To think that Louise Perry is overly pessimistic to write : 'All else being equal, a woman will never have as much social status as a man. '?

[Carla786]

I think she means in a work context- the rest of the article argues that rather than try to raise women's status at work, we should accept presumably that they'll have less respect there so should raise the status of motherhood,since this is something men can't receive more respect than women for.

To which I'd say, can't we raise women's status in both fields? Can't we raise motherhood's status while not accepting that whatever a woman achieves at work, she'll always have less respect than an equivalent man?
For those not familiar with Louise Perry, she's a so-called 'reactionary feminist' who made a stir a few years back with the book The Case Against The Sexual Revolution. Imo she made a lot of good points in it as well as a lot of overstatements. She's now got a podcast about sexual politics, Maiden Mother Matriarch, which I view similarly to the book (good points but doesn't really push back on her guests much, who include some genuinely reactionary figures), & is writing a new book urging people to have kids. Anyway, this article kind of typefies my view of her : plenty of valid points, but quite a lot of ideas taken too far.

Anyway, I'd love to hear MN's opinions!

Sorry, here's the link to the full article :

https://fairerdisputations.org/women-and-children-first/

It like when some Christians were advocating women to be SAHM, even to the point of listing bullshit reasons and speaking against divorce in modern society. It strikes me like sugarcoating de-powering independent women with Christian dogma to promote inequality.

We will never 'raise the status of motherhood' by comparison with paid work roles.
Firstly because its not an earned position. Its an opt in biological function open to any women who's body cooperates.
Secondly, it doesn't generate wealth.
Thirdly, while it appeals to some women as a life purpose, many other women and probably even more men, see it as unchallenging and understimulating.
Roles are afforded high status because they make a lot of money or they make a difference to society outside of one's own family.
It doesn't help women to lead them on to believe this will change and if they SAH they can make society value them.
Better to be honest and clear that if women want the social status of men they need to be out in the world taking on roles with a wider impact, where their voices are heard and their contributions are visible.

It is an interesting point, but as always there are exceptions.
For example, amongst Tories, Margaret Thatcher still has a higher status than anyone.
Maybe it is more true in the US because they never had a Queen.
I think when you've had a ruler like Queen Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great it lingers in the national psyche and makes it possible to perceive that a woman can have high status ... even if it happens rarely.

Louise Perry's brand of feminism continues to do my head in.

No, it's not feminist to reduce women's status to whether they bear children and to elevate their status accordingly.

The way she skilfully swerves the concept of intersectionality seems almost wilful. You simply cannot talk about social status without taking into account multiple axes of privilege.

I agree with a lot of that...however doesn't motherhood contribute to wider society via raising a new human who will one day contribute? Fatherhood too, for that matter?

Agree, want to unpack this a bit more later tonight. On the US point, I would agree.

Louise Perry is British & lives in Britain but a lot of her work aims at a US, often religious,audience at least partly. Mary Harrington, her fellow 'reactionary feminist', even more so.

Of course. But that's not considered enough to give it the status of a job, because parents are able to raise the good citizens of the future as well as doing paid jobs.

I suppose Perry might say that Thatcher, Elizabeth etc were greatly respected but would still have received more respect had they been male. There are some grounds for that : Thatcher herself, although she liked to play down sexism, did make clear that a lot of Tory MPs disrespected her because of it ('treated her like a cleaning lady' according to 1 book I read). A lot of these were older figures though : younger ones, and allies, may have been more open-minded.

You could probably say similar about Elizabeth : even her closest advisers openly expressed unhappiness about her sex and her famous 'heart and stomach of a man' speech, if she did indeed say it, is a testament to the effort she made to reconcile these conflicting opinions. That was the 1500s, of course!

Catherine the Great - again, I very much doubt an equivalent tsar would have been sexually mocked to the degree she has been historically (after all, she's hardly the only Russian monarch to have had a lot of lovers). Again, ofc, that was the 18th century and Russia has often had somewhat schizophrenic sexual politics.

I think my point is that the idea is fools gold. Because even if you think the role should be elevated, who is going to elevate it? Men certainly won't. And it's not something a lot of women would get behind either.
Encouraging women to see financial dependency on men with our sphere of influence and power limited to behind our own front door (if we are lucky and the man who pays the piper allows us to call the tune) isn't something that fits with the advancement of women's rights. So feminists are unlikely to be supporting it either. So basically, we're left with a subset of women who want to make a particular lifestyle choice trying to convince society their role is high status, which has been tried before and never caught on. And on the back of that women are supposed to throw in the towel, leave the rest of the world to men, and retreat to the kitchen?

I’m on mat leave at the moment and I have to say I can’t really see women ever being the same in the workplace as men unless men are given the same amount of mat leave as women or share it. Most women wouldn’t want to get less mat leave , and that’s understandable as well. In an ideal world this wouldn’t be an issue. But private employers are less likely to invest in women of childbearing age when there is potential for them to go on mat leave for a few years in a row. I’m not saying I agree with that. But a private business doesn’t care what motherhood contributes to society they will only be looking out for themselves

This article is from 2023...

I think LP is a realist and sees the world how it is rather than should be, which includes noticing that the types of activities men and women are awarded status for by other people are different.

Nothing about her work is about encouraging women to be SAHMs forever.

She talks about things like, motherhood is currently very low status, so in the immediate term women choose other paths towards status that are easier to achieve, which often indirectly come at a cost to motherhood even though at a high level most women do want children.

I know that, it still seems relevant.

I see what you mean, though I don't fully agree- will respond more later.

It should be noted that the next few years, I predict, will be very interesting for observers of female leaders in politics.

We have Italy led by Giorgia Meloni, the French National Front looking quite likely to be in power soon with Marine le Pen at the helm, Alice Weidel of the AFD possibly in a similar position though that is more doubtful, Sylvi Listhaug prominent as Norway's populist right opposition leader.

Aside from the populist right, we've got Shabana Mahmood here being hailed as a credible Labour leader, and I'm personally gunning for her to be the next PM. (Ofc we have Kemi as Tory leader but I think Jenrick will probably replace her soon, & the Tories seem moribund for now anyway). Then there was the recent election of Catherine Connolly in Ireland, (though ofc President is largely a ceremonial role), Mette Frederiksen continuing to keep Denmark steady, and female PMs in Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia & Bosnia among others.

In the rest of the world, we've seen Sushila Karki appointed as Nepal's PM after the recent protests, strong hints that Kim Jong-Un's daughter Kim Ju Ae will succeed him, Japan's first female PM, ( ultraconservative Sana Takaichi) appointed this year, Claudia Sheinbaum now prominent as Mexico's president, a terrible female dictator in Tanzania (Samia Suluhu Hassan), and Namibia's first female PM (Netumbo Nandi Ndaitwah). America is still an outlier, though there are some potentially promising women the Dems could put forward next time (Gretchen Whitmer, or Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, or the vaunted female 'Mod Squad'- no doubt AOC will want to run, but I don't think she's what we need at all.). Probably there are Republican women who could run, though I'm less familiar with their side.

A few interesting articles:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-march-of-europes-right-wing-women/

https://www.euronews.com/2024/08/22/european-leaders-in-europe-where-are-they-and-how-many-are-there

https://plus.econvue.com/p/the-rise-of-female-leadership-in?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

https://democracyinafrica.org/breaking-the-boys-club-the-rise-of-women-in-african-politics/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2025/05/28/gretchen-whitmer-2028-trump-biden-michigan-president-election/83518646007/&ved=2ahUKEwiwxpbpieaQAxWNYUEAHTqcFmUQFnoECF0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2WJoBaabl7WkRz10Nev9VR

Sorry, that was a much longer post than intended! Obviously a lot of those women aren't positive figures: Meloni, Connolly, Weidel & Le Pen definitely seem questionable at the very least, while Suluhu and potentially Kim Ju Ae are dictators.

My point, however, is that there seems growing evidence of women rising in politics globally, despite a wider backlash against women's role in wider society (interestingly, complaints about 'feminisation' softening society seem contradicted by a large amount of these women, across the political spectrum).
If this continues, we will have to see how it affects perceptions of women, & their status & capabilities. I hope that it might at least provide a buffer against misogynists who want to bar women from or at least reduce their number in the public sphere, especially as a lot of these women are leading otherwise socially conservative parties.