Rules Do Not Apply (Levy) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—October 17, 1974
• Raised—Larchmont, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Wesleyan University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York


Ariel Levy is an American staff writer at The New Yorker magazine and the author of the books The Rules do Not Apply (2017) and Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (2005). Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, New Yorker, Vogue, Slate, and New York Times. Levy was named one of the "Forty Under 40" most influential out individuals in the June/July 2009 issue of The Advocate.

Early life and education
Levy was raised in Larchmont, New York, and says she knew from early on that she wanted to become a writer

I always wanted to be a writer, for as long as I can remember. I’ve kept a journal since at least the third grade—writing has always been my method for making sense of the world and my experience. Also, my dad is a writer so it seemed sort of natural.

She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1996 and claims that her experiences at the university, which had "coed showers, on principle," influenced her views regarding modern sexuality. After graduating, she was briefly employed by Planned Parenthood, but claims that she was fired because she is "an extremely poor typist." Not long after, she was hired by New York magazine.

Levy spent 12 years at New York magazine where, as a contributing editor, she wrote about John Waters, Stanley Bosworth, Donatella Versace, the writer George W. S. Trow, the feminist Andrea Dworkin, and the artists Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow.

In 2008, she moved to The New Yorker, becoming staff writer and publishing profiles of Cindy McCain, Silvio Berlusconi, Caster Semenya and Callista Gingrich. Levy has explored issues surrounding American drug use, gender roles, lesbian culture, and the popularity of U.S. pop culture staples such as Sex and the City. Some of these articles allude to Levy's personal thoughts on the status of modern feminism.

Culture critic
Levy criticized the pornographic video series Girls Gone Wild after she followed its camera crew for three days, interviewed both the makers of the series and the women who appeared on the videos, and commented on the series' concept and the debauchery she was witnessing. Many of the young women Levy spoke with believed that bawdy and liberated were synonymous.

Levy's experiences amid Girls Gone Wild appear again in Female Chauvinist Pigs, in which she attempts to explain "why young women today are embracing raunchy aspects of our culture that would likely have caused their feminist foremothers to vomit."

In today's culture, Levy writes, the idea of a woman participating in a wet T-shirt contest or being comfortable watching explicit pornography has become a symbol of strength; she says that she was surprised at how many people, both men and women, working for programs such as Girls Gone Wild told her that this new "raunch" culture marked not the downfall of feminism but its triumph, but Levy is unconvinced.

Levy's work is anthologized in The Best American Essays of 2008, New York Stories, and 30 Ways of Looking at Hillary.

Personal life
In 2013 she wrote about losing her unborn baby at 19 weeks while traveling alone in Mongolia, which became the basis for her 2017 memoir Rules Do Not Apply. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retieved 3/1/2017.)