Mary Harrington on US liberal feminism

The statistics quoted above about half of women having abortions in the US being below the poverty line are interesting and I agree potentially an issue. However they might slightly be skewed by age and other factors e.g. young women (18-24) are most likely to be living in poverty (21.55% which is massive). So that still makes women in poverty more likely than affluent women to need an abortion - but it paints a different picture to if (eg) only 4% of women were in poverty but they still represented 50% of terminations. (stats here www.statista.com/statistics/233154/us-poverty-rate-by-gender/ )

I also would be interested in more information in the proportion of women by socio-economic class who actually support abortion. More affluent women will always be more represented in the "professional activist"/journalist field just as more affluent men are so will be the noisiest in talking about this. So it easy to imply that their views are out of step with other women or ignore other women's needs. And often they are - for example the big focus on the "gender pay gap" especially re high paying careers but much less attention paid to the poverty line gap at the other end of the spectrum. Which actually matters more in my opinion. But I don't know if that's the case with abortion access.

I like Mary Harrington though. Her articles always give me new things to think about even if I don't agree with her.

She doesn't tend to write on American conservatives as often, I would not expect to see that kind of comment in an article like this.

I think it's important to realize that she isn't talking about all women in this article, or even "feminism". She's talking about the Democrats, and arguably not Democrat voters as a whole but a fairly powerful group there who tend to be the group they shape their policy for.

I think she's making a similar argument to what has happened in the Labour Party, where the policy views now tend to reflect their middle and upper middle class, university educated voters. Not just what advantages them, but what they see as just and good. But that means it may not be so reflective of what working class people see as important for themselves, or just. The Democrats approach to women's issues she sees as being mainly reflective of the needs and also ethical views of that same demographic, which may or may not be what wc women in the US want, or believe is important, but even if they do it is probably not for the same reasons.

And actually if you look at poor and wc women in the US, although they certainly access abortion services more frequently, the reasons are not necessarily the same, they more often reflect an inability to afford the pregnancy or child which might otherwise be wanted, and you also see a much more ambiguous relationship to how and why contraception and abortion services are marketed in poor communities.

Agreed. This is not one of her more coherent efforts.

I like it that Mary Harrington always poses difficult, thought provoking questions, and always tries to go beyond the surface. It is the case of deep thinking with her. And she is gender critical..

I read it. It was hyperbolic misogyny and Feminists Know Your Place shite.

I think calling MH a sell out is unnecessary, and accusing others of calling her that is a bit of an overreaction.

Much of MH's writing is quite nuanced, and when she's exploring the edges of the impact on increasing technology, automation and commodification on our social fabric and humanity she can be very good indeed. In her analysis of just where "progress" is currently leading, she is a small-c conservative.

However, when it comes to American politics and her encounters with their version of hyper-libertarian, equally pro-tech/automation and commodification that I think her analysis falls flat. She needs to critique American liberalism as a "conservative" writer who goes to US Conservative conferences, but rarely joins the dots that the American right is just as prone to dehumanisation and immorality as the left is - they just wrap theirs in a different set of platitudes. Her conservatism is not the same as theirs, and her analysis of the abortion debate is quite a clear example of that.

I agree she doesn't choose who comments on Unherd, but God they're a horrible bunch.

So you’re saying MH is a sell-out, appealing to MRA and incel types? Perhaps but over the last few years, I’ve been finding it increasingly hard to identify self-described feminists who aren’t sell-outs. If I had to choose between MH and Sally Hines, that would be a fairly easy choice.

Wow you just have to read the comments to this article, mainly by men but overwhelmingly negative towards women, to see the demographic she's appealing to.

I'm not intelligent enough or informed enough to construct a counter argument but it doesn't speak to me as a feminist view in the simple terms that I see feminism, which starts with the point that misogynistic views are not a part of it. Using the bell curve to denigrate women's place in society and political discourse, as happens in the comments, says it all.

Dunno. Getting married and having one child in your 30s does not seem very out of the ordinary and I don’t know how this undermines MH’s argument. She tends to make mildly provocative points that often ‘trigger’ a certain kind of person.

Class, including education and wealth, is the blind spot of contemporary mainstream feminism, which remains the discursive property of educated women from comfortable backgrounds of all races. Without having sound data on who gets abortions, I hesitate to speculate but if poor women are vastly over-represented, then we do have to explain why, as an issue, it has a mobilising effect on women on higher incomes.

Oh come on. Activism relating to abortion is a thing that exists, it's not even an idea that refers specifically to one particular view, it could be used for anyone involved in any kind of activism related to abortion. You are really reaching here.

I'm not sure what kind of proof or evidence you are looking for, neither my statement nor MH's was something that you could really show proof of in the way that you seem to be thinking of. Any more than you could show proof of the motivations of the revolutionaries she used as an example of the mechanism she is referring to. Nor would it clearly refute the implications of that if we could know they all thought their own motives were pure.

Feminists are more than happy to apply this kind of class analysis when they like what comes out the other end, you should know damn well that individual's reasons for voting as they conceptualize them to themselves or others are not "proof" that class interests have no effect on voting or what politics people support. If you believe they do then you need to throw out every other instance of class analysis that points out a principles' political stance just happens to be materially advantageous for the members of said class.Women aren't somehow uniquely immune to that, or at least you haven't given any reason to believe they are different from humanity as a whole in that regard.

Calling Mary Harrington a "tradwife" and "pro-natalist" because she thinks that maybe a lot of women want and will have kids and current social forms are based more on male biological patterns rather than fitting female biological realities, and that marriage has a function that is protective for women, is a pretty emotive way of discrediting her without really addressing what she says.

Motherhood and the problems that the sexual revolution brought for women are an area where feminism has had a really hard time addressing the situation of most women, who do in fact have and want children, and do enter into committed relationships with the fathers of those children, and usually want to do that.

All or most women hiving off into compounds, or giving up relationships with men, has never been a realistic answer to dealing with the differences in women's reproductive role compared to men. Nor one that the vast majority of women want.

Very strong whiff of "unlived experience as advice" about MH--she got married at 32, had one child at 38, and apparently has had a career throughout, yet has these strong pronatalist slants in her advice and seems to want women to get married early, have several children, no sex before marriage, if you must have a career then have it later on after your children are older etc.

About half of women who have an abortion in the United States are living below the poverty line.

If that is the case, I find that troubling. Is that because women from such social demographics are unable to afford or reliably access contraceptives? Are they more likely to be affected by sexual violence leading to pregnancy? Do they desire children, but due to the lack of widespread maternal support in the US and financial hardships, feel they have no choice but to access abortion?

The idea that class interests aren't a real factor in abortion activism seems pretty naive.

Yes. That is an interesting statement. Would you like to back it up with any evidence? Particularly with respect to american women voting in the last election. Or are we just saying stuff that sounds good?

Also "abortion activism"? really?

Very interesting choice of phrase.

Many feminists make that link explicitly, on a regular basis - women can't compete on an even playing field with men in the workplace if they can't control pregnancy.

It's often put just like that, even more bluntly than Harrington has herself in the essay.

The idea that class interests aren't a real factor in abortion activism seems pretty naive.

She is talking about why the party of liberal-progressive globalists take the political approach they do to abortion.

Well she is talking about her opinion as to why the Democrats (the liberal progressive globalist is your gloss) take the political approach to abortion they do. It isn't a fact and as expressed it was pretty disgusting.

I voted on the abortion issue and I know many women and men who did. I don't know anyone who did it to keep their high paid corporate suite jobs.

Yes the comments in Unherd are a cesspit. There's a lot of men in this country who are desperate to roll the clock back on women's rights.

Comments section is an eye-opener. Eeeww.

But she wasn't talking about who gets abortions. She is talking about why the party of liberal-progressive globalists take the political approach they do to abortion.

You can make plenty of class based observation about why poor women get abortions as well, but that doesn't tell us so much about the power dynamics of the Democratic party.

About half of women who have an abortion in the United States are living below the poverty line. Abortion rights are critical for lower income women. To suggest women care about it because it supports their corporate careers is such an elite viewpoint. C-suite and upper management jobs are the few jobs in the US that might offer extended maternity leave and benefits. Women in poverty suffer the most when abortion rights are taken away, especially if they live in states with diminished Medicaid, lower spending on education and limited access to social safety net provisions. As to race, there are higher rates of poverty in Black, Native American and Latino communities, so this 'white women abortion narrative' is specious.

It is why abortion rights are the one thing the Democrats will actually fight to defend from the Republicans because controlling their fertility is essential to AWFLs keeping their high paid corporate jobs.

What a contemptible thing to say about women. So misogynistic. They abort so they can climb the corporate ladder. disgusting. you should be ashamed of yourself. I hope you aren't a woman.

It is also a lie.

You should also actually look at the statistics for abortion in the US and see who is (or sadly was) getting abortions. It isn't the women in your fictional narrative.

I think it's completely fine and valid to talk honestly about downsides of the sexual revolution (they exist). As long as it's balanced by frank and truthful talk about what things were like before the SR and what the tradeoffs and alternatives are to all these things.

Same with stuff like the birth control pill. We should talk about downsides (because otherwise we have no incentive for improving contraception in general, and because inconvenience truths don't stop being true because they are inconvenient). But (for example), less hormonal birth control usage generally means more abortions (looking at different countries around the world). Are those who dunk on the BCP genuinely OK with having somewhat more abortions as a result? That's a serious question, not just me trying to be a smart alec. But among writers of the MH kind, I am seeing little open discussion about this kind of thing.

Fighting to control your fertility is also what protects women from having children they can't support, or that their bodies can't recover from.

I am quite suspicious of arguments that suggest women who want to control their fertility are doing it because they are grasping or selfish. And I'm especially suspicious of them coming from a woman who appears to have floated from one well-connected role to another before settling down and telling other women to just accept their lot.

Not so different from the view often expressed here that the “sexual freedom” revolution has benefited men more than women, then.

I thought the idea in the article that affluent white women are the social base of the Democratic Party was interesting. It is why abortion rights are the one thing the Democrats will actually fight to defend from the Republicans because controlling their fertility is essential to AWFLs keeping their high paid corporate jobs.

Ah, found it here:

rebelwisdom.co.uk/30-film-content/men-and-women-after-metoo/774-reactionary-feminism-mary-harrington

"Mary is a writer and journalist. After graduating from Oxford University in 2002 with a first-class degree in English Literature, she was an early adopter of millennial precarity, via a twenties spent experimenting with gig economy work, intentional communities, gender nonconformity and unconventional relationship forms.

Along the way she discovered digital culture and web 2.0, co-founding the digital learning marketplace ‘School of Everything’; working as a researcher with the New York-based digital culture think tank ‘The Institute for the Future of the Book’; and curating cult art events.

After the crash of 2008 she worked in marketing while training as a psychotherapist, before discovering marriage, motherhood and small town life - along with an audience as a writer via her political blog."

On 'Reactionary Feminism':
She says: "The central contention of reactionary feminism is that the ideas of 'freedom' and 'progress' themselves are now delivering diminishing returns for all but a shrinking elite. And this is impacting especially severely on women, meaning that in order to remain true to the central task of feminism - advocating for women's political interests - feminists must turn against the theology of progress."

And according to The Conservative Woman: She is Eastern Region Secretary for the Social Democratic Party (SDP).