Hard to get: Twenty-something women and the paradox of sexual freedom Leslie C Bell

Reviewed by: Kathryn E Frazier, Clark University, USA

In Hard to Get, sociologist and psychotherapist Leslie Bell offers a refreshing narrative on a long-debated question: “Can women have it all?” Employing psychoanalytic, sociological and feminist perspectives, Bell presents a detailed and compelling analysis of young American women’s experiences of negotiating the tension-filled and often contradictory social messages and expectations around their economic, social and sexual fulfillment. Drawing from her in-depth interviews with college-educated women, Bell questions popular characterizations of the twenties as a time for women’s freedom and exploration, particularly with regard to love and sex. All of the interviewees are highly educated and of upwardly mobile socioeconomic status. They include white, Chinese, Latina, South Asian, and Black women; married and single women, some of whom are mothers; and a mix of women who identify as straight, lesbian, bisexual or queer. The book suggests that rather than enjoying the freedoms fought for by previous generations of feminists, contemporary young women express confusion and turmoil over how to get what they want in work and relationships, in love and sex, and they even struggle to know what it is that they want.

Bell locates her discussion of the interviews in a historical context, arguing that her interviewees have come of age in a time of unprecedented freedom, formally protected from various forms of gender discrimination and distanced from social assumptions equating femininity with passivity and chastity. Contemporary young women, Bell suggests, are offered many opportunities and choices, but – as the first women to occupy such a position – they have limited access to advice on how to successfully navigate these choices and achieve their desired goals. In Chapter 1, Bell outlines this problematic and, turning to psychoanalytic theory, presents the notion of “splitting” as a framework through which to approach women’s struggles. Splitting, Bell argues, is a process through which young women come to construct the tensions they feel (for example, between a committed relationship and a successful career, or between being a desirable partner and a desiring sexual being) into a rigid dualism. By doing so, the women deny the space for multiple understandings of either choice, rendering compromise, or any experience that blends aspects of the two, impossible. In the remaining chapters, Bell draws upon her interviews to present three archetypes, which she argues exemplify prominent “strategies of desire”, that is, common patterns in women’s experiences and common strategies for acknowledging, managing and confronting tensions between their work, love and sex lives.

In Part I of the book (Chapters 2–4), Bell considers the first archetype: “the sexual woman.” The sexual woman tends to split her desires for healthy relationships, a successful career and a strong sense of independence. Bell argues that young women in this position often have clear goals and desires in work and relationships, but view them as mutually exclusive. Most often, Bell suggests, women view these objectives as in competition, usually with one working to overshadow or threaten the other. For example, one young woman fears that getting married will force her to abandon her career goals, as was the case with her mother. Women in this category often find a temporary solution to this dilemma by viewing sex as an intermediate ground that offers some aspects of relationships (for example, a certain amount of intimacy and companionship), but allows enough emotional distance that the women can maintain autonomy and the integrity of their identities. Bell argues that young women find this solution inadequate, however, as none of her interviewees viewed sex as a valid replacement for relationships. Instead, desiring and actively seeking out sex were behaviors understood to sabotage potential relationships. While offering women a sense of control, these behaviours block emotional intimacy with a partner, resulting in a status that was both lamented and used strategically.

In Part II of the book (Chapters 5–6) Bell describes “the relational woman” through the narratives of two women’s interviews. The relational woman splits sexual desire and expression from security, and often splits sexual freedom and fulfillment from long-term relationships and stable partners. Bell suggests that, just as with the sexual woman, these women struggle to reconcile aspects of their identities with the potential benefits of long-term relationships and partners. The relational woman, however, addresses this splitting by stifling sexual desire in favor of emotional security in relationships. In further contrast to the sexual woman, the relational woman’s conflict does not emerge as a consequence of having too many freedoms and choices. Bell suggests, instead, that the relational woman’s strategy reflects the pervasive limitations of conventional ideologies which maintain sexual desire and love as distinct and opposing forces for women.

Part III of the book (Chapters 7–8) presents the final archetype: “the desiring woman.” According to Bell, the desiring woman is the one who is actually successful in blending conflicting desires and achieving her goals in all domains of life. In other words, although she does experience relationships, work, sex and identity as complex and often in conflict with one another, the desiring woman resists splitting her sex life from a stable relationship and a career. Bell argues that instead of engaging in the problematic strategies of the sexual or relational woman, the desiring woman acknowledges and accepts her contradictory desires. Importantly, none of the women Bell interviews seem to view love, sex, work and autonomy as co-existing harmoniously – a fact that problematizes the assumptions of choice, freedom and opportunity outlined in Chapter 1. Bell addresses this issue in the concluding chapter, discussing the ways that the strategies of the sexual, relational and desiring woman reveal the complexities of contemporary assumptions and expectations around femininity. Bell stresses that the new freedoms and choices available to women are not received unproblematically. She argues that with fewer institutional pressures, women are left to do the social and psychological work of constructing an empowered and liberated subjectivity. She suggests that ideals of independence and control only complicate women’s attempts to fuse work, love, sex and self.

By speaking directly to young women about these issues, this text offers a unique approach to ongoing debates around the status of gender in the lives of young women in the United States. Although Bell is aware of discussions in psychology, sociology and other fields that take a critical approach to the topic of young femininities, the current status of gender and feminism, and so on (as evidenced by her extensive and extremely useful endnotes), she chooses to focus her text on the voices and experiences of her interviewees. However, in doing so the text does not engage with useful frameworks that problematize the very assumptions guiding Bell’s interviews: that gender equality has largely been achieved and that contemporary women have unlimited freedom and ‘choice.’ Consequently, I did find myself longing for greater and deeper theoretical analysis to link the psychoanalytic constructs presented to the existing literature which is critical of the neoliberal and ‘postfeminist’ cultural milieux with which the young women engage. Nevertheless, the book highlights interesting areas for future research and invites theoretical work to speak to young women’s lived experiences. It will be of particular interest to those concerned with the gendered and psychological life of postfeminism and may offer a useful analytic lens to those who work with young women in either clinical or research settings.