The author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, and the host of the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast, Perry describes herself as a feminist, and yet her message is a 180-degree departure from the conventional feminist narrative.
Her arguments are not without merit. A 2009 study authored by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers found that across industrialised nations – from the 1970s onwards – women’s happiness has declined relative to men’s.
Prior to the 1970s, survey data shows the happiness gap favoured women. Another 2022 follow-up study found that contemporary women still experience more unhappiness in the form of anxiety, fearfulness, depression, loneliness and anger relative to men.
Of course, many other social changes – aside from the sexual revolution – have occurred since the 1970s, so one has to interpret such results with caution.
Nevertheless, the data does indicate that despite the advances women have made in the economic and political spheres, and despite the breaking down of traditional gender roles, women – at least in the aggregate – have not become happier.
Mainstream feminists will argue that women are unhappier today because the revolution has not gone far enough. Australian feminist Clementine Ford, for example, has just published a new book arguing that marriage is an oppressive institution and needs to be abolished. Other feminists will argue that gender norms need to be broken down further, and the very concept of “gender” needs to be erased.
But, while conventional feminism is recycling the radicalism of the past, women such as Perry offer something new. She does not argue that we need to wind back the clock and uninvent the pill – the technology that made the sexual revolution possible – but simply that we should encourage an awareness that “traditions are experiments that have worked”, and endless exploration of gender roles has diminishing returns.
Perry discusses a concept familiar to psychologists, but she presents it in a straightforward manner that strikes a chord. Evolutionary psychologists have theorised, for example, that traits that were adaptive in our evolutionary past can sometimes become “mismatched” to our modern environments. And the stress of this mismatch can cause disease.
One example might be our preference for sweet foods. In a hunter-gatherer environment, having a preference for sweet foods was not a problem, as the only sweets available were mother’s milk and fruits. But in our modern environment, where ice cream and chocolate can be accessed from the convenience store at any time, this preference for sweetness may lead to diabetes.
A corollary can be made with regard to sexual behaviour. In our evolutionary past, it paid for women to be careful about which men they had sex with, because any act of sex could lead to pregnancy. In our modern environments, of course, sex has become unlinked from pregnancy, allowing women to have much more freedom with respect to sexual partners. At the same time, however, this freedom has created stress.
Perry argues that even if women can control their fertility with reliable contraception, if they are having sex with a man who they would not want to have a baby with, then this may cause emotional harm.
The other scenario that may cause emotional harm is the feeling of being used or exploited by a noncommittal male. Researchers in evolutionary psychology know that, on average, men prefer a higher number of sexual partners than women.
They also know a certain subset of men, who are high in “Dark Triad” traits (psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism) pursue short-term mating strategies and may use deceptive and underhanded tactics when doing so.
Previously, societal norms protected women from men with these Dark Triad traits by setting standards for both male and female sexual behaviour.
Now that these norms have been loosened, this small subset of men are free to pursue and exploit women with very little consequence. And the result for many women is misery.
A potential flaw in Perry’s argument is that she overly simplifies and idealises a past that was often harsh to women but in different ways.
Before the sexual revolution, women who fell pregnant and who were unmarried were often pressured to give up their babies, causing lifelong emotional scarring to both mother and baby. The babies of unmarried mothers were often abandoned, in foundling hospitals or orphanages, and so-called “illegitimate” children were often raised in terrible conditions, with a social stigma attached for life. The fact that we have moved on from this archaism is an undeniable form of progress. We should not want to go back.
Perry might sometimes simplify complex topics, but her points are valuable and she presents them clearly. She believes that while we can’t undo the invention of the pill (and we wouldn’t want to), women should understand that their nature differs from men’s. Recognising this distinction is crucial for mental wellbeing. Perhaps the problem is not the sexual revolution, but rather the refusal to acknowledge our inherent differences.
Claire Lehmann is founding editor of online magazine Quillette.
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“The rejection of traditional sexual norms and the idea that we can just throw them out the window,” explained Louise Perry at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London this week, has led to unintended consequences that have not been beneficial for women and society more broadly.