In 2005, Simon & Schuster published what IMHO was a very insightful, rigorously reported and researched work of nonfiction by New York Magazine writer Ariel Levy called "Female Chauvinist Pigs:Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture."

The aim of the book was to examine and trace how the feminism of the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s got perverted and flipped on its head so that it turned into the "sex work is work," "degradation is empowering," "trans women are women", "biology is bigotry" BS known as "liberal feminism" or "fauxminism" that is still predominant today in 2021.

The book's title, "Female Chauvinist Pigs," is a play on the 1960s-era locution "male chauvinist pigs," meaning male sexists and male supremacists. Many feminists and our allies never liked the term at the time when it actually was in wide use - and when most people knew what it meant.

But that's neither here nor there. IMO, the main problem with giving Levy's book the title "Female Chauvinist Pigs" in 2005 was that it pretty much guaranteed that most of the young (or younger/youngish) women and men who were its target audience and beneficiaries wouldn't have a clue about what the title refers to - and therefore they'd pass it by.

Levy goes into many topics in the book that I think will be of interest to many people on this sub, such as the normalization of pornography, and the birth and spread of the cuckoo idea that the best way to women's liberation is by girls and women embracing "sex work" and our debasement.

But there's more to Levy's book too. It's also about lesbian erasure and the emerging trend of "trans."

In the book, Levy devotes a very long, interesting chapter (or maybe a couple of chapters, I can't remember) to what was happening amongst lesbians in SF and NYC in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She documented that there was a new trend afoot wherein lesbians were increasingly being pushed by other lesbians to go "trans" and take T, bind, get surgeries, and pretend to be men.

She further showed that back then, some lesbians were modeling their trans personas after misogynistic men who treated women like trash.

What's more, IMO, Levy did this in way that managed to convey worry, indeed alarm and horror, over what was happening amongst US lesbians while still not coming off as judgmental or disapproving of the individuals involved. (Perhaps, that is, with the exception of a "transman" who was particularly odious in her misogyny and proud of the way she mistreated her female lovers.)

But generally speaking, again IMO and only IMO, Levy was quite sympathetic to all and showed compassion and understanding for the difficult position these (mostly fairly young) homosexual women found themselves in, and were attempting to cope with, in an era that was becoming increasingly misogynistic, anti-feminist and toxic, particularly to lesbians.

Or at least that's the impression I got. I remember really being impressed at what a good job she did as a reporter and story-teller: she provided the facts in colorful detail and laid them all out in a way that made it very clear that what was going on was terrible, but she never came off - to me anyways - as condemnatory of individuals or the community. I recall thinking as a reporter and writer, I definitely could not have done anywhere near as good a job as she did.

Levy's book was pretty widely reviewed, read and spoken about back then... But I think it's faded into obscurity in part coz of the shit title, "Female Chauvinist Pigs."

Still, I highly recommend it. If anyone else here reads it, please start a thread and share what you think.