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Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry
So, where are we now?
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The queen of reactionary feminism, Mary Harrington, is now hosting a monthly YouTube show with Socrates in the City. I was one of her first guests and the Socrates team were kind enough to let me share our conversation with you here. We discussed the disappointments of postliberalism, arguments over the feminisation of public life, the loss of male status in the modern world, conflict within the gender critical movement, and the debate over ethno-nationalism in Britain.
To watch more of Mary's interviews head over to Socrates in the City on YouTube. She's also recently spoken to Jonathan Pageau, Nina Power, and Justin Brierley, all conversations that I'm sure will be of interest to MMM listeners.
More episodes
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In Defence of Stay-at-Home Parents | Maiden Mother Matriarch 206
01:19:34|Feminists have been arguing about the politics of homemaking for a long time. In her 1963 feminist classic, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan famously compared the suburban American home to a “comfortable concentration camp”, arguing that homemaking was not just a waste of a woman’s talents, but a form of degradation.Maternal feminists reject this characterisation. But they also highlight the ways in which stay-at-home parents – mostly, but by no means exclusively, mothers – are made vulnerable, particularly financially. My guest today is focused on how public policy can best reduce this vulnerability.Ivana Greco is a homemaker and homeschooling mother of four. She has a degree from Harvard Law School and practiced law for ten years. She now writes about issues impacting homemakers, women, children and families.
The Lucky Country? | Maiden Mother Matriarch 205
01:12:37|I’ve just moved to Australia. I wrote a column about our move in the Wall Street Journal, which was also published in The Australian, but I haven’t otherwise spoken about our reasoning, and a lot of listeners have been asking. So today’s episode is about Australia: the issues the country is facing right now, why British people are so often attracted to moving here (including yours truly), the cultural differences between Britain and Australia, and the big political challenges that both countries are facing: immigration, economic stagnation, ageing populations, housing crises, and the rise of the populist Right.I’m joined by the perfect commentator with whom to discuss the state of Australia right now. Claire Lehmann is the founding editor of Quillette and also a columnist at The Australian newspaper.
The loss of Ann Widdecombe
21:25|In this bonus episode, Ed West and I discussed the apparent murder of Ann Widdecombe, the role that she played in British public life, and the responses to this atrocity.
The politics of the downwardly mobile class
18:05|In this bonus episode, Rob Henderson and I discussed a recent viral article in The Cut titled ‘It’s Hard to See My Parents Live So Lavishly While We’re Struggling’ and the broader issue of wealth inequality within families. Is it really true that millennials have it harder than boomers? Are downwardly mobile younger generations right to feel resentful? And how should wealthy parents protect their children from becoming spoilt and entitled?
Why we're still obsessed with the fall of Rome | Maiden Mother Matriarch 204
01:19:17|The empire that once controlled all or part of forty modern European, Asian, and African countries no longer exists. Rome didn’t fall all at once, and it didn’t fall for any one simple reason. But it did fall. And people down the centuries have been drawn to the story of Rome’s decline and fall with a mixture of fear, curiosity, and an irresistible desire to draw parallels between the fate of the Roman Empire and the present day.Today I’m joined by Edward J. Watts, professor of history at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of many books, including ‘The Final Pagan Generation’ and ‘The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome.’
How Hitler replaced the Devil
57:15|Alec Ryrie argues that the age of Hitler is not the 1930s and 1940s, it is our own lifetimes. As the influence of Christianity receded from the 1960s onwards, the figure of Hitler stepped into the breach – the most potent possible symbol of evil, around whom the Western moral imagination was structured.But as the Second World War recedes into history, this anti-Nazi moral consensus is unravelling, which means that our whole system of morality is coming under pressure. What happens when the Age of Hitler comes to an end? Alec Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University and author of ‘The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It’.
Who is to blame for the riots?
20:37|In this bonus episode, Nina Power and I discussed recent events in Britain, including the announced ban on social media use for under 16s and last week's rioting in Belfast and elsewhere.
A Billion Years of Sex Differences | Maiden Mother Matriarch 203
57:52|The science of sex differences is intensely political. Traditionalists tend to exaggerate the innate differences between men and women, while progressives tend to minimise them, arguing that the behavioural differences we see between the sexes are a product of nurture, rather than nature. Steve Stewart-Williams wants to offer a more cautious assessment. There are a lot of average differences between the sexes, some of them very pronounced. There are also a lot of small to moderate differences that are visible at the population level, but not necessarily at the individual level. This is a controversial subject, but also an enormously interesting one, with obvious relevance to all of our lives. Steve Stewart-Williams is a professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham Malaysia and author of books including 'Darwin, God, and the Meaning of Life' and 'The Ape That Understood the Universe.' His latest book is titled 'A Billion Years of Sex Differences: How Evolution Shaped the Minds of Men and Women.'
Why Tradwives are hated
17:56|In this bonus episode, I spoke with Helen Roy about Caro Claire Burke’s bestselling novel ‘Yesteryear’ and we tried to explain why the ‘tradwife’ phenomenon attracts such strength of feeling.