Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. Ariel Levy. New York: Simon &amp; Schuster, 2005; ix + 224 pages, notes, appendices; ISBN 9-780743-249898; $25.00US (paper).
What do Paris Hilton, college co-eds in Florida, pole-dancing career gals and young San Francisco lesbians have in common? According to American journalist, Ariel Levy, they embody a worrisome trend sweeping North America. Her book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, explores how female attractiveness and sexuality have morphed into a culture of "raunchiness" in contemporary society. This phenomenon represents an increased exhibitionism and self-exploitation amongst young women and the rise

of a new sexual revolution which equates exploitation with empowerment.
Levy suggests that "raunch culture" is everywhere - the classroom, the Internet, television, magazines, even exercise class. She argues that women are expressing their sexual liberation in some peculiar ways: strip-aerobics classes, thong underwear, Brazilian bikini waxes and PhD's flashing for the cameras of Girls Gone Wild (whose camera crews prowl North American bars and beaches offering free hats to college girls willing to pose topless). Levy argues that women are co-opting the aesthetics of porn culture, which, once underground, has become mainstream - the feminist movement has been subverted. Levy states: "If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and ourselves."
Levy's book is an engaging and thoughtprovoking rallying cry, albeit a lightweight one. But it does pose some important questions about the state of feminism in North America. Her argument is consistent whether she is interviewing drunken co-eds, sophisticated New Yorkers pole-dancing at CAKE parties, or urban "boi" lesbians who demean their "fem" partners: women have internalized the mores of misogyny, expressing their sexuality under the banner of "empowerment." Is this the only power worth having? Levy quotes Erica Jong: "Let's see the Senate fifty percent female; let's see women in decision-making positions - that's power. Sexual freedom can be a smoke-screen for how far we haven't come."
Levy makes a strong case that adolescent girls, in forming their own identities, face great pressure to flaunt their sexuality. Intensely engaged with popular media, they are vulnerable to influences for which they have no historical contexts or filters. The re-inscribing of patriarchal codes has impacts unforeseen by earlier generations of feminists; women not only want to "perform" for men, but to be like men in expressing their sexuality. Shows like Sex in the City, and CAKE parties make the point.
Levy appears too readily dismissive of CAKE, an organization which endeavours to create a nonjudgemental forum for women to experiment with sexuality. Granted, these experiments often run

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parallel to dominant cultural codes, but they may provide a starting place for new discourses of female sexuality. Indeed, the chief weakness of Levy's book may be its failure to offer alternative visions a truly liberated female sexuality. However, with wit, energy and passion she demands answers to the question of what it means for women to truly hold power, and whether this power is to be only sexual. In 2007 such questions may seem alarmingly retrogressive. They still need asking, nonetheless, and Levy's book stands as a challenge for women to confront and answer them.
Sarah Neville University of Toronto