Levy was raised in aJewish family[5] inLarchmont, New York, and attendedWesleyan University in the 1990s, graduating in 1996. She says that her experiences at Wesleyan, which had "coed showers, on principle,"[6] strongly influenced her views regardingmodern sexuality.[7] After graduating from Wesleyan, she was briefly employed byPlanned Parenthood but claims that she was fired because she is "an extremely poor typist."[8] She was hired byNew York magazine shortly thereafter.
Levy criticized thepornographic video seriesGirls 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 thatbawdy andliberated were synonymous.
Levy's experiences amidGirls Gone Wild appear again inFemale 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 asGirls Gone Wild told her that this new "raunch" culture marked not thedownfall of feminism but itstriumph, but Levy was unconvinced.
In 2013The New Yorker published her essay, "Thanksgiving in Mongolia" about the loss of her newly-born son at 19 weeks while traveling alone in Mongolia.[9] In March 2017, Random House published Levy's book,The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir, about her miscarriage, an affair, her spouse's alcoholism, and their eventual divorce.[10][11]
In April 2020, Levy wrote a controversial article forThe New Yorker aboutRenee Bach, a white American missionary accused of pretending to be a medical professional and performing procedures on Ugandan children.[13] Levy took a sympathetic view towards Bach. The groupNo White Saviors, whose co-founder, Kelsey Nielsen, was interviewed for the article, demanded a full retraction and apology, claiming Nielsen was misquoted and discredited, and that Levy "underrepresented and manipulated" the experiences of alleged victims and purposely left out evidence against Bach in the article.[14]
Levy is openly bisexual.[16] She married Amy Norquist in 2007.[17] They divorced in 2012.[18] Levy chronicled the divorce in her memoir.[19] In 2017, she married John Gasson, a doctor from South Africa who tended to her during her miscarriage in Mongolia.[20]
— (2011). "Female chauvinist pigs". In Rosenblum, Karen E. & Toni-Michelle C. Travis (eds.).The meaning of difference : American constructions of race, sex and gender, social class, sexual orientation, and disability : a text/reader (6th ed.). Dubuque, Iowa: McGraw-Hill.
— (January 2, 2012). "Drug test". Letter from Bangalore.The New Yorker.87 (42):30–36.[a]
— (March 4, 2013)."Gaonnuri". Goings on About Town. Tables for Two.The New Yorker.89 (3): 10.
— (March 18, 2013)."Bagman". The Talk of the Town. Dept. of Coveting.The New Yorker.89 (5): 25.
