1960s Counterculture - It's ruined feminism.

Disclaimer: this blog was written at ungodly hours by a very sleep-deprived individual who, at the time of writing, lacked the energy to be anything but brutally honest. As such, ideas written here may be considered offensive.

Dear Society...

Modern feminism is a joke.

By ‘modern’, I mean the pro-sex, radical feminism that’s dominated the women’s movement ever since the counterculture of the 1960s. Counterculture, namely the sexual revolution, has had an adverse effect on feminism and society, by normalising casual sex and inspiring the rise of promiscuity in women. Modern feminism now supports bullsh*t like ‘hook-up culture’, and sells it as ‘sexual liberation’, when really all hook-up culture does is encourage the harmful sexualisation of women. But let me take a step back and explain all of this.

Counterculture.

Let’s begin with counterculture. It’s only recently that I’ve come to the realisation that the reason behind modern feminism’s deranged support of ‘sexual liberation’ is the counterculture of the 1960s – and it’s all thanks to Helen Garner’s outstanding first novel, Monkey Grip. The book is notorious for the realist style that it’s been written in, and has been accepted as a classic of Australian modern literature. Set in the 1960s within the countercultural communities of the inner suburbs of Melbourne, Monkey Grip follows the counterculture-influenced daily life of single mother Nora, and her toxic relationship with a heroin addict named Javo.

Whilst the novel’s plot is exceptionally boring (or actually, non-existent), Garner does an excellent job in depicting what counterculture was truly like in the 60s, and how it affected society at the time. But counterculture in its entirety is too complex and just simply too much to cover (especially considering the word limit of a measly 1000 words set by ‘the people in charge’), so I’ll focus on one particular counterculture movement, the sexual revolution. As you probably guessed, the sexual revolution was all about revolutionising the way we view sex, and it’s this movement in particular which I believe has given rise to some of today’s nonsensical modern feminist views.

The sexual revolution was part of the counterculture of the 1960s

Counterculture's support of modern feminism.

Garner’s novel, Monkey Grip, excellently portrays exactly how counterculture supports these modern feminist ideologies. It does this through the characterisation of Nora (who, if you’ve already forgotten, is our novel’s protagonist). In the absence of Javo (the heroin addict that our protagonist obsessively pursues), Nora becomes sexually involved with one of her male friends, Gerald, and she suggests that they “get into bed and fuck.” Nora’s use of crude colloquialisms and simply sentence syntax convey her unabashed tone, and it portrays the casual attitude she holds towards freely meeting her sexual desires. Through this, Garner depicts the success of the sexual revolution in liberating attitudes towards casual sex. Furthermore, Nora initiates the sexual advance, subverting the regular power dynamic of heterosexual relationships at the time, in which men usually took the lead. Hence Garner illustrates the success of the sexual revolution in loosening conservative norms around sex, and represents it as conducive to the sexual freedom of women. 

Another clear indicator of how much the sexual revolution has impacted society is the attitudes that we hold towards sex today. Considering that society (in general) holds a much more supportive, liberal view of sex compared to before the 1960s, it’s reasonable to say that counterculture definitely impacted society’s outlook on it.

Hook-up culture.

Now let’s analyse why this has led to feminism’s absurdity by talking about hook-up culture. It’s not unreasonable to attribute hook-up culture’s increased prevalence in society to the sexual revolution. I mean like, obviously normalising casual sex is going to lead to… well, more casual sex. But the problem with hook-up culture is that it brings about mental and psychological issues, specifically in women. This is because women often develop emotional attachments during hook-ups (or at least, more than men do), due to the hormones they release during sex (which I won’t go into, but feel free to google it). However, due to the emotionally unfulfilling nature of hook-up culture, these emotional attachments result in women feeling empty and hurt. This is also depicted in Garner’s novel, once again through our protagonist, Nora. 

Women are more likely to be emotionally attached to their sex partners than men are

Throughout the novel, Nora involves herself in a lot of casual sex (which is basically hook-up culture), due to the sexual revolution promoting this sort of sex as a form of ‘sexual liberation.’ But in the end, she denounces the sexual culture as an “adolescent game”, which always “ended up showing its fundamental brutality.” The metaphor, “adolescent game”, is used to depict Nora’s disillusionment with the culture, and her description of “brutality” indicates the brutal and emotionless nature of both the culture, and the way in which she feels she is treated by her sexual partners – simply as an object of desire, with no regards to her emotions or “fantasies, which are of love”. Nora uses the word “fantasies” to show that she believes it’s impossible to get what she really wants (love, and a real emotional connection to someone) through the impassionate casual sex she involves herself in. Hence through this, we can see how casual sex, and in extension hook-up culture, encourages the objectification of women as merely objects of sexual desire, and leaves them unsatisfied due to the lack of emotional fulfilment that it brings.

'Sexual liberation'.

So hook-up culture clearly doesn’t do much good for women. Not only does it reassert the patriarchal viewpoint that women are nothing more than objects for sexual conquest, it leaves women disappointed and hurt from the lack of emotional connection. But despite all this, modern feminism has supported this culture since the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution has resulted in the dominance of pro-sex feminism, and conservative feminist voices have been silenced. This is also shown in Monkey Grip, as majority of the female characters seem to align with pro-sex feminism (shown through their involvement in much casual sex), and there is a noticeable lack of characters that align with conservative feminist ideas.

An accurate depiction of modern feminists, but most are yet to reach the fourth panel

So why does feminism even support hook-up culture in the first place? It’s all because the sexual revolution sold this culture as ‘sexual liberation’, and radical feminists mindlessly believed it. But really, is it ‘liberation’ if it encourages the objectification of women? At this point, ‘sexual liberation’ just seems like doublespeak that society uses to glorify a culture that harmfully hypersexualises and degrades women.

So, in conclusion...

Modern feminists have helped to create a hypersexualised world that is toxic to women. It's one of the main reasons why I find modern feminism to be ludicrous. It’s not just this of course, it’s also other things like severely deluded feminists who complain about women being paid less to work the same job, using ‘the pay gap’ statistics as proof, when (in Australia at least) equal pay has been a law since the 1970s and ‘the pay gap’ actually represents something completely different. Modern feminists need to start realising that a lot of what they're pushing for, especially sexual liberation, is effectively useless or even damaging to women. But until then, the women's movement remains nothing more than a joke.

Word count: 1125

Grace Wong