Free(dom)inated: A Feminist Examination of Hookup Culture’s Sexual Empowerment and Sexual Policing of Duke University Undergraduate Women
Abstract
How do Duke University undergraduate women experience the seemingly empowering norms
of hookup culture? While debate rages among feminists, scholars, journalists, and
others as to whether or not hookup culture is beneficial for young women, this research
offers a fresh perspective via an ethnographic examination of undergraduate women
at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and how they experience hookup culture
in a larger structure of male-privileged society. Based on interviews, qualitative
surveys, and participant-observation on campus and at parties and bars, I explore
the gendered elements of hookup culture and how they simultaneously sexually empower
and oppress women at Duke’s campus.
I argue that hookup culture polices women and their sexuality; that is, while hookup
culture normalizes female participation in sex, it forces women into a prude–slut
dichotomy. I then focus on the carnivalesque nightclub and the fraternity party as
the primary sites where hookups are initiated, asserting that these spaces encourage
female sexuality but also pressure women to objectify and commodify themselves. Finally,
I consider the emerging, liminal space of the smartphone application Tinder and its
gendered relation with hookup culture, in which women gain more control of the hookup
space but are subjected to dehumanization and self-objectification. I argue that although
the cultural norms of collegiate hookup culture seem to empower women’s expressions
of sexuality by normalizing sexual activity for women, these same cultural norms actually
contribute to Duke women’s sexual oppression by policing, objectifying, and commodifying
female sexuality to serve male pleasure. This conclusion leads to a broader claim
for future research: any degree of female sexual liberation that occurs within patriarchal
society and male-privileging social structures only serves to placate women and perpetuate
male sexual power.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Cultural AnthropologyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14274Citation
Farless, Hayley (2017). Free(dom)inated: A Feminist Examination of Hookup Culture’s Sexual Empowerment and
Sexual Policing of Duke University Undergraduate Women. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14274.Collections
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