Week Two: Countercultural Rock, “Sexual Liberation” & Hippie Gender Roles

From Whiteley’s perspective, “sexual liberation” in the 1960s was a term solely reserved for males, since “this commitment to personal freedom was not extended towards women who continued to be inscribed with a chauvinistic frame of reference” (Whiteley, p. 37). “Sexual liberation” therefore refers to the breaking of conservative and conventional models of sexuality within the culture established in the 1950s, which was extremely rigid and filled with taboos regarding sex beyond the means for procreation. Whiteley support of this claim is both shocking and intriguing to me in that several song lyrics from various artists during the countercultural period exhibit sexist references. For example, the Rolling Stones’ explicit reference to phallic symbols and ejaculation are among the most blunt lyrics in rock music of that period. However, didn’t we already know this? For generations we have surrounded primarily rock music around sex, starting in the 60s. After all, the slogan is “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” which is exactly what the 60s consisted of through a male lens.

It should also be noted that the presence of women in the 60s counterculture was rarely through the music. While The Jefferson Airplane had a female lead singer, women primarily remained in the domestic roles of the counterculture, taking care of the children born by “free love.” This further exemplifies how women during this period remained in the submissive role in the heterosexual relationship, which wasn’t very different from that of the conservative 50s model, other than being more sexually open and promiscuous. This might even be debated as being forced upon the female population, as Mick Jagger himself describes fellatio as “forced feeding,” thus “turning fellatio into an act of aggression” (p. 37).

I also find it interesting that there existed a complete opposite depiction of women during the counterculture as Mother Nature and the respect for such a figure. As we know, the counterculture prided itself of its dedication to nature and desire to go back to simpler ways, thus moving away from the industrialization and technology overwhelming society at that point in time. Because of such ideologies, the counterculture deeply respected the figure known as Mother Nature and thus women as one of the most natural creatures due to their ability to bare children. Therefore, there exists an extraordinary contradiction within the counterculture regarding the position and ideology regarding women. It seems that on a macro level, women were respected and regarded as part of the nature counterculturalists wants to revert to, but on a micro level women were nothing more than an object of pleasures for men’s “sexual liberation.”

As a result of these repressions within the counterculture, when women sought their own freedom through the “personal is political” and feminism movement, their actions came off as extremely radical. For instance, the bra-burning that supposedly took place at the Miss America Pageant is a myth. In fact, the women simply threw bras, eyelash curlers and other cosmetics into what they referred to as a “freedom trash can,” removing materials objects that were meant to subjective women as nothing more than their physical appearance, and ultimately sex objects. Because feminism came as a result of the counterculture movement, I think the feminists felt they had to take on a radical approach in order to be heard.