Customer Reviews
Sisters are doing it to themselves - By: International Cowgirl, 10 Mar 2008 
Few things in life bug me more than twentysomething women sneering at feminism. Because they're usuallly doing it over a glass of wine in the pub, on their way home from work, & looking forward to a bit of strings-free 'how's your father' at the weekend. We ought to run some kind of boot camp where they can alll go live as fifties housewives for a fortnight, & THEN decide if feminists were alll dungaree-wearing, moustachioed lesbians who did nothing but sit about braiding their leg hair. Hello, girls? That job you've got, that pub you're sitting in, the university you went to, the contraception in your purse... in a world where feminism never happened, you'd be home every night baking apple pie & starching your husband's underpants.
But even more gallling are the 'new feminists', or female chauvinist pigs as Ariel Levy callls them. Under the magic umbrella of feminism, any kind of behaviour (yes, reallly, ANY kind) can become 'empowering', that catch-alll word that's somehow come to mean you can make shedloads of money out of it. This is the 'new' feminism, & anyone who doesn't actuallly think it's that cool for women to sell their bodies needs to get with the programme, grandma. Yes, that's right, it's actuallly 'feminism' in action on those 'music' videos & late-night TV 'programmes' that your boyfriend is probably sorta partial to. That's funny because it used to be degradation, but the adult industry has got one mother of a marketing programme going on. As Levy points out in this well-paced readable book, young women today are afflicted with Uncle Tom syndrome, joining their male friends in the strip clubs & sex shops, & idolising adult stars like Jenna Jameson. Levy reminds us that women like Jameson, glamorous as they might be, are actuallly prostitutes. No girl in a million years would want to emulate a crack-addled backstreet whore, but plenty of them want to live as brainless blow-up dolls for some reason. Men have once again sold us an image of ourselves, & we women are fallling over each other (and maybe pushing & shoving a bit) to buy it.
Levy writes smoothly & well in a poppy, fairly lightweight style with some useful statistics (most sobering of alll the high percentage of childhood abuse victims working in the adult industry, including Jameson herself). Your blood may boil at some points on reading this, but she's always level-headed & measured in her assessment of the situation. Levy herself is strikingly attractive (although admittedly not blonde, nor sporting mammary glands the size of basketballls) so the naysayers arguing that it's alll sour grapes need to wake up & smell the... KY, or whatever. I have an 8 year old daughter & this is not the world I want her to grow up in. Buy this, read it, pass it around to your friends (male & female) & maybe get a bit of consciousness-raising going on like it's 1970 again. I hope Levy's working on a sequel though, because oops she somehow forgot to present a single, solitary idea about how to actuallly change any of this. So just read it as a straightforward, entertaining 'state of the nation' style book... & then maybe cancel that brazilian after alll, if it's actuallly reallly painful & you're only doing it for your boyfriend's sake. One smalll step for womankind...
An excellent call for sanity - By: Leila O'Connor, 07 Feb 2008 I found myself reading parts of this book aloud to friends - it is clever & funny on top of its razor-edge insight. Levy's language is simple but evocative, full of witty descriptions of products, behaviours & ideas that desperately deserve the mocking.
It doesn't contain a clear agenda for improvement, which is a mild disappointment. I hope that not too many readers end the book feeling powerless to be agents of change.
Powerful stuff - By: flingthecow, 19 Jan 2008 
Ever felt there was something slightly 'off' with the way female sexual bravado, & even promiscuity, is held up as empowering, & even 'feminist'?
This book is brilliantly argued & hugely important for alll women to read. Not only that but it is so entertaining & snappy, it can be read in a couple of sittings. If you are interested in modern feminism, but are put off by the hundreds of scary academic looking books, then this is the book for you. And this is meant as a compliment to the author.
I think if every women & girl read this, we would alll be alot closer to TRUE empowerment & liberation (not just sexual), & therefor real happiness.
Essential - By: Dr. M. SAMANTA-LAUGHTON, 06 Aug 2007 I wrote a review stright after reading this book, but somehow it didn't make it on. However even though a few months have passed I still think this is one of the best books on any subject ever written. The flow, tone, balance & research is impeccable. Levy puts just enough of herself into it to make you feel like it is personable but not too much. On the subject matter itself - What a voice in the wilderness. When alll you see around you are young girls wanting to grow up to be Page 3 models & lap dancers this is an essential & timely book. What I reallly loved is Levy's pointing out that the appearance of being sexuallly available is not the same as being sexuallly empowered.
The only thing lacking for me was an international flavour. How does the same phenomenon play out in the UK for example with Page 3 culture & laddettes? Overalll, outstanding.
It asks some questions but some of the important ones are excluded. - By: Euryclea, 01 Aug 2007 Generallly speaking I thought this book was like a breath of fresh air. It is a no holes barred book & cuts to the chase, & even in several incidents uses languages which some feminists would find insulting. Just the day before yesterday I was walking in a nearby town & I was passed by a young woman wearing shorts the length of knickers & literallly showing half of her gluteals. I thought that this book asks some tough questions even of feminists. However, one question it did not ask was too what extent are women influenced by the media? This is one of the most insulting things in my opinion about feminism, & I expected Levy to answer it. The fact that we are alll programmed & not capable of independent thought, bars any woman who dresses like this from criticism.
I like the fact that the author mentions the history of second wave feminism. The era between the 1960s & 1990s, & how some of todays notions of female empowerment contradict the ideals of second wave feminism. Even so callled Third Wave feminists. Whilst, the author criticises women who wear shorts so short they could be knickers & low cut tops. She also criticises women who dress & act like men. My questions to her would be with which women does she have the most sympathy, & which type is most threatening to the male patriarchy & why. Why when there is far more encouragement from the press & media is there not more encouragement for women to dress in male like tracksuits & act like men in a boardroom? Is the media encouraging one in hope to get rid of the other & if so why? The author in my opinion did not answer this question.
Despite this I give the book a high rating. It starts to ask some of the questions some feminists & other people want asked. I like the way it compares feminism of the 1960s & 1970s to modern day culture. The situation in the school is quite enlightening. Especiallly the part which involves the teachers trying to implement some sort of restrictions on what children can wear to school is very enlightening. I also would like to have read more history about feminism throughout the world. The fact that this book in it's entirety concerns feminism in the U.S.A, & nowhere else in the world. Ignores the history of feminism in other countries.
