Sexism In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Aldous Huxley foresaw a number of incredible triumphs in his novel, Brave New World, but it seems that at no point in the near, or even distant future, was liberation for women an attainable goal for him. In fact, despite the dystopic nature of his novel, Huxley created a world that is hauntingly similar to our own. From women who are forced into inferiority, to an involuntary ideology of promiscuity, Aldous Huxley wrote it all. As a result, it seems that ‘Brave New World’ is just another second-rate replica of the misogynistic 1900s society that has been written a million times before.

So why, ladies and gentlemen, do books that tell the same sexist story become the must-reads of the 21st century? Is it because the misogyny portrayed in these

Similarly, Huxley had a fundamental notion of promiscuity and free love in his novel. However, despite the external appearance of the promiscuity of the brave new world; it is under no circumstance liberating for anyone involved. In fact, the brave new worlders are forced to partake in sexual acts from a young age, and are deemed ‘abnormal’ if they refuse. From sleep teaching to peer pressure, Huxley’s characters were forced to practice free love. Likewise, in modern culture young boys are encouraged to be promiscuous and are celebrated for having multiple sexual partners, but women are instead shamed for it, it’s a heinous double standard that has existed for thousands of years. However, despite this idea that a woman’s promiscuity is undesirable, pornography continues to be one of the most popular and profitable platforms worldwide, with over one and a half billion internet searches since the beginning of this year. In fact, 1 in 5 mobile searches are for explicit material, and the top 4 searches on pornography websites are largely female orientated. Yet, many men and women are still repulsed when a woman chooses to take control of her own sexuality, despite this newfound normativity of nudity that the ever-growing popularity of porn brings. Why has the belief become that a woman is idolised if she is forcibly sexual and submissive to her male partner, but is shunned when she takes control of her own body. This attitude has now escalated to a point where it is twice as likely for a photo of a mother breastfeeding her child to be removed from Facebook than a photo of a porn-star without