Feminism In Brave New World

The Brave New World portrays a post-modern society where standardized artificial human reproduction downplays the importance of gender in the society. Yet, in Huxley’s description of the society it is clear that this society still has sexist tendencies to objectify women as tools for reproduction and the satisfaction of man’s sexual desires. First of all, the government employs policies that emphasize woman’s role in human reproduction and limit women’s freedom over gender and reproductive choice. Starting from the fetus stage, the government keeps a stricter control over the quantity of fertile women. The director explains to his students that to ensure a safe range of choice, “thirty per cent of the female embryos [are allowed] to develop

In a society that promotes promiscuity under the idea that “everyone belongs to everyone else”, the men are hypocritically taught to refer to their intercourses with women not as a mutual and intimate relationship, but as “having” a certain girl as if she is an possession or food (Huxley 49). This verb not only suggests power dynamic in which men own women but also equates women to object that serves to satisfy men’s sexual desire just as food satisfies people’s hunger. Furthermore, men are encouraged to treat women not as sexual partners but as dehumanized and senseless meat. Alpha males like Henry Foster often talks about Lenina in a manner that is “degrading her to so much a mutton” and is often surrounded by the idea that “she doesn’t mind being meat” (Huxley 51, 92). Thinking about women like lesser-than-human muttons and enforcing the idea that women brought this dehumanization upon themselves alleviate men’s guilt of disregarding the human consciousness, desires, and will as they use women to fulfill sexual desires. Despite the equalitarian claim of mutual ownership, men in Brave New World are accustomed to treating women like unfeeling animals and sexual