The supposed best years of one’s life, college is the time for one to sow their wild oats and possibly meet “the one” in the process. The rampant hook-up culture in today’s university setting seems to be a tool for helping both young men and women achieve this goal. Hookup culture is the modern phenomenon in which young adults prefer casual sexual relationships, often one-night stands, in place of the traditional dating process. The rise of hookup culture is often seen as a by-product of the evolution of sexuality, progress towards feminism, and the new autonomy this feminism grants women. However, hook-up culture may be more insidious than it appears, holding sexist nuances behind the rules one must follow to be considered within the norm. Hookup culture appears to be a by-product of feminism, with women holding more power than they would in a traditional dating process. However, sexism seems to have crept its way inside this supposedly empowering apparatus, creating a misogynistic culture that traps women into an illusion of freedom. In this essay, I will use Kate Manne’s “Down Girl” to propose that hook-up culture is a tool for normalizing and enforcing misogynistic behavior.

Picture this: There is a freshman named Mary in your sociology class. Mary is confident, witty, outgoing, pretty, and involved on campus. Seemingly, Mary is a great dating prospect. Mary feels drawn to the proposition of dating at her university. Hookups, Mary has heard, is the norm at her university and is the way people meet other singles. Mary has heard that meeting people at parties and seeing how physically compatible you two are through hooking up is how people form relationships in college. However, what Mary does not know is that hookups actually go something like this: hookup → time spent together → ambiguity → attachment → the denial of reactive autonomy. Does this sound familiar? If so, welcome to the sad, cyclical world of collegiate hookups.

“Hooking up” can mean anything from kissing to sexual intercourse. Hookup culture supposedly allows individuals to choose partners to satisfy their physical needs without having to invest time and emotional energy into them. However, it seems as if hookup culture is actually a mechanism in which women seem to be able to make independent decisions, but are instead tipping the power balance into the man’s favor. In Chapter 4, Manne uses the example of how right-wing women can fare pretty well in the political realm, “The model predicts that women’s power will be better tolerated when it’s wielded in service of patriarchal interests,” (Manne 115). This explains why hookup culture is a welcomed transition from the traditional dating process, as it allows men access to feminine coded goods from women, such as attention, affection, sex, and comfort (Manne 130), while giving men an excuse to withhold the goods they have traditionally provided to women, such as money or chivalry (Manne 112). Feminine coded goods are duties that society has imposed on women to perform for men. Manne states, “…it’s no surprise that this work is often safeguarded by moral sanctions and internalized as “to be done” by women. Then there’s the threat of the withdrawal of social approval if these duties are not performed, and the incentive of love and gratitude if they are done willingly and gladly,” (Manne 111). When women comply with hookup culture, they are complying with the misogynistic concepts that support the system. The existence of these goods leads to a toxic binary conception of gender and the types of traits and roles males and females are to play in our society.

There are a couple of rules that come with hookup culture. Including but not limited to: do not linger afterward– time spent together leads to attachment, do not be clingy or try to define the relationship, do not be over-emotional, and be very chill with knowing that they are probably hooking up with other people. Inherently, this system leads to a larger payout for men than women. This is not to say that this system is not harmful to men. Men are also expected to play their gender roles, by being emotionally detached, focusing on their own pleasure, and shielding themselves from embarrassment. In Hanna Rosin’s article “Boys on the Side,” she explains how women are perpetuating this toxic culture in the name of feminism, “For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future,” (Rosin). Manne explains that white women often enable misogyny as a mode of self-preservation (Manne 14). This clarifies how the desire for empowerment and autonomy can lead one to ignore the misogyny of hookup culture. However, the belief that one is making steps toward autonomy and female empowerment does not shield them from the toxicity of the culture and the way traditional gender norms are used to press women into conformity for the benefit of the men they are hooking up with, subsequently enforcing the patriarchy.

In some instances, women are forced to ignore the desire they may feel for a secure relationship, in order to satisfy someone else’s desire for sex. Hookup culture can leave women providing female coded goods for a man, without having the authority to ask for anything in return. Manne explains how patriarchal mechanisms can have women happily take on feminine coded forms of care work by “valorizing depictions of the relevant forms of care work as personally rewarding, socially necessary, morally valuable, “cool”, “natural”, or healthy” (Manne 47). Females in the hookup culture are expected to repress their needs and feelings to serve the man and maintain the physical connection. It is also usually the man’s choice if or when the hookup will become more serious. Misogyny threatens consequences if she violates these expectations (Manne 20). If a woman seeks loyalty, love, affection, or security from the man she is hooking up with, this will be met with confusion and outrage. Manne outlines three norms that women are subjected to, “…don’t ask for or take the kind of thing you’re meant to be giving… don’t ask for the kind of goods or services he once might have provided… don’t ask for or try to take masculine-coded perks and privileges…” (Manne 113). Women often disqualify themselves from receiving what they truly want by accepting their roles in hookup culture. Misogyny and the possibility of a loss or consequence in hookup culture makes it near impossible for the woman to be in a position of power.

An analysis of Manne’s conception of misogyny and feminine coded goods makes it clear that hookup culture denies women agency and serves as a mechanism for delivering misogyny. Stigmatizing emotions is harmful for both sexes, as men and women are trapped into only being able to offer what is expected of their gender roles. This system also makes objectifying women easier as one could argue that a hookup is what the woman wants, when often the woman believes hookup culture is her only avenue of finding a companion in the modern age. Hookup culture is a tool for enforcing male dominance and denying women reactive agency, while the female is stuck attempting to convince herself and others that her actions are in the name of feminism. The chilling element about misogyny is how it can become so naturalized that women begin happily complying with structures and systems that are disadvantaging them. Kate Manne’s “Down Girl” does an amazing job of redefining misogyny in a functional way. A functional definition of misogyny allows it to become more visible and easier to combat in real-world experiences. In this case, the functional definition of misogyny shows us that the classic double standard can live even in systems that are supposedly built to combat misogyny and give freedom to women.

Works Cited
Manne, Kate. Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny. Oxford University Press, 2019.
Rosin, Hanna. “Boys on the Side.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 14 June 2018, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/boys-on-the-side/309062/.

Shared by: LH