The New Levy?

Susan B. Douglas, a Communications Professor at the University of Michigan recently published a new book - entitled "Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work is Done" - that has won some considerable praise. Building off of many of the points Ariel Levy makes in "Female Chauvinist Pigs," Douglas looks at how "glam representations of women calling the shots" are in fact deceiving us today. Click here to read a review of her book in ELLE magazine.

News Flash #1: Meg Whitman: California's 'Manly Girl'

In a recent Slate article, contributor Sara Libby comments on the highly-discussed campaign of Meg Whitman for California governor. While the article – entitled “Meg Whitman: California’s ‘Manly Girl’” – spends some time looking at the leading Republican candidate’s policy objectives and qualifications, the bulk of the article, as suggested by its title, looks at how Whitman defies the boundaries of the typical woman political candidate. Seen by many to be the “anti-Palin,” Libby describes Whitman as no “40-something pinup,” but an incredibly driven individual who finished high-school in three years, enrolled in Harvard business school at 21, and led a small start-up known as eBay from $4 million to over $8 billion in annual revenues during her tenure as CEO (Libby). Yet despite Whitman’s clear “competence and cunning,” her “spine of steel” attitude – which commentators have often equated to being on par with her male counterparts – appears to be the topic of much concern amongst the public. While Libby has her own opinions on Whitman’s “somewhat flat and overly practical” operating principle, it is the manner in which she discusses female voters and Whitman’s lack of appeal to them that troubled me most (Libby).

The title of Libby’s article cleverly plays off the pejorative term “girlie men” which was first coined by SNL and subsequently used by current California governor Schwarzenegger to describe his opponents who lacked necessary “guts” (Nicholas, 2004, A-7). Unlike Schwarzenegger’s typical “girlie men” rivals, Libby suggests that Whitman can be seen as a “manly girl” (Libby, 2010). Not only is Whitman uninterested in “fashion and decorating,” but she is also a cutthroat CEO which Libby suggests can be seen through her stances on cutting welfare and other aid programs. However, power-women such as Whitman have become quite common these days and whether one believes the attitudes of these women are in fact innate or an attempt to ‘perform’ the gender role of the male, society appears to have become accepting of women who can lead Fortune 500 companies as well as men.
What is most troubling about Libby’s article, however, are the subtle references that she makes regarding Whitman and how she is less of a girl and more “manly” with respects to her stoic demeanor regarding personal matters. Libby comments that “when [Whitman] reveals personal details, she does it with the spontaneity…of Al Gore.” Additionally, Libby criticizes Whitman’s recent book – The Power of Many – stating that “the few moments of personal trauma included are described in PowerPoint-ready sound bites” and that “when she refers to her marriage to neurosurgeon Griffith Harsh IV as the ‘Whitman-Harsh merger,’ it's not entirely clear whether she's joking” (Libby). Libby’s comments got me thinking as to why she so desperately seems to be in need of these personal details? What is also quite interesting is that Libby writes her article in the ‘Double XX’ section of Slate – a collection of news stories and Op-Ed pieces that are dedicated to looking at ‘what women really think about news, politics, and culture.’ Does Libby’s comment regarding Whitman’s lack of personal exposure suggest that as women, the one thing we expect from other women is an emotional component? And are we skeptical of women who never show their “softer side,” an act Libby states that Whitman has failed to do (Libby).

After reading Libby’s article, I was intrigued by her comments regarding Whitman’s book and figured it would be interesting to read a portion of it and make my own judgments on whether Whitman’s book was entirely stoic and unrelatable. On the contrary, I found Whitman’s book to be an enjoyable read. I was half-expecting to pick up a book that read like a computer manual but instead was pleased to find a very readable, and even at times, personal story. For example, in the section “Be Authentic. You Can’t Buy Integrity,” Whitman discusses how at times in your life you have to make sacrifices in order to achieve your goals and reach success. She recounts a story of another mother refusing to let her children carpool with Whitman’s because the woman “did not quit her job as a banker to stay home and take care of my children so that I could hand them over to someone else’s nanny” (Whitman, 2010, 84). Whitman recalls how the mother’s comment took her six months to recover from and personally, I can’t really see someone getting much more personal than this.

Anne Fausto-Sterling, in her book Sexing the Body, discusses at length the role of gender roles in our society and our inability to fathom characteristics of specific genders as actually inherent in the opposite sex. For example, an aggressive woman is simply a woman ‘acting’ aggressive; she is not actually aggressive, she has simply learned from her male counterparts how to behave in a certain manner. Additionally, during our class discussion following our reading of Ariel Levy’s “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” we talked at length about the difference between “acting” or “performing” gender and actually being a person with qualities and characteristics that are normally described as manly. And now after reading Libby’s article and trying to pin-point where in the literature we have come across instances of women dealing with other women who defy the normal mold, I realize I am unable to find anything on the matter. Although Levy talks about how FCPs “perform gender” and how even amongst lesbian and transsexual couples there still exists a tendency to reinforce gender roles, she fails to ever comment on the large body of present-day women who either do hold these high-up positions and are not “playing” gender as well as women who judge these power-women for not spending their days at home with the children. I think Levy is very quick to categorize modern women into categories which I believe Fausto-Sterling would suggest is a result of needing to understand the world through the male-female dichotomy. A woman can’t simply be naturally uninterested in fashion and have a raging temper – these characteristics must have been learned and are an act. Similarly, I believe that Whitman’s innate sense of drive and power – which Whitman attributes to her strong-willed mother who served as an airplane and truck mechanic for the Red Cross in New Guinea during World War II – confuses and slightly frightens many women because we cannot categorize these attributes as easily as we would like. Sarah Palin is clearly a woman, Hilary Clinton – despite her affinity for pantsuits – showed the world she was a woman when she cried on public television, and the executives that Levy discusses in “Female Chauvinist Pigs” are all very womanly with their high-heels and short-skirts despite their propensity to use crash language and keep up with the guys. I view Meg Whitman to be very similar to author Jennifer Reid Maxcy Myhre. Myhre, who at a certain point in her life stopped forcing herself to act like a girl and cut her hair and stopped shaving her legs, describes how her mere presence on the streets illicits daily looks of utter confusion (Myhre, Listen Up, 86). Unlike a transsexual or cross-dresser who is trying to perform a clear act of gender, Myhre’s presence is particularly troubling because her natural self is not clearly “feminine” or “masculine” – she naturally appears to be some sort of hybrid of the two socially constructed ideas. Similarly, after reading through portions of Whitman’s book, I got the sense that she never was trying to “perform” a certain gender. She was who she was and lived her life accordingly. She even at one point explains why she’s not interested in fashion – a clear response to the many criticisms people have against her. In the section “Focus Demands Discipline,” Whitman explains how her priorities have always been her family and work (Whitman, 184). In her free time, she explains that she preferred to be hiking with her family or helping her sons with their homework instead of attending public functions or going shopping. And when recalling a time when a male friend or hers bought her a very fashionable Armani suit, she writes that “I accepted his gift and I loved wearing it, but would I have taken time away from Griff and the boys to go shopping during that crazy, hectic period? No” (Whitman, 184).

Whitman appears to be honestly uninterested in fashion and good at what she does, yet Libby’s article I believe only reinforces one of the problems that we have been studying in this class – that people in society still are programmed in a bi-polar system and are weary of those who break the mold. What I thought was most telling in Libby’s article is when she discusses Whitman’s polling results and her inability to “attract sisterly support” (Libby). Libby shows that Whitman is much more ahead of her Republican and Democratic candidates with regards to the male vote – meaning she is much more popular with male voters than women. Why is it that women are not supporting this woman while men overwhelmingly are? It also seems as though women, as Libby clearly presents, are ill at-ease with this woman who has defied traditional roles her whole life. Although we commonly speak of the “patriarchal system” we live in and how men have dominated the terms on which women live, I also believe that women have a hand in perpetuating this cycle. A political candidate should not be spending time explaining why she is uninterested in fashion and be criticized for being a terrible mother when her child gets suspended from school – both attacks that we never see male candidates having to respond to. Instead of continually questioning those who do not conform to the mold and trying to uncover the “motives” behind their actions, it seems like it is about time to simply look at people for who they are and whether or not they are qualified.


Works Cited:

Fausto-Sterling, Anne (2000). Sexing the Body. New York, New York: Basic Books.
Levy, Ariel (2005). Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster.

Libby, Sara (February 9, 2010). “Meg Whitman: California’s ‘Manly Girl.’” Slate Magazine - http://www.slate.com/id/2243540.

Whitman, Meg (2010). The Power of Many. New York, New York: Crown Publishers.

Commnet: Walker and Shah and Female Sexual Power

I agree with Dave that on the outset, the Collins’ article looks promising. Black sexuality has in fact been “consistently associated with animalistic and wild sex characteristics,” has of course transformed through the new realm of media, and consequently remains “repressed” – according to Collins – in current society. However, in her article – “Why Black Sexual Politics?” – I feel as though Collins is unable to effectively convey her points as past authors have – leaving her, in fact strong, arguments to be contested and even perhaps rejected.

After giving her examples of J.Lo, Destiny’s Child, and several other historical black women who embodied sexuality, she goes on to look at colonial perceptions of black sexuality. I enjoyed her inclusion of looking at how colonial perceptions of black sexuality have influenced the way we currently look at the matter; however, her quick turn to discussing the current corporate structure and how it disadvantages blacks, dominates current governments, and leads to mass migrations of people between nation-states simply overpowers the point she seems to be trying to make – that this new globalization has led to a new racism via the frequent intermixing of people and ideologies (and myths) as well as the immediate information exchange that is now at our fingertips. The crux of her argument I believe is buried within her drawn-out examples two pages later; she states, “The outcome is reconfigured social hierarchies of race, class, gender, and sexuality, with people of African descent clumped at the bottom. The new racism also relies more heavily on mass media to reproduce and disseminate the ideologies needed to justify reason” (34).

Unfortunately, Collins’ unordered writing continues. She begins to touch upon her main point regarding black sexual repression, stating that “sexual regulation occurs through repress, both by eliminating sexual alternatives and by shaping the public debates that do exist” (36). She further adds that “in order to prosper, systems of oppression must regulate sexuality, and they often do so by manufacturing ideologies that render some ideas commonsensical while obscuring others” (36). While I believe that her points are well-stated and immensely observant, she once again ‘obscures’ her own point by going off on tangents that I felt in no way supported her argument. Her discussion about the Reagan campaign and emergence of the ‘family values’ mentality serves in part to understand the “oppressing system,” but even Collins admits that “this historical and contemporary agenda that has suppressed and often censored a range of ideas concerning human sexuality has made it difficult to have open, candid, and fact-based public debates” (37). Here, she again fails to answer the question of her article, “Why black sexual politics?” She continues to make interesting points regarding research on human sexuality and how all sexuality apart from heterosexuality has been oppressed (giving many examples of sex education programs to support her claims), yet she again only points out problems that all of society must deal with and fight against, not ones just pertinent to the black community.

Finally, Collins comes to what I believe she may see as her best point yet. She discusses how TV talk shows like the Maury Show and Jerry Springer perfectly demonstrate how blacks are perceived in this culture – or as she claims, “in a particularly stark light” (39). She talks about only one specific example of a single black mother attempting to find the father of her child, yet after going through the nine possibilities on the show, she is still left not knowing who the father is. Collins links this instance to her previous points about animalistic sexuality being associated with blacks by concluding that Maury’s attempt to go console the talk show guest behind stage (an act every talk show host does for contestants of all races) is only another example of how we view black sexuality. She states in her footnotes that “like the orgasmic cum shot of pornographic films, the money shot of talk shows makes visible the precise moment of letting go, or losing control, or surrendering to the body and its animal emotions” (315). First, she once again doesn’t claim that this “money shot” is only true of black talk show guests because it in no way is not. I used to watch those trashy shows all the time when I was younger, and I never felt that the show was predominantly black or white. There always were guests of both races on the show, and quick YouTube search proves just that (in fact, out of the 20 videos that show up on the first page when one searches "Maury show paternity, there are equal number of clips of white woman seeking paternity as are black woman). It is unfortunate, however, that one of her main supporting examples is as flawed as it is. Even though I disapproved of Levy’s tendency to highlight one perfect example to make overarching conclusions, one has to admit that the examples Levy chose at least exemplified her points perfectly, unlike Collins’.

I believe that Collins’ article raises important issues that we need to discuss in this class and throughout our experiences with current cultural and media representations of sexuality. We need to be aware of Shah’s “cultural duality” that exists, however, I feel as though Collins’ article fails to articulately convey its importance and that more work in the field is necessary so that students of classes such as ours are able to more effectively engage with the issues. Walker’s shot five page anecdote leads the reader to consider a host of issues that we have been dealing with, while Collin’s 16 page piece simply perplexes.

News Flash: Twitter Gets Way Personal

Julia Baird’s article in Newsweek entitled “Twitter Gets Way Personal” discusses how a woman in Florida named Angie Jackson recently provided people with a live Twitter-feed during her abortion. It is important to question what this act is saying about the role of media in our society, and it is also important to analyze Jackson’s case in regards to the effect it can have on women’s issues. Although Jackson attempted to use a form of media to normalize the act of getting an abortion in the hope of overcoming the negative stigma associated with it, she may have actually done more harm for women than good. By providing these graphic and raw details of her body during an abortion, Jackson is perpetuating the notion of the female body being “disordered,” “abnormal,” “unclean,” and “diseased,” and she is actually causing women to think twice about having an abortion instead of making the process seem more normal.

Firstly, it is important to realize that all of this is only possible due to the advancement of media in our society, and it is because of the increasing ways for us to communicate with one another that stories like this will emerge. The media is extremely influential when it comes to adopting gender role ideology and perpetuating gender stereotypes in our society. Advertisements, magazines, movies, music videos, and other forms of media all contribute to and endorse a hierarchy of gender and provide us with information about sex. Not only does the media shape our views in regards to gender, but it also shapes our ideas when it comes to body image and what is considered to be “the norm.” More specifically, society endorses the belief that the female body is diseased, disordered, or unclean when compared to the norm of the male body. There are countless advertisements for scented tampons or ways to remove body hair, indicating that a woman’s body is not natural and needs to be altered.

In Baird’s article, she explains that Jackson’s Twitter account provided her followers with immediate information about her abortion. At first glance, this can be seen as a positive improvement in regards to how women are represented through media because there is no longer a mediator that negotiates what information is published, where it is published, and what context it is published in. The instant news feed of Jackson’s abortion is a way for her to tell her own story and to express her sexuality and beliefs the way she wants to. This is a direct contrast to what we saw in Gloria Steinem’s article entitled “Sex, Lies, and Advertising.” Steinem conveyed that advertisements are arranged with specific intent and that companies target a pre-established notion of what a woman should look and act like, excluding women who do not fit this mold (Steinem). In a way, Jackson’s ability to take media into her own hands can be seen as an improvement to alternate media forms.

However, Jackson’s act of Twittering during her abortion fails to use her power over the media in a positive manner. She ends up providing information that has negative consequences in relation to how the female body is viewed in society. The way that Jackson describes her body during her abortion is consistent with society’s notion of the female body being diseased, unclean, and disordered. Jackson’s comments and details of the abortion portray her body negatively and endorse the idea in society that a woman’s body needs to be “fixed,” or that it is inherently abnormal due to the changes that result from pregnancy and menstruation. When asked what she told her child about her abortion she responded with “I said that mommy was very sick with something called a fetus” (Baird). The language used to describe pregnancy in this case implies that her body is “diseased” instead of viewing pregnancy as a natural biological process and abortion as a safe alternative for a woman who does not choose to carry out her pregnancy. She provides other graphic details about cramps, bleeding, and dissolving pills, and this further underscores how Jackson is perpetuating this idea of a diseased, unclean female body. This portrayal of the female body is problematic because it allows us to think of male bodies as “healthy” and “natural”; because men do not get pregnant, do not menstruate, and do not have abortions, they are deemed normal and “healthy.” This concept can be highlighted in Fausto-Sterling’s article entitled “Hormonal Hurricanes,” where she explains how menstruation is often deemed abnormal and is seen to produce unnatural effects in women (Fausto-Sterling 121). Jackson unknowingly perpetuates this ideology through her vivid description of how her body is reacting to the abortion.

As alluded to above, there is a major problem with this increasing inter-connectedness in the media, and that is the constant availability of uncensored information. The fact that Jackson is able to provide this raw detail and emotion without any type of mediator can be shocking for some people, and this direct link between the author of the piece and the public will be interpreted differently by all different types of people. For example, the details about cramping and bleeding may deter some women from wanting to get an abortion simply out of fear. In Jackson’s effort to serve as a link to others and to eradicate the negative stigma associated with getting one, she may be doing exactly the opposite. Presenting people with this uncensored, raw experience of having an abortion will help pro-life supporters justify why abortions should be avoided.

Finally, the fact that a woman is providing a live Twitter-feed during her abortion demeans the act of having an abortion, and instead of normalizing the process it makes a mockery of it. In Baird’s article she recalls one woman who was talking about having a miscarriage at work and the women claimed, “It’s no different to me saying what I had for lunch” (Baird). This attitude toward the female body does not necessarily allow others to feel open and comfortable in disclosing similar information, it simply demeans what is really occurring. Abortion and miscarriage are serious issues that can affect the health of a woman, and there is no reason why they should be viewed as the equivalent of a sandwich. Instead of endorsing a woman’s right to choose and creating awareness of safe options for women, Jackson is using her Twitter to trivialize the act of having an abortion, and is ultimately being counterproductive to her effort.

In conclusion, Jackson’s decision to Twitter during her abortion will be interpreted differently by everyone. However, it remains clear that when discussing processes related to the female body there is often a negative stigma of unnatural, abnormal, and disordered attached to these processes. This event highlights how important media can be not only in forming our ideas and beliefs, but also in perpetuating these ideas and beliefs. It is especially interesting that in this case this occurred unconsciously; Jackson believed that she was actually helping women, and I am sure that she may have helped some, but in reality she was perpetuating the imperfect view that society has adopted for the female body.

Walker and Shah and Female Sexual Power

The Collins, Walker, and Shah articles present unique and interesting perspectives with regard to feminism, sexuality, and racial/ethnic/cultural differences in both modern American culture, as well as several cultures from the past. While there was one particular topic that linked all three articles: the controversial notion—or question—of black/ethnic sexual power, I was most intrigued by the connections between Walker and Shah’s article, as they each provide a distinct point of view with regard to female sexual power in general, a topic which we have discussed at great length (particularly with regard to Levy).

Walker, a black woman who “had sex young and, after the initial awkwardness, loved it,” is predominantly concerned with sexual power for women in general, her race entering the discussion as more of a side-note or afterthought. Walker hopes to communicate that sexual intercourse and advanced/pre-mature sexuality is not necessarily a bad thing. Walker accounts for the negative aspects of advanced sexuality, and how attention through “chamelionlike identities” can often be misinterpreted as sexual power. However, Walker also indicates that while she did exercise a component of this chameleon like behavior in order to “master the art” of having different men (with different preferences for women) fall in love with her, there were also other elements to here advanced sexuality that did, indeed, make it something powerful; she argues “my quest was not simply a search for popularity, but a definite assertion of my own nascent erotic power.” She equates knowledge with power, and indicates that a knowledge of sex and sexuality meant increased power for her; in reading Walker, I could not help but think of Levy, and how she would have been quick to challenge most of these points.

That being said, Shah might also challenge Walker’s ideas. Shah, a professed feminist, is concerned with her sister’s advancing sexuality and tendencies towards tight clothing, which she deems to be something her sister is only doing in order to gain the “popularity” and “attention” that Walker spoke of in her article. Shah was not only concerned with her sister’s “self-objectifying” behavior in the context of American culture, but she was even more displeased to discover that her parents essentially sanctioned such behavior, as long as it was in the context of her true Indian heritage. For me, the conversation that occurred between Shah and her sister on page 225 stood out: Shah questions her sister’s choice in clothing, pushing her sister to admit that she only dresses the way she does in order to impress and attract boys, but ultimately, her sister responds “I like these clothes for me.” Whether or not Shah’s sister is being truthful at this point is not clear, however, I think that Walker might have made a valid point about this conversation—that although some girls and women dress a certain way to gain popularity, that does not mean that there are not “healthy” components to her sexuality as well. I think that Walker makes her case most poignantly when she states, “Fortunately, there is no magic recipe for a healthy sexuality; each person comes into her or his own sexual power through a different route at her or his own pace.” Indeed, I believe that the various feminist camps are quick to judge certain components of female sexuality, and it is important to weigh the different aspects, as Walker has.

Hormonal Hurricanes, Sexton, and Valdes

I truly appreciated Fausto-Sterling’s article, “Hormonal Hurricanes,” for its underlying sarcasm – whether written intentionally at the time or only obvious to readers now because of the progress that the medical community and society has made in understanding the reproductive processes of women. In discussing all of the diseases and problems associated with menstruation, Fausto-Sterling suggests that “If menstruation really casts such a dark shadow on women’s lives, we ought certainly to know more about it – how it works, whether it can be controlled, and whether it indeed warrants the high level of concern expressed by some” (93). While her suggestions seem completely logical to the current reader, her proposal – put forth in 1987 – went entirely against the trends in the medical community regarding research on women’s reproductive systems. As she points out, the studies were unacceptably incomplete, methodologies were flawed, and most shockingly was that Fausto-Sterling seems to be one of the first persons to highlight these research deficiencies and their resulting effects they have had on public opinion. Fausto-Sterling poignantly states that “[the fact] that so many scientists have been able for so long to do such poor research attests to both the unconscious social agendas of many of the researchers and to the theoretical inadequacy of the research framework used in the field as a whole” (101). While Fausto-Sterling’s article left me feeling extremely appreciative by how far society has come throughout the my lifetime, it also made me consider the present-day feminist debates and where we go from here now that problems of brain size or no longer the problem.

I truly believe that for the most part, the majority of society has done away with the notion that feminine hormones are a disease and are other than ‘normal’. And while biological claims for women not being able to participate equally in society – such as education and demanding work – are no longer present, what still remains is the question of how we now must face true biological differences. Within the current feminist movement, there are two sides. There are those that feel that any acknowledgement of difference leads to discrimination and must be done away with: no segregated bathrooms, no separate sports teams, nothing. However, others suggest that it is fine to recognize biological difference and that equality can be recognized simultaneously acknowledging inherent differences. I believe the current debate is almost even more difficult to resolve because we can no longer prove that women are just as equal to men in all facets of life. It is undeniable that men are stronger, for example. What I think is the problem is this idea of “being equal.” Fausto-Sterling touches upon this idea in a different capacity when she discusses male systems and behavior as normal. Why can’t female strength and male strength both be seen as the norm, and female strength not be considered as “not equal to male strength” and instead just another form of strength? While are society and medical community has progressed immensely since 1987, what still remains is a male-dominated conception of normal. And while I consider myself in the camp of those who believe that women do not need to ignore their differences, I do believe that these differences will continue to be seen as problems, deficiencies, or inadequacies until both male and female characteristics are equally consider normal, and not one above the other.

Advertising and The Body Project

Steinem’s article and Brumberg’s article both discuss ways in which women receive and emit messages of identity through body expression and through images seen in advertisements on television and in magazines. Steinem’s article presented several interesting issues to ponder. Hearing the perspective from an insider helped confirm some of the beliefs I had about advertising in magazines, and it also provided me with new information. Steinem’s explanation of how important the content of the editorials surrounding the advertisements can be was extremely interesting, and I was also surprised at how picky the companies can be. For example, Eastern airline did not want to be advertised in a magazine that featured lesbian poets because they claimed to be a family airline and their consumer may get the wrong idea. In addition, I thought her point about how Ms only incorporates media for white women and that black and Hispanic media were excluded even though there were black and Hispanic readers was compelling. This made me think of the ways in which people in power, and in this case corporations, solidify the type of consumers that buy their products. This idea is highlighted with the following quote: “The main function was to create a desire for products, teach how to use products, and make products a crucial part of gaining social approval, pleasing a husband, and performing as a homemaker. Some unrelated articles and short stories were included to persuade women to pay for these catalogs. But articles were neither consumerist nor rebellious.” This quote shows how gender and racial norms are reinforced and perpetuated through advertising content and placement. Despite these challenges, I think that Steinem does a great job of presenting direct and feasible solutions for her readers. The solutions appeal to people and suggest direct ways in which we can make a difference.

In addition, Brumberg’s article also discusses ways in which women are constantly being asked to establish an identity based on appearance. She makes the point that adolescent women are constantly defining their self-esteem based on external factors rather than internal ones. I also think that her point about how mass-produced clothing enabled women to gain autonomy when it came to appearance because it took the control out of the hands of their mothers is interesting because while this was true at the time, I think that today mass-produced clothing decreases autonomy and encourages women to conform. Women and men are constantly conforming when they buy the latest jacket, or purchase the sneaker that is “in.” Finally, I thought that Brumberg’s discussion about body piercing was also especially thought provoking. I liked how she discussed body piercing as a form of rebellion for certain aspects of culture, and I think that her point about the increasing difficulty in creating a level of intimacy in relationships was a good one. She claims that it is no longer sufficient for a woman to wear her boyfriend’s class ring and to allow this to be their intimate connection; women are now resorting to nipple piercings and genital piercings to share this intimacy due to the fact that the boundary between public and private has become so blurred.