Mary Harrington's Joyless Utopia
yasha.substack.com
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For the first half hour we talk about the Ukrainian war and the attempted assassination of Russian novelist Zakhar Prilepin. Then we move on to our main discussion: Mary Harrington’s Feminism Against Progress. We were hoping to extract something positive out of this thing, instead we got a book so weird and incoherent and badly written it was actually funny. Separation of sexes, joyless procreation, medieval-style peasant nuclear families built on solemn duty…it’s all there in her utopia.
Mary Harrington (via reactionaryfeminist.com)
Want to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians.
Mary Harrington's Joyless Utopia
This was a great discussion. I'm reading Mary's book now and have watched many hours of her talking on various YouTube channels. The book came out earlier in the UK, so Mary was on the podcast circuit here a bit earlier. It was so interesting to hear your take. I'm a bit low in self-esteem, so much so that I tend to believe what I read, regardless of who says it. So having critiques like yours is super valuable to me. I'm only 50 pages in to the book, but I know Mary's take from all the interviews I've watched. A discussion with all three of you would be amazing to hear!
Thanks! Wildly incisive, funny, alternately savagely dismissive and even-handed, duet. Never, like its target, taking itself overbearingly seriously.