Liberated Enough: Feminism, Liberalism, and Conservatism

[NonnyMouse1337]

Another interesting article from Mary Harrington.

americanaffairsjournal.org/2021/08/liberated-enough-feminism-liberalism-and-conservatism/

I've tended to think about some of these issues from a position of pragmatism and realism based on evolution. I've never liked ideologies or mindsets that position humans as beings that exist outside the sphere of the animal world to which we belong - whether that's most religions, transhumanism, or even surrogacy. The idea that humans are simply pick-and-mix meatbags that you can chop and change parts of and pump synthetic chemicals into in some quest for personal validation without any consequences for the individual and collective human psyche is a dangerous one.

It's been interesting to read from a different angle like the one in the article - about how the paradigm of ever expanding notions of individual liberty and rights, along with a relentless drive to subject humans and aspects of human life to the forces of the marketplace has had a disproportionate impact on those least able to shield themselves from the consequences of such pursuits, especially women who are at the bottom end of the socioeconomic hierarchy. It may be that both conservatism and liberalism would need to give up some cherished ideological tenets in order to secure genuine improvements in the lives of many women.

Thanks for posting the article. I too have a problem with the human tendency to separate ourselves from the animal sphere. I think being animals makes people really uncomfortable as it means that there are some aspects of our bodies and lives that we can't control for or legislate out of existence.

Also, I mostly lurk here and I just wanted to say I always find your posts well reasoned and thoughtful.

Aww thank you ISaySteadyOn! 💚💜

I think being animals makes people really uncomfortable as it means that there are some aspects of our bodies and lives that we can't control for or legislate out of existence.

And yes, you're right. It does seem to make many people uncomfortable, and I find that baffling because I've always viewed it as a profound, awe inspiring thing that we are very much a part of the natural world, with our bodies and minds shaped over millennia by evolution to end up with one branch we term as homo sapiens. And rather than find ways to work with our predispositions and evolutionary limitations, there's all manner of systems and policies and ideologies that seek to ignore or avoid such realities leading to awful consequences and unintended suffering.

I enjoy reading Mary Harrington's articles (though she seems to say exactly the same thing every time) but I don't entirely agree with her, because she never seems to recognise the value, to women (and society as a whole), of being able to fully participate in the public sphere. There is so much evidence from the post-war period of how miserable and frustrated many women were, unable to work after marriage/children and entirely economically dependent on their husband. Some of the saddest posts on MN are from women who are living with abusive husbands but feel they cannot leave because they have given up work and have no earning power. This is not just about female City lawyers outsourcing their domestic arrangements.

Yes, of course there is much we could do better now in terms of ameliorating the brutal grind of late-stage capitalism (for men too) and of course fighting against exploitative surrogacy and self-ID as she say. Yes of course we should financially support women who want to work part time to spend more time with their kids.

But her articles miss out a large part of the story for me, and they also make me (as a childless woman who enjoys her career) feel as if, in her view, I and my kind are somehow lacking in some crucial womanly essence. I think we can accept that men and women are biologically different in various ways without over-generalising about what women as a group are and what they want.

Yes! Exactly! We're all animals, fine. Let's work with that nature and see what we can do to make things better. It seems though that acknowledging human nature is to accentuate the negative rather than the positive.

Unfortunately, I could only read the first paragraph of the article as it's behind a paywall but I was interested in that.

I don't agree with her on everything but I always find Mary Harrington worth reading.

I think it's ok that she ends up saying the same thing every time, because as far as I'm aware there isn't anyone else saying the sort of things that she does, whether I agree with her or not - certainly no 'mainstream' feminists. There's a certain blandness and conformity where I get the impression certain things are not meant to be discussed - at least not openly.

There's lots of feminist talk already (I don't know about any actual actions) of getting women into work and facilitating their ability to quickly return to work. Yet there's very little acknowledgement of women who would like to spend more time with their children and not feel pressured to rush back to jobs that they may not find particularly fulfilling. So I think maybe she prefers to pick that angle as her area of interest to talk about.

I'm a childfree woman and I actually think I have the best deal of all because the current economic system is very favourable to women like me - those with minimal responsibility, well educated and with sufficient disposable income. Whereas most of the women that I know, including the ones I grew up with, have children and this has obviously changed their lives in lots of positive and negative ways. Those who work have expressed some level of sadness and guilt at being unable to spend more time with their children, especially during the early years. Some have expressed a desire to have more children but can't or won't for various reasons.

I'm aware that women like me who genuinely have zero interest in motherhood are a minority. I don't take it personally because I realise that like any other species we have a collective urge to reproduce and form families. I don't think there's anything wrong in lacking an interest in having children. It makes me atypical, but no less of a woman. And as I've gotten older, I feel like there does need to be more honest conversations around women's lives and participation in the hyper-capitalist system, on motherhood and families etc as clearly this does impact women in general even if I benefit from the current political and economic environment.

@ISaySteadyOn

Yes! Exactly! We're all animals, fine. Let's work with that nature and see what we can do to make things better. It seems though that acknowledging human nature is to accentuate the negative rather than the positive.

Unfortunately, I could only read the first paragraph of the article as it's behind a paywall but I was interested in that.

I don't agree with her on everything but I always find Mary Harrington worth reading.

Try this link

archive.is/OUFSn

Thank you!

It's really useful IMO when thinking about how people have thought about women and work in the past 60 years or more to consider that the fact that women can easily choose to have a few, or no, children is a very modern thing, and it's not some kind of ideological win, it's a technological change.

Yes, some women stuck at home in the post-war period struggled in many cases, especially if they were middle class women. Fewer children, the male workforce transitioned so much to an "employee" sort of model and better pay and working conditions for men along with that made it seem more appealing too. The work of running a home became far less as well, where previously it had not only been more time consuming but also required some significant expertise, and life in general was less communal. Although rarely you see a real consideration that being an employee has some real theoretical downsides, from an economic perspective, over working for yourself or your family, because it's hidden and not talked about much.

Working class and rich women have always worked or been able to, on the other hand, and the former have not necessarily felt that doing so represented freedom.

But the fact is that until relatively recently, not being consumed to a large degree with children and household work meant a woman could not marry and likely had to be a celibate. Which some did - there is a long tradition of celibate women dedicated to work more often done by men, and often doing it quite well and being highly respected for it. This wasn't open to everyone, class was sometimes a greater divide, some women (and men) had responsibilities to marry, and there are plenty of women and girls who aren't willing to be celibates and they found they had to make a choice.

It's now become so normative to have women working in the public sphere that many women find huge push-back if they express any interest in or desire to opt out of that. What's more society has rearranged itself around families with two parents working to such a degree that it's almost impossible for many families to make that choice. Housing prices don't allow for it, and in places where there is socialized childcare it's almost worse. There is a strong social sense that if you are a working class mother home with kids you are a bit of a slag, and if you are university educated you are wasting your education.

But - it we take seriously the idea that we are animals, that our reproductive role is a part of who we are and actually, our physicality and the way it works is a god thing, is it really feminist to have a society that so much wants to separate having children from things like career or your daily life? To monitize and institutionalize childcare on a mass scale, not only in nursery settings, but we now see due to the pandemic the degree to which schools are mainly arranged for childcare.

I agree with a lot of what you say, @LobsterNapkin, but I think the biological argument is really slippery and has of course been used in various forms to limit and marginalise women for thousands of years. Yes, of course we should fight against TRA nonsense and commercial surrogacy, and ensure that women have proper maternity protections.

But what else is Mary H arguing FOR? Is she saying that we should ensure women have easy access to good-quality part-time/flexible working, career breaks when children are young, access to retraining in later life, etc - which I'm sure everyone on this board would agree with?

Or is she arguing for a wholesale reorientation of society and economy such that mothers can stay home for their children's entire childhoods without needing to be financially dependent on their partners? If so, how would that look and how much would it cost us?

The other issue she never really seems to mention is MEN. One of the main contributors to women (even SAHMs) with small children finding life really hard is a useless partner or ex. Fathers who step up and share the domestic burden make life much easier for women and children. But I haven't seen Mary H arguing for this - possibly because it doesn't fit with her biologically based narrative.

Thanks to all posters on this thread, I am enjoying reading your perspectives.

I do actually think that the state should provide for all mothers and children when their fathers are not doing it. It wasn’t that long ago that mothers were supported to prioritise mothering their children over economic activity up to the age of 16 through income support in the UK. Rather strangely it was the Labour government which scrapped this by increments if I recall.

Mothering is important and should be valued when women choose to do it. When women choose career then properly high quality childcare should be available with well trained and well paid providers.

Women were first “allowed” and then “encouraged” or pushed into the work force not because it was good for women and children or because it was what women wanted although of course many do and did and motherhood should never again be the only destiny for fertile women. What women wanted never really came into, the drive was economics. Capitalism doesn’t care about what is good for human babies and children nor for human mothers.

When working class women and children were forced into factories and mines as a result of the industrial revolution we lost so much of our culture and traditions as well as the health and well-being of working class families and communities. Honestly I don’t think the working class has recovered from that even now.

I agree that we are animals and would do well as a species to acknowledge the vital dyadic relationship between mother and child just as we seem able to in other species. Our humanity also gives us the ability to choose not to become mothers but to pursue other activities.

Motherhood is not valued in our society and its importance is constantly downplayed this does an immense disservice to all babies and all mothers, to all of us in fact because we are all of woman born, we all begin with a primal need for that dyadic bond with our mothers. How much would we save on healthcare, policing, the justice system, education etc if we truly understood the value of mothering?

@JoanOgden

I enjoy reading Mary Harrington's articles (though she seems to say exactly the same thing every time) but I don't entirely agree with her, because she never seems to recognise the value, to women (and society as a whole), of being able to fully participate in the public sphere. There is so much evidence from the post-war period of how miserable and frustrated many women were, unable to work after marriage/children and entirely economically dependent on their husband. Some of the saddest posts on MN are from women who are living with abusive husbands but feel they cannot leave because they have given up work and have no earning power. This is not just about female City lawyers outsourcing their domestic arrangements.

Yes, of course there is much we could do better now in terms of ameliorating the brutal grind of late-stage capitalism (for men too) and of course fighting against exploitative surrogacy and self-ID as she say. Yes of course we should financially support women who want to work part time to spend more time with their kids.

But her articles miss out a large part of the story for me, and they also make me (as a childless woman who enjoys her career) feel as if, in her view, I and my kind are somehow lacking in some crucial womanly essence. I think we can accept that men and women are biologically different in various ways without over-generalising about what women as a group are and what they want.

@JoanOgden

Some of the saddest posts on MN are from women who are living with abusive husbands but feel they cannot leave because they have given up work and have no earning power

Whilst I fully support women who want to stay at home, it can leave a huge gap in their C.V, sometimes lasting for a decade or more depending on the situation, and that can make it difficult for them to leave abusive scenarios as well as be able to command the kind of salary that would support her and her children. It's so expensive to live as a single earner these days, never mind putting kids in the picture, and most women don't just want to live anywhere. They want to live in decent neighbourhoods where there aren't drug needles on the floor, people screaming at each other as a normal method of communicating, litter everywhere ect. Somewhere their children will feel comfortable and safe, and that often costs money.

Unfortunately, unless you earn a lot as a woman, it doesn't seem to be financially practical for them to carry on working when childcare costs so much. Not sure how it works because I know some people are eligible for childcare vouchers, but I hear a lot of women saying that they can't really go back to work because they would be earning next to nothing per hour because of the cost of childcare.

I'm sympathetic to families complaining about the cost of childcare, it is really expensive. But it's also expensive to be out of the workforce for 5-10 years. I would hope employers would be more allowing of part time work, but we've been having this conversation for so many years now and change is so slow...

@MujeresLibres

I'm sympathetic to families complaining about the cost of childcare, it is really expensive. But it's also expensive to be out of the workforce for 5-10 years. I would hope employers would be more allowing of part time work, but we've been having this conversation for so many years now and change is so slow...

Yes, exactly. I think we need heavily subsidised childcare AND some sort of government initiative to force organisations to offer better flexible/part time/working (which is totally possible, lots of public sector organisations do this pretty well now).

"omen were first “allowed” and then “encouraged” or pushed into the work force not because it was good for women and children or because it was what women wanted although of course many do and did and motherhood should never again be the only destiny for fertile women. What women wanted never really came into, the drive was economics."

I don't entirely agree with this - it was campaigning women who opened up the professions for women, and who fought against the "marriage bar" and getting rid of women when they had children. As someone said above, working-class women have always worked anyway.

Flexible working arrangements are great, but they aren't the answer. They just don't work that well for a good many jobs, and in certain careers they don't work at all. In careers like this there will always likely be more men and women with no or only one child, and a balance of women who minimize career breaks and use FT childcare, but have no more than two or three children. Even so the latter group may tend to not pursue the highest levels in those careers.

And those are "career" type jobs which may be aspirational for many. Rather than just jobs, which often do offer part time more flexible work. They aren't typically the kinds of jobs people tell women they should do to keep their C.V.s in order though, so they can support their family if necessary.

Having two working parents as the norm was very much an idea pushed by governments because it was good for capitalism. In many places it's been accompanied by things like removal of mother's allowance type programs, an approach to divorce which assumes the mother can an should go out to work as quickly as possible, and an assumption that women will have their own pensions and medical benefits.

Hence why you get people saying it's dangerous for women to not go into the workplace. That's not evidence of freedom for women, as women, it's evidence of a system that sees people as abstract producers for the economy, dutifully producing value for their employers.

A really useful thought experiment is to ask, if we didn't have reliable medical birth control, and most/many women could count on having larger families than is now the norm, what would a good social structure for women look like? Because it would have to take account of reproductive role, rather than paying it lip service.

Honestly, I think we need to go back further than the 19th century. Prior to that, it was perfectly normal for work to take place in the home and apprentices did not become part of the workforce, but part of the household. This made the house the economic unit and women were - by necessity - partners in running it. Plenty of women would have been brought up in the trade and could take over their husband's business on his death. Obviously, families in that craft or trade intermarried and city wives were often values for their ability to read and write as they could work on the business accounts.

It was not utopia by any means - a bad marriage meant abuse or domestic slavery whilst there was very little autonomy for women outside of that sphere. There was also a lot of manual labour and the real risk of death in childbirth. However, there was also value in mothering and women's work as they were providing the next generation that family and teaching the family crafts and traditions.

When the factories came along, the public and more profitable part of the household was sloughed off. Suddenly, mothers and children became consumers and therefore a burden, whilst men were the producers who brought home the cash to survive. The working class was effectively dehumanised to be exploited.

So...in a roundabout way, I believe we need to rethink what work is, what it does and how long we do it for. With automation and AI, should we be working 8-hour days? Why is caring so devalued when it's an essential lifeline for the disabled and elderly? Why do we depend so much on consumption as a means of success and what do we replace it with?

Britain has below replacement rate fertility. Immigration can stave off those questions for a while, but eventually they will need to be answered.

*Having two working parents as the norm was very much an idea pushed by governments because it was good for capitalism. In many places it's been accompanied by things like removal of mother's allowance type programs, an approach to divorce which assumes the mother can an should go out to work as quickly as possible, and an assumption that women will have their own pensions and medical benefits.

Hence why you get people saying it's dangerous for women to not go into the workplace. That's not evidence of freedom for women, as women, it's evidence of a system that sees people as abstract producers for the economy, dutifully producing value for their employers*

Exactly this. And it started in my opinion with the industrial revolution. Prior to that women worked in ways which were more compatible with motherhood. Then of course the world wars accelerated the pressure on women to keep things ticking over and later to boost GDP.

It shouldn’t be dangerous, we as a society should support mothers and children through healthcare free at the point of delivery, and providing the essentials of life until the child is old enough to have some degree of independence.

This from Mary’s essay stood out for me

“a coherent feminism must set aside its commitment to sameness in favor of an explicit ordering of state power to shield women, children, and the relational space of family life from the market.”

@DaisiesandButtercups

This from Mary’s essay stood out for me

“a coherent feminism must set aside its commitment to sameness in favor of an explicit ordering of state power to shield women, children, and the relational space of family life from the market.”

Much better to change the way the market works for everyone, rather than just shield women and children (and why not "mothers of dependent children"? Women without children or whose children have grown up should not need special protection, only fair treatment. So patronising.)

@LobsterNapkin - I am not convinced by your dismissal of flexible working. I think that actually the vast majority of jobs are suitable for flexible working, and in my organisation we have several very senior female directors who work part time or in a job share because they have kids. Also agree with the poster who said we should reconsider the inflexible 8-hour day.