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

[ArabellaScott]

Looking forward to this one. I know she gets mixed responses; I find her work really interesting.

swiftpress.com/book/feminism-against-progress/

She calls herself a 'reactionary feminist'; in that, as I see it, she is reacting and responding to the many negative impacts thrown up by previous waves of feminism and their perceived or actual detrimental impact upon women.

The word 'Feminism' can mean many things to different people, but increasingly I've personally come to view anything that speaks out on behalf of women or women's interests as being 'feminist'. I also don't automatically view anything that centres women as mothers or homemakers as automatically anti-feminist.

Obviously the rigid impositon of any one vision of female liberation or empowerment should not be the ultimate goal - but a growing accommodation for the variety of paths and life phases that women choose or undergo. Obviously motherhood is a central experience for many women and one that shouldn't be seen as an ineviatble penalty or sufferance.

And how motherhood can be supported as a worthwhile and meaningful occupation inevitably brings into focus women's realtionships with men and how men view their part in parenthood and family life. How they see a valuable and meaningful role for themselves too.

Thank you, HandlesFruit. I have to wait until tonight to read the next chapter but very much looking forward to it!

It does seem to be more of a critique rather than a prescription …

As for marriage, yes, there are abusive marriages, and there seems to be this knee-jerk reaction against it but a) I am really not sure that cohabiting is so much better (e.g. no security in case of separation), b) institutions can be reformed and we no longer have couverture, c) what is a woman who likes to fuck men to do for love, sex and long-term companionship, eh?

My early days of feminsm were very much modelled on, and by, prominent lesbian writers and activists - so much so that I always really felt that the perfect feminist was inevitably a lesbian - who didn't need to depend on men in any way; emotionally, practically, romantically. I really used to wish I was a lesbian; however I wasn't, and am still not ( even if, like most women and girls, I've had crushes on certain girls/women down the years).

When you have intimate relationsships with men; when you've had positive relationships with fathers, uncles and other male relatives in your life, good male friends,and also when you have sons, you cannot neglect to consider men and boys too. Not to centre them, but to consider them as full human being too, albeit human beings of the male variety with their own range of issues and needs.

There are sexed based differences. How can we best accommodate and manage these differences them in a way which works and is acceptable to all?

I kind of think this is where Mary Harrington is coming from - and which is why I find her interesting. She mirrors many of my own thoughts and experiences.

Happy to read and enjoy a variety of feminist views, including some I don't really agree with. MH is an interesting read and thought provoking. She does come out with a lot of bollocks sometimes though. Oh, and I could do without the constant digs against employed mothers and daycare (isn't she an employed mother too, in any case?)

Yeah - as a 'gender critical feminist' I'm really suspicious about the language of 'difference' and 'choice'.

She's making an argument about what kinds of social systems are best for women and what cause them problems, with the good of women in mind.

It's only "not feminist" if you say that feminism has to have a very narrow set of orthodoxies on every topic that can't be challenged.

That's just a dead ideology. It's easier, it no longer has to respond to questions and criticisms then, but it's just dogma.

Her point about marriage is a good example - her view is that marriage is, in general, structured to protect women and children from the unequal burdens of motherhood - and that the feminist plan to make motherhood functionally the same as fatherhood hasn't been all that successful and furthermore many women don't want that. Why should women have to supress and change their bodies technologically to be supported in our society, and what kind of freedom is that? Easy divorce has made it simpler for men to abandon their responsibilities.

It's very difficult to say that hasn't happened, we can all see it around us. This kind of problem is one of the major criticisms women who don't really find feminism compelling make. "This just doesn't count as feminism" gives a very strong flavorful of only women who think the right thing can be feminists. At which point it's not really a movement of women as a whole any more, just a club of elites.

It's only "not feminist" if you say that feminism has to have a very narrow set of orthodoxies on every topic that can't be challenged.

That's just a dead ideology. It's easier, it no longer has to respond to questions and criticisms then, but it's just dogma.

Yep, yep. As society changes, feminism will do so also.

And feminism will be part of that change, so feminism will end up sort of reacting against itself and now I need to go and have a little sit down somewhere quiet.

This is interesting. I see youth trying to create online villages in the place of real world communities, but they do not work well (and can be harmful with bullying etc) because we don't see the overall complexity and nuances of others very well online, but tend to focus on one single aspect of others, not the full human beings.

Tribalism of a very simplistic type is rife in social media, and a person can be tossed out for one single wrongspeak statement. In real world 'villages' John next door is an ass about politics, but he shovels the snow of all the older people without being asked and without expecting pay. Aunt Ellie is nosy and a gossip and vain, but when someone is ill or in great trouble it is she who comes in to clean and care and connect the person to sources of help. And so on.

Earlier recent generations of feminists wrote a lot about the isolation of women in nuclear families, stranded in some suburban area with small children, no transportation and no help, and compared that to the older wider kin -based arrangements. Harrington's arguments wouldn't help this problem at all, and neither would they have any effect on the way the arrangements she supports would perpetuate the lifetime earnings differences between men and women.

Feminists differ in how same or different they see the two sexes, how much overlap there might be, whether men could do more child-rearing and make more career sacrifices for that, but ultimately feminism must tackle the fact that the unpaid work by women does leave them with lower lifetime incomes and fewer alternatives in divorce and so with less negotiating power inside marriages.

And some type of village arrangements are in my view necessary for both this (that women could also thrive as human beings) as well as the psychological well-being of all.

Mary Harrington is going to be on Triggernometry tonight. I think their premiers usually start at 7pm

Just a bump. The interview is starting about now.

Interesting perspective on the pill as the first 'transhuman' medecine/tech.

claiming that there was much more sex happening as a result of the pill - is there evidence for that?

I think she's a wee bit optimistic about how many men are, wrt birth control, to be honest.

She thinks that if women are not on birth control then men will be happy to have less sex.

That would be a nice world.

To me her ideas sound a bit hippyish.

'withdraw your body from commodification'

I'm a huge MH fan - I met her (at a mutual friend's funeral) and she was lovely as well as very smart.

Just started reading the book. I often think of her work as 'taking an idea for a walk and seeing where it leads'. But I also think her analysis of where liberal feminism has led us to is spot on.

Well, I really loved this. I wonder whether Mary would do a Mumsnet Q&A, like Louise Perry did. There is a lot I would like to ask her, not least regarding how women rewild sex in a world of freely available internet porn- surely there’s a fairly significant risk of men turning in even greater numbers towards a purely virtual sex life?

Is there a way one can make suggestions to MNHQ?

This is a must read. Mine's coming tomorrow, can't wait.

She was on triggernometry this evening, worth a listen I'd say.

I find those smug triggernometry boys insufferable, but I'll watch if Mary's on there.

I'd love Mary to do a Mumsnet Q&A. She's often talked very positively about MN - 'the ground zero of feminist resistance to gender ideology' sticks in my head.

No doubt I'll be a lone voice here but I've become increasingly sceptical over the years whether feminism is actually the answer tbh.

It often purports to be about 'the equality of the sexes' but then only focuses on one sex with the justification that men are already privileged and we need to be brought up to their level.

Having then established that only the welfare of women needs be taken into consideration, we then end up with pretty extreme suggestions like male curfews, reducing the male population to 10%, or male concentration camps where they're let out periodically to see loved ones - all suggestions I've actually read.

Of course, none of these will ever happen in reality but it feels like some feminists want to almost create a female version of the patriarchy. Once we've arrived at bonkersville what's really the point?

I think another key consideration is that the majority of men aren't particularly privileged and it's always a few at the top pulling the strings. Like with the current Ukraine war. I'd bet most men don't want to fight, yet there they are, former accountants and IT Managers with no combat experience suddenly fighting in the street with weapons thrust in their hands.

Of course, it's not great for the women either, but watching a few videos on uncensored reality sites will show the true horrors these men are experiencing. I saw one the other day which I didn't watch but from the description it was a Ukrainian soldier being raped. The thumbnail was a young man being held down by several other men with his trousers around his ankles. People don't really seem to care when it happens to men for some reason. Usually they say something like "oh, but who was the perpetrator....another man" as if this some kind of gotcha that ameliorates the suffering of the victim.

And if you mention the stats about 85% of homeless people being men, or men being 4x more likely to kill themselves, you get called an MRA as if caring about men is somehow bad. Same with the many studies showing women to commit similar levels of domestic violence to men. People will tell you that what matters is that more women are killed, yet when the topic of suicide arises it's suddenly all about the fact that more women attempt suicide and 4x more men dying doesn't trump this.

So, I don't really know anymore. I wish there was a movement that wanted to improve things for both sexes. Some people say feminism is that movement but it's not IMO when it actively tries to fight against things like International Men's Day.

Easy divorce has made it simpler for men to abandon their responsibilities.

This is relevant when we are talking about the ancient world, where divorce was an institution that allowed men to send wives back to their families (with the father keeping the children) if they grew bored of them or if they had failed to have a son. The early Church's ban on divorce was a step forward for women, in most ways. In the modern world, however, most divorces are initiated by women.

"People don't really seem to care when it happens to men for some reason. Usually they say something like "oh, but who was the perpetrator....another man" as if this some kind of gotcha that ameliorates the suffering of the victim."

I don't think its the case that people don't care. But in the past and now- especially in war, there was huge discomfort and resistance to talking about it - both among other men but also the victims themselves. Female victims of rape are heavily stigmatized too of course but it was easier to talk about it in the general sense - plus female rape victims often end up pregnant which is impossible to hide. Men were more likely to suffer in silence. And when SGBV against men is talked about it is more likely to be framed as torture than rape/sexual assault (see the ""rehydration enemas" carried out in Guantanamo Bay (not an actual medical thing by the way).

I do think it needs more specific focus/attention. But it needs careful thought because actually the way men communicate and frame trauma is sometimes different to the way women do. So it needs a customised approach.

Sorry - I know that was off topic. But it relates to an area I was adjacent to professionally.

e.g. the video you described was likely shared by the people committing the violence as a way of further shaming the man/his family. Otherwise you wouldn't know about it. So on the one hand, yes now we are more aware of it, but its an additional level of trauma for the young man that people are viewing and forwarding the video.