Emily Maguire’s Princesses and Pornstars is a call for the recognition that feminism is still a necessity in contemporary Western society and beyond because of the bipolar images and representations of women. Written in an accessible and highly anecdotal style, Maguire demonstrates how the political impacts the experiences and limitations of our personal lives, and how the feminist fight is not even close to being over. It offers a reasoned argument for the abolition of outdated gender binaries in order to take that step closer toward the ideal of equality.

Maguire’s central arguments are what you would expect: female sexuality as commodity, how culture reinforces gender roles and how conflicting messages screw with our perception of ourselves. The idea of sexuality as the most valuable commodity a woman has continues to reign supreme, promoting harmful notions of control of female sexuality – in the social (the stigma and meaning of “slut”) and political sphere (women’s reproductive health issues). Cultural images of female empowerment for the most part merely reinforce traditional gender roles – princess culture and hyper-sexualized popstars (here Maguire builds on Ariel Levy’s raunch culture argument) – offering young women a space to explore themselves but only within the boundaries of what society defines as acceptable outlets. The Madonna/whore dichotomy is still at work, princess/popstar, offered under the guise of female empowerment. There is still a widespread, ingrained belief that woman’s essential being lies with her sexuality and her image. Look around you. It’s everywhere.

The dilemma at the heart of male reactions to feminism is rooted in the fact that the traditional values of masculinity depend on the oppression or subservience of women for their expression.

Maguire looks at sex education in Australian high schools to highlight how little we are teaching female students about their bodies, and how what is being taught encourages particular political messages regarding the position of women in society, and the methods that students have to resort to in order to learn – Dolly Doctor anyone? The chapter on marriage and the negative social stigma of the single woman and the assumption of motherhood as woman’s natural role is eye-opening and of particular interest to me. Social constraints are constantly impounding upon our personal choices, and we have to not only be able to see them at work, but to actively confront and challenge them. The complex pornography argument arises too, with a look at mainstream porn, alt-porn, and Maguire manages to articulate what unsettles me about the whole alt-porn phenomenon in a way I have never been able to:

[...] the genre nevertheless does push its own version of the ‘perfect woman’: tattoos, dyed hair (blue-black, magenta or peroxide), piercings and pale skin. And even if the women look ‘alternative’ (or, you know, normal), the existence of the site is still dependent on the idea that women must look a certain way for the pleasure of a male audience. Just because you’re all done up like Bettie Page doesn’t mean you’re retro or transgressive. It’s only another costume like air hostess or naughty schoolgirl. [...]
In a sense sites like SuicideGirls are more troubling than mainstream sites because they let the buyers off the hook. A man can pretend to himself that he is deep, sensitive and caring because the chick he’s wanking over is, like him, deep and sensitive, not like the big-titted blond whores at hotwetsluts.com. The SuicideGirl models fit the perfect image of a certain type of guy who loves girls who are tortured and angsty, who write poetry and maybe cut on their wrists a little, who are wild and crazy angry and tough, but who are also small and vulnerable and in need of a deep, emo dude to help them cope with life. And also, they’re way sexy. The men who get off on this particular male fantasy get to masturbate to images that make them feel like a saviour rather than an exploiter.

Although I really enjoyed Maguire’s arguments in Princesses and Pornstars, at times the chapters felt like introductory newspaper columns about a multitude of issues, issues which deserve more time devoted to them. But, as an introduction to the continuing importance of feminism and the basic concerns we face now, it provides a strong and vital message. It has encouraged me to seek out further reading along similar lines. Thankfully, Maguire has included a list of “suggested reading” to guide the reader in the right direction.