Misogyny in Brave New World
I believe the way Huxley portrays and treats the female population reflects the inequalities in gender and misogyny in the early 20th century society which the novel was written in. I have read and analysed articles on this matter and have found them to all generally agree with my hypothesis. One thing I have found interesting is that I have found no articles written before the 1990’s on the gender issue in Brave New World. This could show how only recently it is becoming apparent to us in our society of a gender bias. Another important thing to note is that not all the critical essays I read were written by women; David Leon Higdon wrote a compelling article which proves that the misogyny and inequality in Brave New World is not something that takes a female feminist activist to point out. I have also read two other articles written by female authors, one being an anonymous UK student, and the other June Deery. For the most part, I wholly agreed with the points they made about the gender bias in Huxley’s work.
Lenina, a vaccination worker and lover of John the Savage, is seemingly denied a role of a rebel by Huxley in Brave New World. For example, near the beginning of the book, Lenina’s behaviour is rather unorthodox. She wears green, instead of the grey or maroon uniform which she is expected to wear as an alpha or beta (which particular one, we are not told). Instead of conforming to the society’s conventions of freely having casual sex with anyone, she exclusively dates one particular man for weeks on end. David Leon Higdon makes a significant point on this topic: “Rather than confronting, developing, and enabling her rebellion, Huxley’s text takes revenge on her and virtually humiliates her back into the confines of the systems. It callously violates her characterisation in the early chapters.” After reading his article, I realised how true this statement was. Lenina was built up with the potential to have a strong rebellious role in the book; but come
Lenina, a vaccination worker and lover of John the Savage, is seemingly denied a role of a rebel by Huxley in Brave New World. For example, near the beginning of the book, Lenina’s behaviour is rather unorthodox. She wears green, instead of the grey or maroon uniform which she is expected to wear as an alpha or beta (which particular one, we are not told). Instead of conforming to the society’s conventions of freely having casual sex with anyone, she exclusively dates one particular man for weeks on end. David Leon Higdon makes a significant point on this topic: “Rather than confronting, developing, and enabling her rebellion, Huxley’s text takes revenge on her and virtually humiliates her back into the confines of the systems. It callously violates her characterisation in the early chapters.” After reading his article, I realised how true this statement was. Lenina was built up with the potential to have a strong rebellious role in the book; but come