A contemporary reading of Look Back in Anger contains inherent assumptions of sexism. Jimmy Porter seems to many to be a misogamist and Alison a mere cipher struggling to view the world through Jimmy’s eyes.

In the first act alone, Jimmy begins an angry tirade about Alison and women in general. Jimmy’s anger and hatred is directed at women-in-general. The examples in the play that are taken to represent a greater sexism on Jimmy’s part are his relationships with Alison and then Helena, the most striking point of which is that after a time, Helena stands silently and emotionally passively at the ironing board on Sunday night just like Alison used to do. The similarity between Helena and Alison is that they are both from the upper class and are both religious with “establishment” church affiliations. Jimmy’s great criticism is against the satisfied, unthinking privilege given to and, assumed by the upper classes who have no need to think or be intelligent, as Nigel represents, or feel, as Alison and Helena represent. When Jimmy’s treatment of Alison and Helena are seen from a 1950s perspective as representative of Jimmy’s hatred of a class division that defrauds individuals -on both sides of the-class divide –of their humanity, the undertones of sexism take a secondary position.