Mary Harrington thinks feminism needs to go backwards, not forward 

Crikey, being for abortion rights and also against transgender surgeries is incoherent, because they're somehow connected?? At 51:18. Bit mad imo

thank you so much for this megan. i had read a few of mary harrington's articles without realising that she was an intellectual power house and a kindred spirit. i now am a massive fan of hers and am ordering her book. excitedly.

Thank you for this discussion. Love your work Meghan Murphy! I was on the pill for 13 years. Never had decreased libido, never 'felt crazy', never gained weight or felt bloated, other than when on my cycle. It greatly helped me regulate very irregular & much more painful periods. Each one of our individual experiences with the pill or anything really, does not mean it is very prevalent. I do have an issue with Mary stating 'categorically' that it makes one crazy, lose libido, etc. I don't believe statistics back up that the majority of women who do use the pill, lose libido. I don't find anything sexy about the 'danger' of getting pregnant, making sex more exciting. It made me abstain completely, when I was not on the pill, certainly didn't have a 'better sex life'....Once I had a hysterectomy, including removal of both ovaries, that killed my libido, & I was never told or heard that it could even be a side effect of a hysterectomy. Having said all that, I believe its also irresponsible to talk about how awful the pill is, and leave out any discussion of how to avoid pregnancy during sex. No, counting my cycle was not working, bc I didn't have a regular cycle, as happens to many other females. Mary never mentions condoms, any other method of birth control. I listened to her on triggernometry, & found her very insightful and a breath of fresh air, in many other respects of her critique of feminism, she didn't mention other forms of birth control, or the problems associated with not 'planning for a child' in any way. I also don't think the pill, had anything to with tranz..I think the internet and porn overuse has way more to do with causing tranz.Along with what I would describe as hate for homosexuals, homosexual community in general by Society. Also, I think the 'tranz trend' is coming from Big Money sources, as Jennifer Bilek's 11th Hour Blog & her has exposed. She's been following the money, on the 'tranz trend' for years, also can be viewed here on youtube in interviews, explaining it. Big Tech has a lot to do with it, pushing it. It is a Top/down movement, certainly not 'grass roots'...I am not with the young, modern "sex work is work", crowd. I think its abominable to consider that kind of promotion of 'sex work'. I was born after 2nd wave feminism, but long before 3rd wave, being older than both Meghan and Mary.

I am horrified to hear her say that abortion should possibly be banned; as safe and legal abortion leads directly into transgenderism... this woman is nuts if she really believes that.

I remember the early days of birth control was to save women in marriage to men who demanded sex and therefore the danger of multiple childbirth and poverty

Now I’m older I can see it… we were duped

Re: abortion - I never wanted kids and had a horror of being pregnant. She's right - banning abortion is a shit idea, providing a LOT of support for pregnant women is a great idea, and letting women who want abortions have them.

Loved this conversation. Especially the subject of the pill. I dated someone who already had a family and didn't want more. I didn't have one but wanted one. It was getting late for me and he was adamant that he was crazy about me but firmly would not budge on this issue one iota. He suggested EITHER I go on the pill OR he have the snip (or both) to make 100© certain that there was no baby in our future but consequence free sex for him was guaranteed. So essentially the point was that I would be rendered a vessel for sex. That's all. This was the end and Im glad I did not strike that deal

Very good discussion. 👍 Keep up the good work! At around 34:00, someone has to stay at home and take care of the children. I did it for twelve years as a "stay at home dad" and got put down for it. Why would anyone dismiss the importance of keeping the home? By the way, I have absolutely NO regrets about being a stay at home dad. My three daughters and I are closer than most dads and their children. 😊 Fact - You can't "have it all" or "be it all". At least not at the same time. Because if you try to, something which you're pursuing, parenting, career, is going to be neglected. You can't "make" time. You can allocate time, devote time, but you can't "make" time.

16:50 I’m married and a mom of 2 about the same age as Meghan and Mary. I met my husband on Match well over a decade ago. I imagine dating apps are a different animal from a dating website but I owe my life to online dating. I have my babies and love of my life because of it! But I met the man who abused me IRL, so, not great. Can probably discuss the pitfalls of online dating without chucking the whole thing.

I do not agree that women (adult human females) having the option of abortion *if needed* is NOT THE SAME THING as a MALE having COSMETIC surgeries and needless drugs to mould their male body into a simulacrum of a Woman. The first does NOT lead to the second. Having an abortion is not cosmetic. Its a hard hard decision. I have not liked the concept that kind of sprung up for a while that one can have an abortion in a lunch time. An "abortion" differs on the gestation age. Vast, vast majority of women who make that choice tend to have the "abortion" in the first 6 weeks of gestation. Very very few are post that age. The concept of the "My body my choice" should be in general sacrosanct - which is why we now have a lot of people who will over ink their body, have extreme piercings and many of them as well as those who become addicted to "surgeries"/Extreme body modification to create an ideal body type (yes Women have been doing this and I think its wrong.). Maybe society needs to pull back from this concept....there is a point where a person is *addicted* to the thrill of altering their body in extreme ways. What the underlying reasons are doesn't matter. Maybe there should be laws in place (applied at the doctors) that a certain level of body modification - no more should be done. Because it DOES HARM the body and the person who has to live in the world with those very visual modifications. Also, just because it is *possible* to do - should we really be doing it? The doctors in the past who pioneered the concepts of plastic surgery *to help people who have been disfigured by illness, injury, or congenital health issues* would probably not be happy with the vanity surgeries that have been pushed which do not improve anything. And *any* treatments that are for "trans" should come under the "Just because we can doesn't mean we should". The ETHICS are harmful for the individuals (as we are seeing especially in the young teens) but also for ALL of society. Creating Endocrine DISEASE in individuals (doesn't matter what age - "puberty blockers" start it but too high a dose of the sex hormones NOT for your sexed body will also create endocrine disease in an ADULT), is appalling. Doctors KNOW the harms endocrines disease has. Remodelling a body to have pretend "organs" and body parts that the *body was never INTENDED TO HAVE due to how the body was created/built DUE TO THAT BODY'S SEX*, is appalling ethics. Do doctors think that a person who absolutely insists they are an Angel, think its ok to get the wings off a Swan and surgically attack to that person's back is ok? We probably do have the ability to make the wings attach and maybe even move with modern tech - but is it ETHICAL to do so? One Swan gets killed. One Human is a "guinea pig" with ALL the risks of surgery, the difficulty of really living with the reality of a pair of wings on one's back and the health implications that will cause. This may be an extreme example - but we have it in real time with men now demanding that they get "uterus" implants - Women will be those poor swans. Some of those men will die from the attempts. Personally I don't think uterus implants should be done between women either! Its not the same thing as a heart and lung transplant or liver transplant which will SAVE a person's life and maybe have not made the deceased (who usually has died suddenly and was other wise healthy) have died in vain.

I have two boys who are now well into their 20s. I'm 42. I had a number of friends and family members keep saying to me throughout my 30s that I'd end up having another baby by the time I was 40, despite me saying I did not want any more children. I did not have any more children. So people not asking 30+ women when/if they'll be having any more kids, is just plain rubbish.

The sniffing drove me nuts. Sorry. The subject was interesting but my misophonia was kicking in big time.

Mary’s hoody is everything 😂

Meghan Rocks ! Great guest. Great topic !

No matter how many times anyone says you shouldn’t care what others think, the reality is that we are significantly, if not entirely, shaped by others’ views of us. We are social beings. Whether introverts or otherwise, we _need_ social contact the way we need air and water. That study way back on Romanian orphans deprived of all physical contact, where many of them were severely socially and physically impaired by it; some even _died._ And the autism connection: There’s something in our brains called ‘mirror neurons’ that teach us to mimic, from infancy, the language, gestures and social customs of those around us - parents, peers, anyone we see as being important. Would argue this is a prime reason social contagion is such a powerful force. Or the behavior of people in crowds. Also supposedly explains autism, which, as I understand it, is at least partially explained by an insufficiency of mirror neurons. Or perhaps, neglect may have caused those neurons to misfire or otherwise not function correctly. The other thing is the whole prefrontal cortex thing, which basically exists to ‘spin’ stories that lubricate our social status/ease our passage through life. Also probably significantly influenced by early, formative experience.

yes, feminism has gone too far. when you have a woman, drew barrymore, dressed in a pant suit, kneeling and apologizing to a man in a dress, dylan, if no one can see feminism has gone too far, then bring on the asteroid.

This was a great discussion. I’ll absolutely be ordering that book. Thank you for giving your platform to such intelligent men and women. 🙏

Great conversation, thank you. 🤍

The bit at about 16:00, where there's a discussion of how human interactions are now mediated through technology-and that this does not "civilize" people but rather heightens their ruthlessness and cruelty reminds me of JG Ballard.

thank you Mary and Meghan loved this discussion most provocative and validating of the physicality of life e.g. inc craft

I don’t like that we’re here, but we are, we have to face facts and we have to start having some truly uncomfortable, highly nuanced, very difficult conversations about feminism. Thanks for helping us take that plunge!

Thank you for all you do, standing up for women and children and sanity. You are both amazing

I really enjoyed All her concepts this was way to short . The cyborg and uterus as strip mining at the end should have been elaborated on. Years of disparat feminizim condensed. ❤️❤️🤔

So delighted to see Mary here. Great interview, Megan. Thanks. By the way, are you still in Mexico?

@21:00 i'm happy to do physical, dirty, labour. There are women who work construction. As a woman who worked in labour, I can tell you that men don't want us there because we are 'taking jobs away from men' and believe that we should be in a kitchen or concubinage somewhere instead to the point that for the 15 years I was a technician I often thought 'I should just give up and marry someone and have babies'. I find it fascinating that you state that it is for the bourgeiois when you do not require having to work beside men who expect you to be their concubine all day. Rape shelters are still ran by feminists because they realize that poor women can't afford hotels or other boundaries. It's opposite to why we oppose the sex industry - since the poorer you are, the more likely you are to be sexually exploited. We know that there are still plenty of feminists opposing the sex industry in modern day, so I don't know why it's said 'modern feminism is sh*t', etc.

With abortion, that's another topic where people just love having extreme opinions about. You either support abortion wherever whenever, or you oppose it absolutely. I support abortion in instances of rape, incest, serious developmental disabilities of the child, or the mother's life being endangered by the pregnancy - I think that it's a human right in those cases. Still, no one should ever force a woman to have an abortion, but every woman should have access to a safe abortion in situations like those. On the other hand, I'm against abortion as a method of contraception. I think it's healthy to take responsibility for one's own sex life, sex comes with the possibility of conceiving, it's healthy to accept that fact. If you're not mature enough to have a baby, you're probably not ready to start having sex. If you couldn't imagine having a baby with this man - he's probably not the right sexual partner for you.

Brilliant. Thank you Meghan and Mary.

Absolutely fell in love with Mary during her recent appearance on Triggernometry. Super excited to hear this!

Great interview - a lot of thought for food.

Thank you for this interview Meghan. Mary completely rocks, a voice of reason and sense. I have ordered her book.

I sometimes wonder if Mary ever got into Hermeticism or Thelema. It seems like the kind of thing she probably would have been adjacent to for a large part of her teens.

The radical union of mother and infant is brought out in consideration of such psychic phenomena as ‘projective identification’ (M. Klein)

Great conversation ladies, thanks 👍

An interesting video. Some interesting ideas, but also some deeply concerning ones, which have the faint whiff of a born-again Christian.

Before we invest fully into the idea that women just don't want certain type of jobs (not fully disagreeing with that) I think we first need to discuss the fact that some jobs have been done by men because they're stronger and faster at doing them. Because of that, some industries have a very high percentage of male workers, the tools have been designed for male hands, and we as a society have become accustomed to those tasks being done at a certain speed. Given all those aspects, it is not wonder how some jobs would not be appealing to women.

Oh wow, I have never heard such a take on abortion or the pill. Incredibly thought-provoking. Great show, Meghan!

Has there ever been a feminism of proportionality? ...I'm forever experiencing the feminism of horseshoes and hand grenades.

This is an incredible interview. Mary Harrington is nuts, but in like a good way. God damn, thank you!

Meghan, would you consider interviewing Janice Fiamengo?

Personally complete regression in this shit as a means to remind everyone is what's actually needed.

Wow an observation Meghan.. from our perspective.. when Mary was dropping the Red Pill on you about marriage.. + almost a new paradigm of caring for another human being.. We saw in your eyes + body language that yearning.. Please invite us to your wedding! (we are over the pond so give us advance waring to book the plane tickets..) Pax ps Lovely interview with a lovely Brit.. :)

Great discussion. Music to my ears.

Great discussion - if you don’t have her lined up already, get Louise Perry on 😉

Such a great podcast! Huge fan of Meghan and now Mary! Thanks so much for these videos. Your podcast makes me feel normal. It's like hanging with a friend.

1:08:00 This is exactly the kind of stuff that keeps me from taking "reactionary feminism" seriously. Coconut Kitty had 5 million followers. I don't know her payment scheme, but say that 10% of her followers tossed her a single buck each month, then she was earning half a million dollars a month. That's not "getting by". _Flipping burgers_ is "getting by". Coconut Kitty was "getting rich". Now, one's body is sacred and therefore it was still an invalid deal? Or, perhaps, she might have been on psychoactive substances? Or, maybe, she had been manipulated by public propaganda? Fair enough, all of it! But then answer this question: How big, _just how big_ a pile of cash, exactly, does a woman need to earn, and for what period of time, exactly, does she need to continue this behavior, until it stops being exploitation acted upon her by other people and starts being her own decision? And how utterly ridiculous is the notion, that a woman who'd answer "never", could ever be trusted to honor a Harringtonian covenant? Any substantial change is going to include women making (and enforcing) a definitive decision whether or not they ought to be considered children or adults. Until then, it will only ever be spoiled milk in increasingly newer and shinier skins.

Megan have you heard of a professor named E Michael Jones? He would be great guest for your show. He is very adept at the porn addiction and negative effects on men discussion. He even debate this subject. I think he has Twitter dms open. You think he might be worth a contact? He is a Catholic and was not sure how religious you were.

I wanted to grow up to be a mum when I was 5.

One of the best guests ever!

Mary is brilliant. Can't wait to read her new book. Thanks for having her on Meghan 👏

A great conversation Meghan . I have learned a lot from your channels.

I love listening to Mary Harrington! She is so well-spoken and does such a good job of expressing herself clearly and simply - I don't need to keep rewinding the video to try to understand what I just heard. And I love her take on feminism -I've known something wasn't right with a lot of the theory I've encountered, and she puts everything in its place (yes to 1450s household!). Please have her back, Meghan!

A strong pro-feminist and anti-abortion argument is the reality that many women are pressured by the father to have an abortion.

Meghan you really have to consider the unborn. Whilst I agree with setting the argument against abortion as being very destructive to women, which it is; it’s above all absolutely destructive to prenatal life.

Total respect to this lady, even though I despise feminism and feminists in general, but this lady is very ... what's the word ... correct?!

I think she’s got some interesting points about the internet and the genesis of the whole belief in an ‘alternate persona’ separate from reality, and the ever-increasing disconnect between the two to the point where people literally begin to believe their online persona is real and should be accepted by others. Bit of Emperors New Clothes! Where I part ways with her is when she says me too and the focus on street harassment being a result of the proliferation of pr0n and young women having grown up with less interaction with random males on the street. She says herself that she’s been ‘on the shelf’ for a decade or more (I.e., married :) and has aged out of getting street harassed. I would argue that, by being married and therefore in a sort of ‘protected’ category, and never having been the sort of girl who overtly sought male attention (my impression from what she says here), she’s sort of ‘forgetting’ the _massive_ impact the daily harassment by males has on our lives. What I’m saying is, I think the focus on mansplaining, manspreading, street harassment and more are easy to ignore if you’re a quiet, married introvert working from home. If you’re a young, hot girl/women commuting daily to an office or other job on public transport or walking down the street, not so much.

Throughout this discussion, both women argue that the "typical" or average woman's experience should be used to outlaw or dismiss that of the atypical. eg 20:00 Men are on average physically stronger than women, so being a refuse collector should - what? - not be permitted to women?? 59:00 "Women dont enjoy casual sex as much as men do...*no matter what some women will say*" - so we dont even have to listen to those women whose experience is different to the "typical"?? These are straightforwardly anti-feminist ideas. Neither is anyone "doing away with" with idea of gender or sex. Rather, we are trying to recognise the comlexity of something that has biological, social and historical dimensions. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir wrote, "...even the division of a species into two sexes is not always clear-cut. In nature it is not universally manifested...*It is extremely difficult to give a generally valid definition of the female*. In nature nothing is ever perfectly dear...man is not a natural species: he is a historical idea. Woman is not a completed reality, but rather a becoming...her body is not enough to define her as woman..." The reductionism of "gender critical" ideology and its simplified slogans ("adult human female", "sex is real" and the like) is exactly what de Beauvoir rejects. It's a throwback to the patriarchal, anti-feminism of long ago, so it's no wonder "gender critical" positions are identical with those of far right, anti-LGBTQ authoritarians.

This was a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much.