No, nothing to do with Gordon Ramsay, or swearing. Though I would happily swear at Gordon Ramsay.

Usually, I am a terrible reader. I can skim read the toss on the SMB for hours, but it pains me greatly that I am not very well read on the whole. The last time I read regularly (I have read books since though, honest) was in Australia, where I read 6 books in 6 weeks (hey, that's a lot for me) and then I got to the States and didn't read a single word of a book for a month.

Last week I made a detour into Books Etc on my way back through the station after lunch and came out with a few books, including one I'd heard of by Ariel Levy called "Female Chauvinst Pigs". I finished it this morning and I'm horribly disappointed that I won't spend the next week nodding in agreement every 5 minutes and looking like a nutcase on public transport. Because I loved it, and it said everything I've been thinking lately.

I've read a couple of articles recently about how the word "Feminist" and feminism as a culture are dirty words. They always dredge up the bra burning, which in turn conjures up ideas of dungarees, shaved heads (but nothing else shaved) and man hating communes. Utter bollocks of course, but never let a good cliche spoil our views of what's cool. Yesterday in the Guardian the article spoke about the fact that we've forgotten it was only 30 years ago it was perfectly legal to turn a woman down for a job...because she was a woman. It riles me, and I'm confused as to what feminism is, and should I believe in it? Is it about equality?

The book is about how women today are complicit in their own oppression of other women. It really made me think about how I see myself, how I act and how I view other women. I dismiss things as "girlie" but what's wrong with girlie? It made me think about whether the fact that I rarely wear make up, that I love football, that I drink, that I swear - whether those things are me trying to be something I'm plainly not - i.e. man. And does it have to be about gender? Can't I just love football without having to involve my sexuality in it? I go bananas if someone treats me "like a girl", but not because I don't want to be treated like a girl (whatever that means) but because I don't want to be treated differently. And yet, I still expect my male friends to see me safely home - is that reasonable?

Female Chauvinist Pigs is predominantly about what the author calls "Raunch culture", and I was there every step of the way with that one - almost a hallelujiah of agreement from me. It talks about value, and female role models, and how we're dangerously passing the idea down the line to teenagers that passing yourself off as sexually available, yet not being able to work out yet how you feel about sex yourself is the timebomb we're going to be facing.

It talks about how the idea that freedom for women only seems to mean sexual freedom, and it seems that anyone who takes this too seriously should lighten up a little. Ok, yes, I posted this on the SMB so I was asking for trouble, but I suggested it was about time we got rid of Page 3 and the general consensus was that I should "get a life", as if I can't take a joke.

The truth is, as noble as you want to be about it, the biggest currency for a woman is ultimately her looks (and even better, whether she takes it up the arse). Abi Titmuss - gets caught on camera - OH MY GOD shagging (naughty girl!) her boyfriend and goes overnight from professional nurse to famous late night television starlet, stripper workout video maker, and no doubt flippin rich cow in the process. She was cleaning up people's wee for a living, and so we make her rich and put her value in the fact that she gets her tits out and pouts a lot.

It happened before, and it'll happen again.

I'm a woman on the edge. This is what reading does for you...