassy tradition. I have all my Sassy back issues. When the magazine was sold to the owners of Teen magazine in 1994, the editorial staff was fired, and the name was repackaged as standard bubblegum fare, I never knew why my magazine died such a horrible death. I cancelled my subscription to the "Stepford Sassy" and every time I got a renewal notice, I would write an angry letter about my disgust with the new magazine (my boyfriend at the time could never understand why I had such passionate distaste for renewal notices).
Finally, the story of the rise and untimely death of Sassy is told, in this fine collection with chapters about the conception of the magazine, its rise, its relationship to the competitors, the lives of the staffers, the feminism of the publication, and its catastrophic fall from grace.
Sassy was the first magazine in which I read bylines, in which I reflected on what I knew about the writer of each piece, and how his or her personality and life experience played into the end product. Sassy poked fun at the celebrity worship and body-flaw fixing so central to other teen magazines. It talked frankly about sex in a voice completely opposite from that of your curmudgeonly gym teacher. Jesella and Meltzer's book is not only a delightful trip down memory lane, it also reveals important behind-the-scenes tensions and political maneuverings, as well as the cultural significance of the periodical. Highly recommended.
Wonderful---went WAY my expectations!.......2007-05-12
Wow. I bought this book thinking it would be nothing more than a sort of trip down memory lane about my fave magazine growing up. While it was definitely this, it also covered every aspect of the magazine's history, and discussed subjects like Sassy's sometimes cooler-that-thou-ness, or criticisms that it was not ethnically diverse enough. And I loved reading about the culture at the Sassy office and beyond. It is also one of the most insightful books I've read about how the magazine industry works. But basically, I'm mostly just so amazed that there are so many other people who were as moved (and, quite frankly, still so obsessed) with a magazine for teen girls that's been defunct for 13+ years.
Average customer rating:
- Is Maureen Dowd necessary? When ignorance and arrogance collide
- Is ANYONE Necessary?
- A interesting title and lots of real good information
- "new" doesn't always mean new
- She needs to get...a better love life
|
Are Men Necessary?: When Sexes Collide
Maureen Dowd
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Amazon.com
She may be smart, incisive, witty, and keenly observant but with the release of Are Men Necessary?--a series of pithy (some might say piqued) ruminations on the sexes--Maureen Dowd will never, ever be championed by guys. Not that she cares. Even those who seek to avoid her columns in the august pages of The New York Times are certain to stumble over her invective in syndication. Dowd, it often seems, is everywhere. So those seeking even more via this book should be warned: Are Men Necessary? not only asks the eponymous question; it seeks to answer it with myriad examples (some convincing, some not) drawn from the Toronto Star to Kenneth Starr, from Cosmopolitan to Condoleezza Rice. You can bet a lot of folks aren't going to relish the answer.
With hands on hips and eyes wide open, Dowd surveys gender relations in contemporary settings such as the workplace, the White House, the mall, and the media, comparing and contrasting as she goes. And while her secondary sources are endless--and, let's face it, the subject of gender inequality is not exactly new--Dowd manages to produce a fair share of bons mots. To wit, this pearl on the subject of plastic surgery and men: "I have yet to see a man come out of cosmetic surgery without looking transformed into some permanently astonished lesbian version of himself," Dowd quotes a source as saying. "It's terrifying. My friend's father had just his eyes done by the best, most highly sought-after cosmetic surgeon in New York City. And he doesn't look refreshed or well rested. He looks like he's being stabbed to death by invisible people." Dowd's generously dispersed anecdotes, though seldom as funny, are equally readable. In the end, though, one wishes Are Men Necessary? went beyond simply grocery listing examples of sexual disparity to offer concrete suggestions for change. Then again, maybe that's too great a task even for a woman like Dowd. --Kim Hughes
Book Description
Are men afraid of smart, successful women? Why did feminism fizzle? Why are so many of today's women freezing their faces and emotions in an orgy of plasticity? Is "having it all" just a cruel hoax?
In this witty and wide-ranging book, Maureen Dowd looks at the state of the sexual union, raising bold questions and examining everything from economics and politics to pop culture and the "why?" of the Y chromosome. These new writings will delight her devoted readers-and anyone trying to sort out the chaos that occurs when sexes collide.
Customer Reviews:
Is Maureen Dowd necessary? When ignorance and arrogance collide.......2007-09-11
To answer Dowd's question, one need only consider that half of all the people you know would not be alive today if it were not for the medical marvels invented by this unnecessary sex, just to look at a single area revolutionized by male creativity and ingenuity, those gifts that CANNOT be learnt parrot-fashion by the ungifted, no matter how hard they try. Let all of us who are grateful that half of our friends and family are alive and not dead express our posthumous gratitude to the men who saved us from the disaster of midwifery (50% mortality rate achieved by these Einsteins until finally men were allowed to participate, and a MAN came along, inventing the necessary equipment and techniques within decades, and teaching his life-saving techniques to these ungrateful wretches, who had only had six millennia to learn to do their job properly.) Thank you Peter Chamberlen, that every baby born feet forwards today is not condemned to die along with its mother like when women ruled midwifery. Dowd and half of her friends and family would not be with us today if these unnecessary men hadn't helped these ignorant women understand how their own bodies worked. If she would gladly accept the loss of all these people from her life, then I fully respect her decision that men are not necessary. If however, she has gladly made use of the medical wonders, from childcare to cancer treatment, that exist only through the genius of the male sex, then I call her an ungrateful, female chauvinist pig of the lowest kind, whose drivel can only be of appeal to those in a similar IQ range. Go away and make room for someone with something useful to say. And see how many days you can get by without making use of any inventions created by the unnecessary sex. I promise to do the same with female inventions.
Is ANYONE Necessary?.......2007-09-02
That's a totally irrelevant question and book title. No one is necessary; because God made man and woman for his own pleasure and desire. We're here because God wanted us here. Plain and simple. Secondly, women would not exist on the earth without men. No women ever born on the earth got here without a man. The first person on earth was a man and everyone else came from him.
A interesting title and lots of real good information.......2007-09-01
I listen to the book on DVDs. The author is a well know columnist. Her insighted to famous and infamous people of our world is very interesting.
She has to be a real woman, who enjoys being a woman and her wit and insight is very enlightening to all who read this intriguing collections of observations.
A must read for women of all ages, it tell the tale of wanting something and then when we have it the repercussions of having is not all that good.
"new" doesn't always mean new.......2007-07-31
Even though I ordered the item "New" from amazon, the book was obviously used, with wear on the binding.
She needs to get...a better love life.......2007-05-27
To quote Ms. Dowd, "if a man writes a scathing piece...no one accuses him of hostility toward men. If a woman writes the same scathing piece" people suggest that her criticism is a reflection of some psyschological problem. She is better about men. "She needs to get...a better love life."
I looked forward to Dowd's first real book, having read her columns for the past several years. Unfortunately, you can't help but believe that Dowd's tone and perspective are heavily influenced by the fact that she is an accomplished, attractive, 50 year old woman, still looking for a date!
The book is fun to read and funny as well, though at times the reader is wondering what the actual point or purpose of the book is. Is it criticism of male-female relations? Is it satire of modern sex? Or is it Ms. Dowd's medium for venting her frustration??
Its hard to really find the point of the book, which at times reads more like a bold-faced names Social column than the work of a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist. Dowd seems to quote only her friends in journalism when supporting her points and whatever TV shows she's happened to watch (Seinfeld and Sex and the City, for instance).
While the book is fun and amusing, I can't say I walked away having learned anything or having gained a greater appreciation for male-female relationships.
Book Description
In the wake of Sassy and as an alternative to the more staid reporting of Ms., Bitch was launched in the mid-nineties as a Xerox-and-staple zine covering the landscape of popular culture from a feminist perspective. Both unabashed in its love for the guilty pleasures of consumer culture and deeply thoughtful about the way the pop landscape reflects and impacts women’s lives, Bitch grew to be a popular, full-scale magazine with a readership that stretched worldwide. Today it stands as a touchstone of hip, young feminist thought, looking with both wit and irreverence at the way pop culture informs feminism—and vice versa—and encouraging readers to think critically about the messages lurking behind our favorite television shows, movies, music, books, blogs, and the like. BITCHFest offers an assortment of the most provocative essays, reporting, rants, and raves from the magazine’s first ten years, along with new pieces written especially for the collection. Smart, nuanced, cranky, outrageous, and clear-eyed, the anthology covers everything from a 1996 celebration of pre-scandal Martha Stewart to a more recent critical look at the "gayby boom"; from a time line of black women on sitcoms to an analysis of fat suits as the new blackface; from an attempt to fashion a feminist vulgarity to a reclamation of female virginity. It’s a recent history of feminist pop-culture critique and an arrow toward feminism’s future.
Customer Reviews:
Thought-provoking and very entertaining.......2007-01-18
I had quit writing reviews for books for a long time now. I live in Turkey so I do not get the magazine, but I purchased the book after reading many favourable reviews here on Amazon.com. It turns out that I was missing a lot! This book has great, great articles, some are very original in essence and it keeps you interested. Although I, too, skipped a few of the articles, 90% of them are really good ones, about many different subjects. The articles are sharp, witty and it is good that the subject variety is satisfactory. If I could, I would translate it to Turkish so it can reach more people over here. Great, great stuff, if you are interested in popular culture as well as gender issues, this is the essential reading for you. Can't recommend it enough!
Buy this book.......2006-12-29
Disclaimer-I subscribe to Bitch Magazine and have for a number of years. I love it! When I saw this book at the university bookstore, I bought it and savored reading through the book.
What I really like about Bitch Magazine, more so than Bust, is that the articles are more theoretical and erudite. I don't consider them dry, but I am WS educator and view BM as more a cutting edge zine that demonstrates the various feminist strands that exist today in the 3rd Wave, No Wave era of the feminist movement.
Buy this book! Subscribe to the zine for thoughtful, well-written articles about all sorts of issues.
After that plug, let me just say that I don't always agree with the essays. Some will definitely leave you with that sense that you want to grab a coffee with a friend and hammer out some of your thoughts.
Great food for thought........2006-10-06
Gotta hand it to Bitch:
- All of the articles are well written, if a bit dry at times.
- Even if you don't agree 100% with what the author is saying they usually make some good points and at least make you think.
- Many different views of feminism are offered.
I highly reccomend this along with a subscription to Bitch Magazine.
No Home Should be Without This Book!.......2006-09-08
"No home should be without this book. It can save relationships, provide direction for those who want it and offer humor for those who need it."
Good, at times.......2006-08-28
This collection of articles from Bitch magazine is a necessity to women. I enjoyed quoting it on my blogs and reading sections to my friends while we sat on my patio.
Unfortunately, I found myself skipping over some articles due to the rather dry approach to writing that some of the authors used.
Book Description
Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium. FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse explores the roles of stories, figures, dreams, theories, facts, delusions, advertising, institutions, economic arrangements, publishing practices, scientific advances, and politics in twentieth- century technoscience.
The book's title is an e-mail address. With it, Haraway locates herself and her readers in a sprawling net of associations more far-flung than the Internet. The address is not a cozy home. There is no innocent place to stand in the world where the book's author figure, FemaleMan, encounters DuPont's controversial laboratory rodent, OncoMouse.
Haraway sees the world of contemporary technoscience as a drama. Information sciences and life sciences are at the center of the dramatic action. Scenes are set in landscapes where maps of human genetic differences are stored in databases, racialized bodies are reconfigured by morphing for photographs in popular magazines, and transgenic mice important to breast cancer research are patented intellectual property.
The actors are many, and not all are human. Beginning with the Modest Witness, the key figure in the Science Revolution, Haraway shows us the trouble lurking in race and gender- marked practices for attesting to matters of fact. In later scenes, Haraway explores the kinship relations among the many cyborg creatures produced in the late twentieth-century--in nuclear research, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, computer-mediated representational practices, and mutations in biological approaches to "race."
Customer Reviews:
Haraway Review.......2006-03-24
A note to be made to any potential readers regarding the accessibility of this book is that there are two areas in which some background is extremely helpful: critical theory (certain terms and concepts) and Sandra Harding's idea of strong objectivity, which is used, in Haraway's altered form, as a central concept in the book. Neither critical theory terminology nor strong objectivity is explained in enough depth for a reader unfamiliar with them to understand well, and, in the case of the latter, have a strong enough grasp to consider crucial differences in the approaches of Harding and Haraway.
Haraway's stated purpose of the book is that it is an "exercise regime and self-help manual for how not to be literal-minded, while engaging promiscuously in serious moral and political inquiry (...). I also want [readers] to have a good time. Comedy is both object of attention and method" (15). There is a certain tension throughout the book resulting from her dual commitment to the non-literal and playful and to the very serious. Her way of delving deeply into the adventures and symbolic meaning of fictional characters to use them to illustrate her points and her penchant for word-play are rather distracting, and frequently detract from the substance and clarity of her arguments. Additionally, the content of Haraway's book is enmeshed in a perhaps altogether unnecessarily elaborate format, for example, with sections of the book intended to correspond with parts of the study of semiotics.
Yet, Haraway's main argument concerning technoscience, that there is a need to create what has been called a politicoscientific community based on participatory democratic structures, is well supported by her numerous and thought-provoking inquiries into who the actors in technoscience are, who is benefiting, who is suffering, etc. She offers effective criticism of conventional scientific (weak) objectivity, which is grounded in an ideal of the scientist as neutral or value-free, and seeks to build a strong objectivity that will bring into focus the interests and contributions of humans and non-humans who remain unseen or unheard in technoscientific development and practice. I cannot help but wonder, however, why a book intending to promote participatory democratic involvement has been written in so complex a manner that it is inaccessible to countless numbers of people.
I have two main reservations about what Haraway writes. First, she is using her own version of Harding's strong objectivity, which differs in important ways from the original concept. Haraway attempts to generate knowledge from the perspectives of both fictional characters, ones from paintings and ones that Haraway helps invent, and non-humans, and this is much out of keeping with Harding's approach and yet no implications of the altered meaning of this key concept are discussed. Second, Haraway has a clear bias toward, even a romanticization of, certain technoscientific feats like putting fish genes in tomatoes. While she makes no attempts to conceal this bias, I do think it influences her too-quick dismissal of activists working against such human tinkering, as she claims she "cannot hear discussion of disharmonious crosses among organic beings and of implanted alien genes without hearing a racially inflected and xenophobic symphony" (62). The activists to which she is referring simply deserve more credit than this.
Postmodern tropes that get lost.......2003-11-11
Haraway attempts to pull together many different disciplines, thoughts, and ideas in her book, but unfortunately there is no praxis.
The book is written and directed towards scientists, but from the outset the book alienates them.
The book has very little to substanciate the ideas, other than self referencing.
The ideas presented are interesting, and if you are able to delve through layers of meta-linguistic jargon the Modest_Witness could perhaps have a good discussion, but her synthetic form of muddled argumentation makes for a poor read.
The ideas could have been presented with the tropes in a much clearer manner, the theories could have been supplied with some way to put them into action.
I urge anyone who attempts to read this book, to thoroughly question the ideas presented in an attempt to find real world possible applications.
Hopefully, the future of science studies.......2002-05-23
Haraway's work is stunning in the risks she takes. Refusing to buy into categorical distinctions between disciplines, Haraway references and subreferences science, literature, technology, art, and anything else that could possibly be used to emphasize the cultural production of knowledge. I disagree with just about all of Haraway's conclusions about capitalism, but I love what she says about technology, and find in her work a fresh and innovative alternative to that of stuffy analytic philosophers and overly pedantic sociologists of science. Not the easiest read, but worth a look if you're into SSK, STS, HPS or any other initials having to do with the study of science. Whether you take the book to bed with you at night or toss it out the nearest fifth story window, Haraway's work is bound to impress. Check it out.
Very witty writing.......2000-06-20
Donna Haraway is without question America's most gifted postmodern cultural critic. In this book, Haraway considers the realms of "technoscience," focussing mostly on genetic research, to consider how this emerging science constructs race, gender, and human relations. Haraway is an extremely witty writer and a true humanitarian, dedicated to questioning those cultural assumptions which hurt so many social groups. Well written, well organized, well illustrated (by Lynn Randolph)... a great book.
Book Description
Feminism is one of the most important perspectives from which visual culture has been theorized and historicized over the past thirty years. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader brings together a wide array of writings addressing art, film, architecture, popular culture, new media, and other visual fields from a feminist perspective, combining classic texts by leading feminist thinkers with polemical new pieces. Challenging the notion of feminism as a unified discourse, the reader explores how issues of race, class, nationality, and sexuality enter into debates about feminism in the field of the visual and includes work by feminist critics, artists, and activists. The reader ncludes six previously unpublished texts written specifically for this volume.
Amelia Jones' introduction to the reader races historical and theoretical developments in feminism and visual culture. Articles are grouped into thematic sections, addressing Representation; Difference; Disciplines/Strategies; Mass Culture/Media Interventions; Body; and Technology. Each section opens with an introduction by the editor.
The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader provides a framework within which to understand the shifts in feminist thinking in visual studies as well as an overview of major feminist theories of the visual.
Book Description
New definitions of American femininity were formed in the pivotal 1920s, an era that vastly expanded the "market" for sexually explicit displays by women. Angela J. Latham shows how quarrels over and censorship of women's performance -- particularly in the arenas of fashion and theater -- uniquely reveal the cultural idiosyncracies of the period and provide valuable clues to the developing iconicity of the female body in its more recent historical phases.
Through disguise, display, or judicious appropriation of both, performance became a crucial means by which women contested, affirmed, mitigated, and revolutionized norms of female self-presentation and self-stylization. Fashion was a hotly contested arena of bodily display. Latham surveys 1920s fashion trends and explores popular fashion rhetoric. Resistance to social mandates regarding women's fashion was nowhere more pronounced than in the matter of "bathing costumes." Latham critiques locally situated contests over swimwear, including those surrounding the first Miss America Pageant, and suggests how such performances sanctioned otherwise unacceptable self-presentations by women.
Looking at American theater, Latham summarizes major arguments about censorship and the ideological assumptions embedded within them. Although sexually provocative displays by women were often the focus of censorship efforts, "leg shows," including revues like the Zeigfeld Follies, were in their heyday. Latham situates the popularity of such performances that featured women's bodies within the larger context of censorship in the American theater at this time.
Customer Reviews:
Too Academic and Without Focus.......2007-05-22
I got this book and I have to say that I read the introduction off of Amazon and wanted to read more stories such as that of the author's Grandmother. The book was WAY too dry and academic which is not necessarily a problem but the author seems to have lost focus. By the closing of the book, the author seemed not to be sure just how to tie up the book. While some aspects of the book were interesting with very good illustrations within, other aspects such as the end chapters dealing with the bathing suit controversies and the chorus girl criticism seemed overwrought with angry feminist analysis from the author. It seemed as if one was trying to figure out if this was the author's own personal opinion or one based off of careful research into the topic. The author was trying to make the case that the 1920s was not an age of hedonistic freedom that is sometimes presented in other books on that time the fact is that from much of her illustrations and footnotes it can clearly be seen that in contrast to the age previous (the Edwardian) age the 20s was in fact an age of Hedonism which has of course been exposited in other books only to come to an end with the economic crash of the 30s. The author failed also to actually analyze the biographies of actual "flappers", chorus girls and others to actually posit her thesis which really failed miserably. Her analysis was simplistic.
Great cover and Illustrations ... but too academic.......2006-07-08
This book reads like a dissertation. It's a great topic, and the cover and title promise much more than it delivers. I strongly suspect this was the author's dissertation project. That's fine because it's well-researched, and the author definitely is an expert on women in the 1920s. But it's a wet subject, and the auther serves it up dry. There's good information in here, but it'll be slow going. On the positive side, there are many great black-and-white illustrations.
An interesting look at life for women in the 1920s........2002-01-05
The author's basic premise is that in the 1920s, women used display to resist, while at times seeming to conform to, those who would have squeezed them into the molds of how society would have them appear. In the first few chapters, she does a good job of this. Especially insightful is the example of her own grandmother, who as a young woman in this time period, disguised both her bobbed hair and her married state so that she could continue in her chosen profession as teacher.
However, in the latter two chapters of the book, the author seems to focus more on the exploitation of women by the theatre industry and it's effects. In this, she seems to stray too far from her theme. It would have been better if she had had more examples like that of her grandmother which supported her theme, rather than diverging off of the topic.
I really do recommend this book at least for the initial chapters, which are an interesting look at the attitudes of an era that has been very much stereotyped. It gives you an idea of the some of the restrictions that would have been felt by a woman who was, not a Gretta Garbo or Clara Bow, but an average person trying to live from day to day....
Book Description
Kate O'Beirne is fed up with women who make the world worse.
Fueled by their persecution fantasies, modern feminists have been calling for radical social engineering to eliminate any differences between the sexes. They insist that any sex differences are the result of social construction, not biology. So they want boys and men to be reprogrammed and treated for their “pathology.”
Many of these women are public figures who use their notoriety in acting, pop music, television, or politics to spout unfounded bad ideas and harebrained schemes: Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Hillary Clinton, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Maureen Dowd, and many more.
Kate O'Beirne captures the radical feminists in their own words, explains why they've got it all wrong, and shows why they have to be stopped—before they do even more damage to our schools, families, workplaces, and sports. BACKCOVER: “Anyone still operating under the delusion that `feminist' is synonymous with `pro-woman' should find this [book] a useful reality check.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Thank you, Kate O'Beirne! With wit and smarts she drives a stake through the heart of radical feminism, naming names, and takes down the modern sisterhood in a fearless, funny, and factual way. And it's long overdue. Know your enemy. Buy this gutsy book!”
—Rush Limbaugh
“What a romp of a book. Funny and smart and typical of the shrewd, informed analysis we relish from Kate O'Beirne.”
—Peggy Noonan, author of John Paul the Great
“Once again, Kate O'Beirne's insights on politics and the culture make us think, laugh, and stand “up and cheer. Rolling back the influence of the false prophets of feminism and `grrrrrl power' takes facts, passion, and intellect—all of which we find in this important book.”
—Laura Ingraham, author of Shut Up & Sing
“Some women protest,`I'm a feminist, just not a radical feminist.' Kate O'Beirne is impatient with such qualifications. She is not any kind of feminist, and when you finish her sparkling new book, Women Who Make the World Worse, you won't be one either.”
—Mona Charen, syndicated columnist
“Women Who Make the World Worse is, to be sure, an entertaining, often humorous exposé of the modernist feminist movement, but at the same time, it's a sober wake-up call.”
—David Limbaugh, syndicated columnist
“O'Beirne brings wit and common sense to bear on the weird and rancorous world of orthodox feminism… she has written a rousing, scintillating, and badly needed book.”
—Christina Hoff Sommers
Customer Reviews:
I am a woman, and I am sick of these feminist.......2007-07-16
I am a woman, and I do not beleive I am inferior to man. However, there is physical differences. I would prefer the man and woman fire fighters be separated. Let the feminist have their own ladder company that serve their own neighborhood. I want to see how the rest of the world react to that. I would move out of the female firefighter serve neighborhood so fast that it will leave skid marks on the road. Let the male and female army serve separated, and see which one perform better. If females can and will perform at the same level as the man, by all mean, serve as they please. However, if the standards has to be lower to accommodate anyone, I would prefer to have the top guys to protect me instead of the mediocra feminist that relied heavily on the man. It is a really sad thing to be equal regardless of the ability of different gender.
Best Book of 2006!.......2007-07-15
Disregard the paranoid propaganda commentary above, "back to I Love Lucy". Radical feminists don't want you to think for yourselves. They want to teach your college students "The Vagina Monologues" and turn males in girls.
The best parts of this book concerns Title IX, why more females attend college than males. The book exposes Justice Ginsberg as a baby-hating radical from the ACLU. This is a book you're not supposed to read (a nod to the PIG books).
Readers of this should know about the online army of feminists who strategically trashed O'Beirne's book: "First of all I want to thank everyone who aided in the sacking of Kate O'Beirne's book Women Who Make the World Worse over at Amazon..."
You can locate that in a Google search for 'women who make world worse', it'll be the 8th hit on the Search Result page.
Makes a Few Good Points, But They are Widely Scattered.......2007-06-01
I was sorry to discover, upon reading this book, that my wife and I went about raising our daughter incorrectly. Had we known, I am sure we would have done things differently. After all, she is only first in her class in high school, athletic, well liked, respected and being courted by top colleges while still in her sophomore year. I suppose, if we followed this authors advice, she would have been a better person, although I fail to see how.
The author believes, strongly, that women should stay home from work to raise children, no matter what the cost. Since I was the one to stay home, as my wife earned about 40% more than I at the time, we were putting our daughter at risk. In addition, we put her at risk by putting her into a limited day care, even though my daughter enjoyed it and wanted to continue when we attempted to pull her out. The author makes it clear that we should have moved from our house to an apartment, and given up our standard of living to allow my wife to stay home and me to continue work. That would have been what was best for our daughter. There is not alternate method allowed in her world.
Then there is the issue of sexual discrimination, which does not occur according to this author. It can't occur, other than on a limited basis, because market forces would keep it from occurring. Companies need women, and if discrimination were happening, women would quit, which would leave companies understaffed. If that were the case, I guess when my wife was told, during a performance review, that all women belonged at home taking care of the children and not working in corporate America, she was hearing things. In the author's world, that didn't occur, and neither did the large settlement from the company after the manager's treatment of women employees was exposed.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. There is an old saying about lies, damned lies and statistics, and it fits this book well. Much of it is the author's own view, with little to substantiate the opinion. The author misses the point, for the most part, that all people are not the same and that one size does not fit all. It is fine that she wishes to lead her life in the fashion that she does, but she makes no allowance for others to lead theirs in a different manner. If they do, they will fail themselves, their children, etc.
The author does, on occasion, make valid points, but they are too few and too far apart to make the book a worthwhile read, unless you want to lead a life trapped in the 1950s. While I agree that the feminist movement has gone over the edge, they have also done a lot to move the country forward and there is no credit given for that work.
A REAL EYE-OPENER!.......2007-05-13
A very important work on how radical feminism infiltrates American society to seduce it into grave moral decay, and speeds it down that "slippery slope".
O'Beirne is a mature woman who is funny, smart, and shrewd. She presents revealing insights into America's politics and culture, and how a small radical minority (among other radical minorities) with a squeaky wheel can do so much damage to the majority (us), who naively remains silent because we are too wrapped up in ourselves and our families to pay attention to the rug that is being pulled from under our feet.
With facts, passion, intellect, and courage, O'Beirne calls this menace to our society to task. This book is a breath of fresh air at a pivotal point in our nation's well being, not only for ourselves but also for our children and future generations.
A nicely done overview of modern feminism's effects.......2007-03-21
I must say that I didn't think much of the jacket illustration, and I think that a better title could have been selected. But, the content of this book is first-rate and O'Beirne did a really god job researching her material and carefully citing which feminist said or wrote what and how they are mainstream and powerful within our culture and not on the 'fringe' of feminism. She also carefully identifies the main issues impacting the culture and the lives of people.
O'Beirne also cites some other good anti-feminist works and I've read all of them and I agree they are well worth studying.
I am pleased to see that there are quite a few women today - many of them EX-feminist - who have come to see what a crock feminism is and to see it's evil effects on marriage, the family, children, men, women, and on culture and society. I used to think that most women would just not speak up about it, but many have - although it has taken them a while to get around to it.
A feminist woman I know, saw me reading the book and she immediately started attacking it. All of her objections were wrong and I corrected each false assumption she made. She wound up fuming and stomped off. Well, that's ok I guess, this book isn't for everyone - but thank goodness these feminists are dwindling in number!
I hope that O'Beirne writes most books in this area. We need more writers like her.
Book Description
"Electric Ladyland adds an important layer to the study of rock's Golden Age and that era's pervasive influence on the attitudes still prevalent in popular music today."--Ann Powers, former New York Times music critic and senior curator, Experience Music ProjectWith the explosion of rock music in the mid-1960s, women arrived--as performers, critics, and fans. While operating in radically different ways within rock culture, female musicians, journalists, and groupies rewrote women's roles on and off the stage in the 1960s and 1970s.Electric Ladyland is a social and cultural history of this formative era in rock and roll, examining how the changing roles of women were intertwined with the evolution of the music. Articles and reviews from Rolling Stone and the Village Voice provide a window on a time when female musicians such as Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and Joni Mitchell battled sexism from concert promoters and mainly male reviewers. Feminist rock journalists, however, were coming into their own. In particular, Ellen Willis, music critic for the New Yorker, and Lillian Roxon, author of the influential Rock Encyclopedia, transformed the way society perceived sometimes marginalized female performers.The groupie was born at the same time, and Rhodes devotes considerable attention to the rise of this phenomenon. Through journalistic accounts as well as personal interviews with groupies of the 1960s and 1970s, she explores these women's dual legacy of self-assertion and promiscuous behavior that resonates to this day through the popularity of such films as Almost Famous.Deeply informed by critical media studies and drawing on diverse and rich sources, Electric Ladyland assesses the lasting effects of cultural representations on female sexuality and gender roles.
Books:
- Fie Fie Fi-Fi: A Facsimile of the 1914 Musical Score, With Illustrations from the Original
- Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11
- Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
- Fundamentals of WiMAX: Understanding Broadband Wireless Networking (Prentice Hall Communications Engineering and Emerging Technologies Series)
- Gods and Heroes in Art
- Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self
- Grindhouse: The Sleaze-filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)
- Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (Baby Board Books)
- Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World's Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples
Books Index
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