Misogyny In Brave New World

Misogyny in the Treatment of Brave New World’s Female Characters

Society is essentially a rulebook describing how people are supposed to think and how they are supposed to act upon these thoughts. Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World explores the importance of questioning the values and societal pressures of the time period you’re living in, however, he still displays his own prejudices of the 1930s in the way Aldous Huxley wrote female characters in his book. In the 1930s, being a submissive and hardworking housewife was the currency you had to have as a woman to have value. In Brave New World, the character Lenina is very different from this expectation due to her being a sexually-active woman who has a well-respected and important job outside

of her relationship with men. Along with being an independent working figure, she goes against society by owning different colored clothing than her caste color and having a monogamous relationship for a short period of time; however, she is never displayed in the book as a rebel character like the men are because her efforts are seen as unimpactful because she is a woman. Not only are her actions presented as unimpactful but she is even villainized by the text when her modern lifestyle is compared to the lifestyle of Native Americans on a reservation in an effort to show the reader that the way she lives is immoral. Throughout Brave New World, Aldous Huxley tries to villainize and devalue empowered women like Lenina because of the misogynistic values held in the 1930s.

Lenina has a lot of opportunity to be a very crucial example of rebellion within Brave New World but is simply underutilized because even in Huxley's most wild and unorthodox future, the taboos and prejudices of the time period show through his writing. Throughout the book, Lenina is never regarded as a rebel character even though she does not follow some of the state’s rules such as exclusively wearing green clothing like when she was, “dressed in a pair of pink one- piece zippyjamas” (97). Lenina once again rebels against the state when she says to her friend Fanny, “it’s only about four months now since I’ve been having Henry” (29) since monogamy is illegal and can be punished by banishment. Even though Lenina isn’t particularly vocal about the ways she rebels, she rebels nevertheless. Whereas, Bernard is tremendously vocal about his heretical beliefs yet when given the chance he never acts upon what he says he believes; earlier in the book, Bernard denounces others for objectifying women and looking at Lenina "as though she were a bit of meat" (38) but this is exactly how he looks at her, going as far to take her on a trip to America with him in hopes to seduce her (39). All of Lenina’s misdemeanors against societal rule are genuine like her only sleeping with Henry for four months because she had sincere feelings for him, in contrast, Bernard only said he believed the heretical views he spoke about to make himself seem intelligent and important. Clearly, Lenina is a more authentic and proactive rebel figure in the book than Bernard but, despite all of this, Bernard is portrayed as a rebel but Lenina is not. Huxley purposefully wrote Lenina like this because in the 1930s, “female characters were more dependent, submissive, imitative, nurturant, emotional, and passively active than male characters” (Clark, et al). If Lenina’s behavior impacted the story, she would no longer be a dependent and submissive woman which show how societal views against women at the time molded the way Huxley wrote Lenina in Brave New World.
Not only are Lenina’s actions written as unimportant but her progressive and independent lifestyle is villianized by Aldous Huxley.

When Bernard takes Lenina to the ‘Savage Reservation’ they witness the very traditionalist lifestyle of the Native Americans and she reacts very negatively to the native’s behavior, “the spectacle of two young women giving breast to their babies made her blush and turn away her face. She had never seen anything so indecent in her life” (75). The way the native’s lived reflect the values of the 1930s, that preferred women to be in domestic roles, however, Lenina is written to be disgusted by these things. Huxley writes Lenina this way because at the time period most female characters were “dependent, submissive, imitative, nurturant” (Clark, et al) because literature at the time was conditioning women to value traits that would make a good mother. Lenina's liberation and empowerment is displayed to the reader as a evil thing, that to be a successful, sexually active woman is a evil thing because that prohibits a woman from being a mother. She is the scary, liberated woman that the reader should be disgusted by. To explain, Huxley is saying that a world where women are not tied to domestic pursuits is evil and corrupt while a world such as the native reservations’ is not because it has a traditional, domestic role for women. Similarly, this message is reinforced again by the way John the Savage interacts with Lenina, “he opened the green suit-case; and all at once he was breathing Lenina's perfume, filling his lungs with her essential being. His heart beat wildly; for a moment he was almost faint” (96-97). Peculiarly, John the Savage’s infatuation with Lenina in the beginning of the book is the first time the reader is shown a romantic interaction that is more than just lust. With all the influence John had from reading Shakespeare, John believes he is in love with Lenina because of her, “pure and vestal modesty” (98). However, this does

not last long because after she makes sexual advances on John (129), he is repulsed by her and no longer views her as a person which is never more evidently shown when he murders her, “the Savage struck at his own rebellious flesh, or at that plump incarnation of turpitude writhing in the heather at his feet” (175). Without a doubt, Lenina’s cruel and undeserved execution in Brave New World was a crystal-clear message to the reader that liberated women are wicked and evil. Huxley continues the pattern of the writers of the time who gave women in the working force very little representation or cruel punishment, “ when female wage earners did appear, authors generally focused on their home and family lives, ignoring their struggles and triumphs on the job” (Walker). This is because most female characters at the time were “self-sacrificing mothers” (Walker) who were nurturing, kind and passive compared to her male counterparts in the book. If women were busy being involved in the workforce, they wouldn’t have time to be mothers which is why a liberated woman like Lenina is literally whipped to death for her crimes against the 1930’s view of womanhood. All things considered, it is evident that Lenina’s reaction to native life and death were written to villianize liberated and empowered women because of the outlook on women in the 1930s.
Brave New World is a book about being educated and speaking out for what you believe in, even when the entire world disagrees with you. On the contrary, Huxley contradicts his own message in the way he devalues his only female main character Lenina Crowe. Even when Lenina goes against the platitudes she’s been brainwashed to believe since birth, she is never written by Huxley as a rebel character like the men are alongside her. While Lenina does have monogamous tendencies in her romantic life which is a serious crime in her society, she is only ever written as a vapid counterpart to Bernard Marx; all of her acts of rebellion have no impact on the world around her even though they are extremely serious in her universe. However this is to say nothing of her villianization by the text, portraying her as a sexually promiscuous leech to the men in her life. Given these points, one thing is clear, Lenina Crowe was a plot device used to send the reader a clear message that women should be devoted mothers and nothing else. In a society where motherhood doesn’t exist and women have jobs, Lenina is the embodiment Huxley’s disapproval for liberated women because of the time period Huxley lived in.