The Battle Between Feminism and Motherhood | Louise Perry

um so I insist on defining myself as feminist partly because I think that um the way that feminism has largely been captured by you know a particular a particular ideology which which we've been talking about um is pernicious and I think that actually the the best way of defining feminism is just you know a political movement that thinks that women are disadvantaged in certain ways and wants to remedy that you know that doesn't have to come along with any of this nonsense that I'm really critical of I think that what we're seeing in terms of say the The feminists Who Embrace sexual disenchantment the feminists who um uh who seek essentially in every way to permit women to live like men as much as possible who try and erase the differences between men and women across the board um I think that this is just a sort of feminist instantiation of hyper liberalism so an ideology that prioritizes freedom above absolutely everything else and doesn't see any other doesn't see Freedom as as something to be balanced with other virtues but sees it as a as the soul goal you know I think that we are seeing that ideology just brought to its logical conclusions with something like such the idea of sexual disenchantment because if you want people to be completely utterly free then you do have to take aim at the idea of sacredness at the idea that we should be confined by any kind of traditional ideas even that we should have obligations to each other you know I mean one of the things that I um think is really disastrous about this this what I call liberal feminism in the book is that it it cannot accommodate motherhood because the nature of being a mother is that you have you have enormous obligations to your baby you have an incredibly strong link initially physical and then and then increasingly just emotional but you know very strong link with your baby to the extent that you can't really understand a mother or a baby as being individuals they're a dyad you know and if your goal is to promote women's freedom you can't reconcile that with the existence of the diet and with the fact that you know that um a comment a friend of mine made um which I repeat all the time because it's because it's funny because it's true is that the only thing that will restrict your freedom more than having a baby is going to prison which is completely true you know I say we both have our first babies at about the same time um how do you how do you accommodate that within an ideology that sees the freedom of the individual is the most important thing you know you can't so basically you end up just rejecting motherhood is basically what's happened and we're even getting to the point now where liberal feminism is rejecting the female body full stop you know we now have the medical technology that will allow women to um you know use a surrogate if you don't want to be pregnant yourself allow you to transition to being a man if that's what you want you know we if if if freedom is your goal then the human body is very much an impediment and and this and this is produced a kind of politics where actually the use of other people's bodies often the bodies of poorer people is seen as a completely reasonable sort of self-actualization project and the idea of having any social guard rails any tradition any you know anything sacred is also fair game um and I'm not convinced at all about ideologies and the best interests of women even if it may be in the best interest of a few women who are unusually powerful Etc I think that you know the the argument that I make in in um my my book in my writing in general is I think the Biggest Losers of the sexual Revolution have been poor women specifically [Music]

Channel: John Anderson

Views: 10,864

Keywords: John Anderson, John Anderson Conversation, Interview, John Anderson Interview, Policy debate, public policy, public debate, John Anderson Direct, Direct, Conversations

Id: e-sp3skgDkc

Length: 4min 36sec (276 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 01 2023