'Feminists against progress': article from Prospect magazine

[HoarFrosted]

Just dropping the link in case it's of interest to others. Lots to pick apart and I don't have time nor, frankly, the inclination - but perhaps someone else will have more enthusiasm. (I'm politically homeless and have largely given up following domestic politics, but every so often I relapse and sample media across the political spectrum until overcome by alienation; between this article and a dose of Gove I'm ready to retreat from current affairs for another few months, hence plopping this link.)

Striking amount of ad hominem (should that be ad feminem?), which reinforces my growing impression that political debate and allegiance increasingly take some sort of tribal identity as their starting point - or as a compass to steer by. We're supposed to subscribe to opinions as if they were lots in an auction and it's become harder and harder to get a hearing for dissenting opinions.

I wouldn't see Perry's and Harrington's evolution as thinkers as the result of audience capture. Actually Harrington has written about this, and about resisting the blandishments of audience capture, and losing subscribers when she wrote a piece expressing support for Britain's abortion time limits to stay where they are.

What I see in both of them is that once you have started to question the liberal hegemony, there's a domino effect. Because liberal-progressivist ideas are a world view, once you stop believing in one bit of it, everything else begins to look a little less secure, a little less like common sense. Gradually the Jenga tower begins to look extremely shaky, and eventually it falls.

The strange thing is, someone like Bloodworth who got his training as a Marxist (though in the eccentric version of Marxism retailed by the Alliance for Workers Liberty) should be a philosophical materialist. But philosophical materialism is very unfashionable on today's left. I think they prefer to see us as Force ghosts, like in Star Wars.

The great thing about seeing humans as beings of pure spirit, rather than slightly advanced chimps, is that you can divorce human nature from biology, and then modifying behaviour should be really easy - though for contrary evidence, ask any former polyamorist who thought it was easy to overcome sexual jealousy, and then realised it wasn't.

Evolving thought, especially if you can show your workings, is really important. If we're talking about male thinkers on the right, I learn a lot from Peter Hitchens, who's rejected most of what he used to believe, and writes a lot about why he now thinks he was wrong. I learn a lot less from Ben Shapiro, who is a gifted communicator but seems to have sprung from the womb fully primed to DESTROY the libs with FACTS and LOGIC, and never seems to have had to rethink anything.

That might be what I like best about Harrington - she shows her workings.

I find it hard to think of any liberal/progressive/left thinkers who have that quality. Mostly they seem to feel they've arrived at the most advanced point of human thought and don't have to examine their assumptions.

Personally, yes, I've had that feeling of "if they've got this wrong, what else have they got wrong?" and I like to feel as if I've gone on a journey with someone and seen them reflect critically on what they thought they knew.

That’s a good point. Though the plan seems to be less about telling and more about ‘make it socially unacceptable to acknowledge those things’. Which has success for a short time, but eventually reality will reassert itself. What’s the plan then?

These people remind me of the types of politician you sometimes see who appear to have no beliefs and no policies of their own – only this is on a micro scale. Like half a nation full of dinner guests who talk and talk but with nothing to say. They’re happy if they’re in charge, and they don’t particularly care of what.

’Change’ is ideal for such folk because then the conversation is terra nullius – they don’t have to wrest control away from anyone else

Removed: Feminists Against Progress
This article has been withdrawn due to an error
The article “Feminists Against Progress”, published on 28th January 2026 online and in the March 2026 issue of Prospect, included a quotation falsely attributed to Louise Perry and her book The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. Because of this error, the article did not meet Prospect’s editorial standards and so it has been removed. We regret the error and would like to apologise to Perry and to Prospect readers.
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/philosophy/gender/feminism/72304/removed-feminists-against-progress

So removal of the article rather than just editing it & adding a footnote explaining the edit - how interesting that they chose such a definite action 🤔