'Denying my Existence' - a piece by Mary Harrington

[NotHavingIt]

Mary Harrington's world view has very clearly been revolutionised by her having become a mother, hence her interest in, and focus on, the effects of socialised childcare in 'Feminism Against Progress' and here, in this piece, on the postulated effects of maternal deprivation on developing identity.

As ever, speculative and exploratory - but certainly interesting.

https://open.substack.com/pub/reactionaryfeminist/p/denying-my-existence?r=clsg2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

So when you posted that it was unclear to you what the maternal urge was, were you making some kind of generalised point? If yes, what was it based on?

erm, that there is no consistent explanation for what it is? I’m not suggesting there is a universal experience.

So what's the issue with posters chipping in with their own views and experiences?

The issue is that they seem to be extrapolating it to what all women want. I queried maternal urge in response to a poster telling me that men stepping up wasn’t a solution to women leading more balanced lives because our “maternal urge” overrode them / stopped them doing so (?). Which incidentally followed a post opining that women who wanted to be eg a top surgeon were pursuing that because they wanted their ego stroked, and there was no need to make room for women doing those sorts of top jobs.

Ok, well I'll let the posters concerned answer those points. As for me, I'm not extrapolating anything, just chipping into a discussion.

You are quite something.

If women want to be top surgeons, they are more than welcome to do that. But it does not benefit women as a group, when feminist organisations are spending their effort on worrying whether we have 50% of top surgeons being women, 50% of CEOs being women, 50% of hedge fund traders being women. Because the vast majority of women will never be top surgeons or top hedge fund traders or top CEOs. The average Jane woman, should not be expected to be grateful to feminist organisations because the ratio of female CEOs went up from X% to X + 4%.

I am talking about a focus of effort of organisations that exist to advocate for the needs of women as a whole, not for the desires of the most privileged who are already thriving. You want to be a top surgeon, go for it, with my blessing!

But I fundamentally disagree - it absolutely benefits women as a whole to have women in “top” positions. The positive impacts are well documented.

not least for women in business as it’s usually them forcing the conversations about flexible working etc that benefits the “average Janes” you refer to. They’re both sides of the same coin.

it’s the same argument that people were advancing back in the 70s when women were advancing in the workplace full stop - “it doesn’t benefit all women so we shouldn’t care about it”. Of course that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing we should care about.

Just musing, if you start working at a Saturday job age 15, and you retire at 75, that is 60 years of working life. Even as much as 10 years out to be home with young children still leaves 50 years of paid employment…

Back to the article, if as Mary Harrington is musing maternal deprivation (using childcare one of her examples )causes children to grow up with no fixed gender identity and therefore become transgender adults, then wouldn’t ancient societies where children were removed from the mothers care have had tons of trabsgender people? Like Sparta? All those Spartan warriors taken permanently away from their mothers as little boys, certainly suffering from “maternal deprivation” - they weren’t growing up wanting to wear a dress and work a loom.

Wouldnt we also see a higher % of transgender people with single sex male parents? Single fathers? Having gone to all boys boarding schools? If the latter, then why werent way more British upper class men transgender from 1660 to today?

I wonder if we are arguing at cross purposes a bit, banana, my fellow fruit. I don’t think anyone is arguing that women shouldn’t do paid work outside the home at all. I think the argument is that more mothers than are currently able to would like to be spending more time with their young children, and that that would be good for children because it provides them a secure base which can still be achieved with dad or granny or auntie doing some of the childcare but probably not in a setting with a high turnover of poorly trained and poorly paid staff. If children could choose they would probably choose to be with mum most of the time for the first 3-5 years and maybe a bit longer than that for some.

Mary Harrington herself recognises that she is in a privileged position because of being in the “knowledge class” or the “laptop class” enabling her to do paid work from home and spend time with her child that way. She suggests that women have always worked but that prior to the Industrial Revolution they were much better able to combine working and mothering because their work was in and around the home.

👍🏿 agreed.

? Prior to the Industrial Revolution the vast majority of women were agricultural labourers or servants in other (richer) women’s homes. The work for most women was not in their own home.

I am having issues with a “philosopher and thinker” not knowing basic historical facts, and basing her conclusions on common ahistorical misconceptions.

I think there are general differences between the sexes and many types of test confirm this; that is not to say that we all conform to the general patterns, but that the patterns are there, even as individual characteristics, skills, talents modify this pattern to a greater or lesser extent.

It seems obvious, really. We are biological creatures of earth, like every other creature. Sex is hard-wired into our DNA. You only have to look at the promiscuity of the male gay scene to witness a kind of purely testosterone driven behaviour - unmodified by the presence of females. You don't find this type of behaviour in the lesbian community to anywhere the same extent. This is just one example.

Males sem more driven by visual clues when looking for a partner; and is part of the reason that you don't find female fetishists in the same way that you do with men......and so on. Women don't do heavy breathing phone calls; don't tend to be voyeurs in the same way; aren't serial killers; are not as focused on transport systems and the intricacies of them as many men ( I contribute to a urban forum which is mainly comprised of men - 98%, i'd say)

She's not an historian, she's a thinker, an explorer of ideas.

Before the Industrial Revolution the majority of women agricultural labourers were working on their own or rented land, or working in gheir own homes as, eg, spinners and weavers.

I know that but it is highly irresponsible of her when writing something historical to not do a bare minimum fact check.

That's a wild leap. you clearly haven't read the book and are trying to impose your ideas about gender onto her work.

She actually used to identify with male name and pronouns herself during her youth.

Most trans identified men were traditionally gay. Now many are hetrosexual autogynephiles.

Lolling at the idea that pre Industrial Revolution kids got anywhere near as much face time with parents as today’s lot do. Absolute fantasy land.

iirc all the research says that children of today’s FT working mothers spend more active time with them than kids of the mid 20th century. Because women were mostly doing domestic work back then. It’s the invention of the washing machine and the pill that have even enabled us to have this conversation.

You are distorting the points because you have not read the work. So it is becoming a bit of a shadow boxing exercise.

Do you have children stealth banana?

Try reading the book before judging it. She speaks at length about historical patterns and movements.

Exceot that is not quite what I said. It is what you have chosen to extrapolate from it.

Not sure if this is still up to date on the maternal urge myth https://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/maternal-instinct#managing-expectations
Was mentioned earlier in the thread and others may find it interesting!