Mary Harrington's 'Feminism Against Progress' book is out.

It's not my only response.

Here's an earlier (2019) article from MH about what happened to her feminism when it encountered motherhood:

unherd.com/2019/10/how-motherhood-put-an-end-to-my-liberalism/

One post

it’s ok, you do you

but you may want to think about why your instinctive response to women talking about the challenges faced by women is to talk about the challenges faced by men and what women should do about them

"If you agree that it’s ok, and even desirable for women to talk about and advocate solely for themselves sometimes, are you actually able to do that?"

I rather thought I was doing that when I mentioned the pill and wider issues of female healthcare.

Are you capable of making a single post that doesn’t advocate for men do you think?

I’m genuinely curious

But can you see that the concerted response on this thread to wanting to talk about women has been ‘it’s ok to talk about women, but I’m going to talk about men, and other women should too to further their interests’

If you agree that it’s ok, and even desirable for women to talk about and advocate solely for themselves sometimes, are you actually able to do that?

I also see a lot of women saying what men should do to support women. Calling out misogynistic jokes, teaching their sons about respect, telling partners to cross over the road instead of walking behind a woman at night.

All I've read so far on this thread is what women could/should be doing for men. Funnily enough the converse hardly ever seems to get raised.

I'm not so sure about that. I feel like a lot of men purport to support feminism, but you don't hear many women actively doing the reverse.

Like, quite a few famous men have worn 'this is what a feminist looks like' t shirts. They also seem to be quite well represented at feminist events - e.g. quite a few in the video I posted of feminists protesting men's rights.

Is there even a word for the male equivalent of feminism? Masculism?

It sounds like quite an interesting premise. I might have to read a few of essays and see if they pique my interest further.

I would love to see/read more research into the effects of taking the pill over the medium and long-term, which MH raises as an area of concern.

There is definitely a (feminist) issue with the lack of interest/funding directed towards specifically female health issues, and this is a big one, given just how many women are on this long-term medical pathway.

"I've read posts berating & criticising women for not doing enough for men, and posts discussing some 'men's issues'. I've not read a single one suggesting how men could help women or address women's issues."

Firstly, I haven't seen any berating or criticising of women 'for not doing enough for men'.

Secondly, I don't think it's women's 'work' to inform men how to help the cause of feminism, just as I'm sure we wouldn't appreciate men telling us how we should be supporting them.

I think women should think about how we can support female causes, AND possible ways in which women supporting men might also support women's interests.

I also think men can advocate for specifically make causes (eg raise awareness of prostrate cancer, or suicidality), AND think about the ways in which men supporting women might also be in their own interests.

If we ALL 'do the work', we all benefit. You (Arabella) seem to think that we can or should only think about one kind of problem at a time. I'm suggesting it may be more efficient to take a more holistic approach.

The OP is about Harrington's new book. She is covering these (men-related) issues in all her publicity/interviews, so I'd be amazed if they didn't come up in the book as well - ie the way in which feminism is impacted by them, and the ways in which feminism might benefit by paying them some attention.

But yes, central to the argument and one that feminism struggles to reconcile, I think, is reproduction, pregnancy and mothering.

It’s something I value in her writing - this acknowledgment that mothering is part of most women’s lives. I’m the same generation as her and can recognise many elements of her journey. Becoming a mother switched something for me - there was a deep bond with my baby which took me utterly by surprise left me so conflicted about work. I struggled to reconcile the desire to be with her with the pressure to ‘get back into work and keep career/finances’. It felt like looking after my child was the more important job but the message society gave was very different.

which is to say don’t underestimate the achievements of first and second wave feminism

As a pp has said, I think anyone who thinks there was a better time to be a woman than now and a better place than Western Europe is fooling themselves

I know there are many problems with being a woman here and now, but try being a woman of the same economic standing you have here in Hyderabad or the 17th century

Yes, the book is similar to MH’s articles, in her own, distinct style. To my mind, she is an excellent theorist, rather than a deep-dive historian but I’m reading on … I do love reading her, though, I must say.

How many cats have children, parents, siblings, partners etc who are dogs? If dogs were all exterminated overnight, most cats wouldn't even notice. Not sure the same can be said of men and women.

typos 😂

so many types, sorry!

Nobody own the discussion and should dictate its course. and no woman must feel she cannot contribute because she is coming at things from a different angle. That is the sort of closing down and censuring that goes on in far too many discussions at present. Being the one that does the censuring rather than the one who is censured does not make it any more acceptable.

Mary Harrington's book ( which I have bought and am ready to read after I've finihed Hannah Barnes book) I imagine is going to be an extension of the many articles she has written - which to my mind do not seek to place women as the ineviatble victims of men, but as human beings who co-exist with others in a changing and developing world - in which the the consequences of previous actions, thoughts or societal arrangements - give pause for thought.

Like Mary ( in my mind, anyway) I don't identify exclusively 'as a woman'. I am a human being of the female kind with specific concerns and focuses on account of what being a woman/female can mean and imply - but not exclusively. I also have other more broadly humanistsic concerns too. None of us is an island, really.

Your example, is for me, one of the reasons I frequently feel alienated by 'feminism'. It can often seem to take on the sort of 'tone' ( and I an aware that some people get triggered by that word, as in "tone policing" etc) that you find in any other sort of 'progressive, intersectionalist' scenario. Whereby the victim group becomes the new privileged, and the supposedly privileged are reduced to powerlessness and simply must shut up and listen and atone for tgheir sins.

This kind of dynamic generates hostility and resentment where differnt groups of people end up feeling like enemies, and hatred grows. And even on this board things can get really tense and unpleasant if anyone takes a less partisan approach towards a difficulty. Women are good, men are bad and we must tell them to fuck off.

Of course as a woman, I am centred in my own experience as a woman, as well as in the general experinece of simply being human - that is inevitable and natural; and I relate to the situations that are uniquely female and experienced, enjoyed or suffered by other women ( even those of the female of other species) but in order to get a system working in a functional and relatively healthy or harmonious way you need to look at all of the component parts.

I’ve read the next chapter (chap. 2, Feminism Aborted). It is broadly about fundamental economic transformations that, from the 18th century, relocated that thing we call ‘work’ from the home to the factory. For women, this meant separate spheres (bolstered by ideology) and the devaluing of care and reproductive work. To be an equal in the workplace now meant to fit a male model. There was not much space here for pregnancy and birth, and indeed, the human fall-out from industrialisation was significant (we often forget quite how awful 19th century factories were).

Now this is all very well, and I like how MH fearlessly reads Marx together with Catholic priest Ivan Illich but questions remain. For example, should we really romanticise pre-industrial society? How respected were women in an agrarian context where social hierarchy was also stark (rich farmer’s wife versus landless labourer)? And can we neglect that agriculture remains the biggest economic sector in many countries into the 20th century? There are some excellent finds in here, e.g. a quote from a critic of Charlotte Perkins Gilman outlining exactly the problem that we still face: if economic success is the sine qua non of female existence, then what about reproductive work, making babies? Paying women for this work leads us down the path of commodification, for example in the form of surrogacy (p.44), and that’s a problem. On to next chapter …