Mary Harrington - why progress is bad for women - thoughts?

[Digitalhen]

This was an incredibly interesting discussion and I really enjoyed listening to Mary talk. She is very concise, thoughtful and gets straight to the point. I’d never considered the contraceptive pill as the first step towards trans-humanism but she makes an awful lot of sense. I’ve just finished binge reading many of Thomas Sowell’s books and he makes a very interesting point concerning that data around sex Ed in schools (along with the ‘sexual revolution’: women give away sex to men with no demands ever made on them but this is somehow marketed as ‘liberation’ for women) being the pivot towards an increase in sexual activity, abortion and hormonal contraceptive being sold as ‘women’s rights’ and Mary takes this further by saying if reproductive decisions fall to women all responsibility does too. Hence the decline in marriage, shotgun weddings and the rise of single parenthood (because men can just say - it’s a woman’s decision about keeping a pregnancy and then vanish guilt free) Sowell also documents this State-side too.

What are your thoughts on Mary’s work?

Condoms, like any other contraceptive is not 100% effective.

We don't both know that.

As only 1% of reported rapes results in any action, and most rapes aren't reported, we have no idea of the issue in hand.

All sorts of reasons for sex, but we cannot say every instance was the woman's fault. The resulting location of a men's sperm needs to be their issue to resolve, not the woman who ends up pregnant.

The option is the progress.

My anecdotes that you quoted are talking about the women who had children when abortion (and more reliable contraception) wasn’t available to them. I never knew my great grandmother so I can’t speak for her, but I have talked about this with my grandmother and my mother and they all wanted sex with the men they had children by. It was an active choice that represented their desire and preparedness to risk a pregnancy (to the extent that such a decision is a risk assessment) as well as his. And it happened before there was hormonal contraception and legal abortion.

This same is true of the sex I had that resulted in an abortion. I was very much on board with it. I like and wanted PIV sex. I may well have initiated the sex we had that resulted in my pregnancy. I definitely enjoyed it. My partner has never coerced me into sex or pushed things if I’ve indicated I’m not into it. We could and sometimes did do things other than PIV, but I’m a big PIV fan and he was too so we did that a lot. To make out that I had no agency as you have above is misogynistic. Women aren’t children unable to take responsibility for their actions. I may not have had the sex I did if abortion hadn’t been a legal option, it’s impossible to know for sure, but my ancestors did. I’m very glad I could have a sex life with multiple men before committing to someone longer term. And I’m glad once the experience of the abortion jolted me into reassessing risks, that I had the option of the pill to take to reduce the chance of needing another abortion further.

I don’t see the case you’re trying to build for Mary Harrington’s argument that these developments were bad for women. How does the prevalence of rape make the availability of abortion and hormonal contraception bad?

Are you suggesting men rape more now because they think women won’t end up with a baby so it doesn’t matter, whereas before, rapists were really concerned about the woman they were raping getting pregnant, so didn’t do it?

Rape is pretty much legal in the UK now.

The previous person was saying that women were to blame for all the pregnancies as they could just not have sex. As if women just saying 'no' would resolve everything.

Don’t put words in my mouth.
I never said anything about blame.
You, or someone said men insist on ejaculating inside of women, I just pointed out the condom/not having sex. And you followed it with vasically saying women have no choice/rape.

I do not blame women at all, but Indo not believe that all women are just helpless victims who were forced to sex/pregnancy.

That doesn’t address how has the availability of abortion and hormonal contraception made the situation worse for women.

Harrington argues that women feel more pressured into saying yes now. But it isn’t clear that that the women do feel more pressured now than they did in the past. When the pill became available to married women, brith rates dropped. When abortion became available, births dropped. The options that contraception and abortion provided were immediately useful to women - before there was a chance for any cultural change in expectations around women agreeing to sex due to their availability to take effect.

'But those women could have told those men to wear a condom, if they refuse, then choose not to have sex.'

Looks pretty blamey to me. My point was that it isn't all the woman's fault that they get pregnant, and it isn't always the womans' choice to have sex, which you said it was.

Good lord, whatever.
I just went by your ejaculation comment, you should have said forced/coerced, would have made this much easier.

I think she’s interesting, and she makes some worthwhile points. But she’s also one of those people who finds a vaguely controversial drum to bang and bangs it, mostly as a short route to funding and profile I suspect. Nothing like finding your niche.

I find the idea that the pill just means men get sex for free laughable (if it weren’t so sexist). Without control over reproduction there would have been no second wave of feminism at all.

The trans point is just silly - well not silly, it’s academically interesting, but it’s a stretchhhh of impractical proportions.

I never thought she said it was a "bad thing", just that it came with consequences, and some of those consequences aren't necessarily desirable.

If we can work out why those consequences have occurred we can mitigate against it, can't we?

Lace making at home while minding lots of children is still happening in plenty of places - as in the European past the current reality for some Pakistani women for example, is that piece work done at home is badly paid, not regulated, no workplace benefits, you can't look after your kids properly while you're working, or work properly while looking after you kids, so you work at night while the kids sleep, which increases your fuel bill, strains your eyes, but don't slack, there's no sick pay or paid leave, you're not an employee.

Of course you can keep the number of kids down by not having sex, as seemingly women don't actually want to have sex, we only started to pretend once the pill was available, like some women still pretend to like beer.

But is losing all of your income, if not more, to pay for childcare an improvement? A lot of women cannot afford to return to work at all because childcare costs more than they earn. That's a consequence. Acknowledging that gives us the opportunity to put into place support for low income earners whereby all or part of their childcare costs are covered.

Childcare:
Home workers = not great
Low income workers working outside of the home = dire
High income workers working out of the home = manageable
High income workers working at home = reduced childcare costs as less hours needed.

It wasn't my ejaculation comment it was @OneMorePlant that said that. So I cannot have said something else as I cannot do mind control (yet).

It is true though, why is it men can have sex and walk away without looking back, whereas women are blamed routinely for not doing enough to avoid pregnancy? If men were actually made to be responsible for where their sperm ended up then perhaps would be a more level playing field between men and women.

Haven't rtft yet but I listened to Wendy Kaminer take on some of these arguments on Brendan O'Neill's podcast last week. I'm broadly sympathetic to many of the arguments of the 'Reactiovary Feminists' but Kaminer, as a woman who lived through the sexual revolution was quite scornful about what those arguments are missing.

Anyway, well worth a listen.

This is precisely why an understanding of history is absolutely vital.
I’ve grown up in Ireland and was a child when contraception was legalised, the right of a woman or female child to travel outside the country was debated by (mainly) men, .

The gap between that period of massive stigma and control, and now, when women talk frankly and openly is much narrower than in the UK. I’ve heard first hand stories of what it was to live from period to blessed period praying not to be pregnant; to have no right to say no; to be returned home to an abusive husband by the gardai; to risk jail time to share information with other women; and the desperation to turn to life threatening back street abortionists, or give birth in secret.

My generation was right on the edge of the social change. I have one friend who were kicked out of home pregnant, and another whose warrior mother faced down the gossip to support her unmarried daughter.

Lots of families have welcomed extra members, lost through adoptions. This wasn’t a rosy past. My gm cried angry jealous tears at the idea of actually being able to enjoy sex with my husband and plan our family. That’s how basic the difference is - we weren’t even talking about casual sex with strangers, but the fear that stalked every episode of sex, while having a godly duty to submit.

My dm married my df because she was pregnant with me and the alternative was losing her teaching job on morality grounds and what….starvation? prostitution? She (and I) were lucky ones. I could have been one of the babies buried in a sceptic tank in Tuam.

Women who advocate for a return to that enslavement are always massively privileged and blinkered - never mind the irony that they’re earning their own money and giving interviews. Try that with 14 children and an entrenched social attitude that you’re only spouting silly nonsense.

Personally I think we should try at least 50 years of stigmatising male sex, and then reconvene the discussion. Let men who conceive outside marriage or abandon families risk their jobs, reputations and lives. Remove access to condoms, vasectomies and any bodily autonomy, but acknowledge that women have needs that must be met, so the responsibility to be chaste lies entirely with men. Might be an idea to restrict their control over their own income too if possible.

Why is it so obviously wrong when you talk about men like this, but it’s up for discussion about women?

One element that doesn't always get picked up on is the effect of the pill, physically and psychoactive, on girls and women. I think we need to start advocating for better contraception with fewer deleterious effects on females. 14 year old girls being put on the pill is not generally a good thing. If some stigmatising of casual sex were in the mix as well, that might be no bad thing. Although apparently young people are having less sex than ever now??

It is true though, why is it men can have sex and walk away without looking back, whereas women are blamed routinely for not doing enough to avoid pregnancy?

Same reason women are blmed for everything.
Women are blamed for men being single / not having (enough) sex.
Women are shamed and blamed if they are single and celibate.
People get furious at asexual women, asexual women are told they are useless and haven’t gotten the right dick.
Women are blamed for incels and male violence.
Women are blamed for saying no.
Childfree women are called names and not believed.

On and on it goes.

I find the idea that the pill just means men get sex for free laughable

If that were the case, it would have been legalised in (very patriarchal) Japan much earlier. They used the excuse that medically interfering with sex was unnatural - not dissimilar to the 'it's transhumanism' argument - right up until the 1990s.

Funnily enough, when Viagra came along they licensed that in a matter of months. And grudgingly followed suit with the pill when it was pointed out that their arguments were inconsistent.

You can play the video for the audio.It really is worth it because it is not a reductive view nor narrow.

She looks at things from a differnt view and it is a view worth looking at.

There is a lot of food for thought in there.

This is so far from what she is saying it is mind blowing.

You need to read it before you post an opinion on it.

This is a pity - a pity that you won't listen to the argument.

She is not suggesting we go back. Not at all. Nor is she suggesting that we ban the pill.

She is saying (correctly) that the pill has a profound impact on the behaviour (ie the brain) of women.

Read Moody Bitches. A fancinating book on FEMALE chemistry. Our bodies, our hormones. It backs entirely what she says.

She is standing back, and looking at where we are now as a society, wondering if there is a different way for us to play our cards.

A good idea no?

That is not her argument.

She does not make an argument that women have devalued sex.

She does not look back with nostalgia.

She does not advocate getting trapped in marriage without the possibility of divorce.

Finally!

This is a very interesting part of her argument - I had not really looked at it that way before. And in a way, we have not really destigmatised single MOTHERS at all.

I often see this and wonder why he would have siad that at a time when there was very little contraception.

I wonder if that was not directed at anal sex/homosexuality?