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This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

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DO THE "REACTIONARY FEMINISTS" MAKE SOME VALID POINTS?

INTRODUCTION:

This meetup will address some of the arguments made by the female writers Mary Harrington, Louise Perry, Helen Andrews, and Holly-Lawford Smith, all of whom might be vaguely categorized as "reactionary feminists". "Reactionary feminism" is a term coined by Harrington in 2021 to indicates a feminist opposition to the so-called "social progress" inaugurated by Sexual Revolution of the 1960s-70s (i.e. the birth control pill, free love, women's lib, abortion, no-fault divorce) and the Digital Sexual Revolution of the 2000s-2010s (online porn, hookup apps, trans influencers, #MeToo) because many of its social & economic effects are seen as harmful to the interests of women - and society at large. Reactionary feminism tends to align with aspects of maternal feminism (i.e. emphasize women's roles as mothers & caregivers) and difference feminism (i.e. women are essentially different from men and require special protections rather than gender neutrality).

Reactionary feminism appears to be more common in the Anglosphere outside the U.S. (i.e. UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) perhaps because of lower levels of religiosity, which makes socially conservative arguments framed in secular & pragmatic terms more persuasive. Interestingly enough, while reactionary feminists tend to be socially conservative they're often fiscally progressive - at least in terms of being suspicious of unrestrained capitalism & "career feminism" - but they tend to be featured alongside classical liberal pundits & libertarian-ish "equity feminists" in many of the same "heterodox" media spaces (e.g. Unherd, Quillette, The Free Press). This has occasionally led to some interesting debates, most notably The Free Press debate on "Has the Sexual Revolution Failed?" which featured Louise Perry teamed with the Red Scare podcast's Anna Khachiyan versus the ex-Muslim activist Sarah Haider and the musician Grimes. There was also the Dissident Dialogues conference in NYC lasts spring that featured a conversation entitled "Has Feminism Been Coopted by Progressives?" that featured Mary Harrington alongside Anna Khachiyan, philosopher Kathleen Stock, comedian Bridget Phetasy, and psychologist Diana Fleischman. This talk featured far more agreement than disagreement, in large part because all 5 women subscribed to "difference feminism" and saw themselves as refugees from the political left.

In the 1st section, we'll look at some arguments from Louis Perry's book "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution" (2022) and Mary Harrington's book "Feminism Against Progress" (2024). As we'll see, Perry's book's main thesis fits in well enough with longstanding feminist concerns about pornography & hookup culture that it got good reviews at left-leaning British news outlets like The Guardian and The New Statesmen. However, Harrington's book proved more controversial, as it argued for an almost complete rejection of the women's liberation goals of the mid-20th century - dismissed as "girlboss feminism" that serves corporate interests - in favor of a return to monogamous relationships and traditional gender roles. Check out the TED Talks video where Alice Thomson interviews Mary Harrington & Louise Perry entitled, "Feminism Against Progress?" (video - 35:31 min, listen to 21:30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8kQFVBQq2k

Here's some additional articles:

In the 2nd section, we'll look at "gender-critical feminism", a.k.a. trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF), and why this is a position that tends to align with reactionary feminism and is so prominent in the UK that Great Britain has been dubbed "TERF Island". The Australian feminist philosopher Holly-Lawford Smith wrote a book entitled "Gender-Critical Feminism" in 2022 that argues that some of the arguments made by trans activists are part of a broader trend towards "sex denialism" she views as harmful. In some sense, this is a logical extension of "difference feminism" into the debates over transwomen in women's spaces, but it's also the factor that has driven a wedge between difference feminists and mainstream feminist scholars (e.g. Judith Butler) who tend to see gender as a mere social construction and thus see transwomen in women's spaces as no big deal. Please watch Holly Lawford-Smith's video, "Gender-Critical vs. Trans Activist Claims'" (video - 11:46 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cozSSRavVLY

Here's some additional articles:

In the 3rd section, we'll look at the recent debate set off by Helen Andrews' Compact article "The Great Feminization" published last month in Compact magazine, which built upon her speech from NatCon 5 in September entitled "Overcoming the Feminization of Culture". Andrews' article essentially argues that as women become the majority in certain institutions like academia, corporate HR departments, law schools, etc., the institutional norms shift to accommodate the preferences of women which tend to favor safety & consensus over vigorous debate & freedom of speech for controversial views. Essentially, she blames the feminization of institutions for the rise of "wokeness" and "cancel culture". Her article appears to be partly based on an article by Cory Clark & Bo Winegard entitled "Sex and the Academy" published in Quillette back in Oct. 2022. Ross Douthat recently had Helen Andrews on his podcast to debate the Catholic thinker Leah Libresco-Sargent, "Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?" (video - 1:00:32, listen to 20:49)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkTglJuqq8U

Here's some additional articles:

Feminism
Sociology
Conservative Women
Gender Studies
Motherhood

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