Youth Counterculture

"Women in Their Beds" takes place in the late 1960s, a period of great social upheaval in the United States. In 1966, the largest generation of Americans—the crest of the baby boom—reached legal age, and a youth-oriented counterculture was born. While the majority of these young people went on to college, work, marriage, and family, as had the conservative generation that came before them, an increasing and visible number began rebelling against the social rules and norms that governed American life. They were the counterculture, which means counter to or against the established, mainstream culture. These youthful rebels, often known as hippies, were critical of what they described as the Establishment—institutions including the police, schools, businesses, organized religion, and the traditional nuclear family. The characters' mockery of the doctors' status through their intercom prank can be seen in light of this...