Person
Every book Mary Harrington recommended on podcasts
Across 3 podcasts. Every show Mary Harrington appears on, in one place — not just one.
Mary Harrington has recommended and discussed several works exploring gender, feminism, and modern society on various podcasts. She recommended Ivan Illich's Gender for listeners interested in the deep history of relations between the sexes and premodern agrarian roles. She also highlighted Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women to demonstrate how modern infrastructure and physical tools are often built around a male default, and pointed to Louise Perry's Case Against the Sexual Revolution as a feminist critique drawing on evolutionary psychology. In other discussions, Harrington mentioned James Marriott's The New Dark Ages regarding the potential loss of long-form literacy, and touched upon David Harvey's Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism through a writer's critique of limbic capitalism. She also discussed Daphne du Maurier's novels Jamaica Inn and Rebecca in the context of feminist readings of gender relations, and analyzed Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl as an early foundation for modern girl boss feminism and hedonistic ideology.
Books recommended by Mary Harrington
-
Case Against the Sexual Revolution
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution by Louise Perry is a cultural critique examining the long-term psychological and social consequences of modern hedonistic hookup culture and sexual liberation.
Discussed“and our mutual friend Lise Perry wrot recently wrote a very persuasive book detailing all of the ways it hasn't really worked out like that and all of the ways which as you've just outlined the sexual Revolution was considerably more to the benefit of”
Where to get it
-
Gender
Ivan Illich's Gender offers a radical historical critique of modern sex roles, arguing that the rise of industrial society destroyed a premodern golden age of vernacular gender complementary.
Discussed“I've drawn from Ivan nich's 1980 book gender in the book to to to to understand the the transition which illich reads and I agree with him as as really a not not a not a moment of empowerment but as as a significant loss of agency”
Where to get it
-
Invisible Women
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez is a profound examination of how modern society systematically ignores women, building a world designed primarily around a male default.
Recommended“this is what Caroline CR Perez talks about when she in the great another great book invisible women where she writes about how um how so much of the built-in environment and the physical environment and tools”
Where to get it
-
Jamaica Inn
Discussed“he has a little discussion about Daphne Demorier's novels um and Jamaica in particularly and Rebecca and he talks you know his reading of of Daphne Demorier is as is as a feminist you”
Where to get it
-
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a classic 1813 romantic novel by Jane Austen that explores themes of love, class, and reputation in British society.
Discussed“you know i mean the relationship between elizabeth bennett and mr darcy in pride and prejudice is it kind of sets the bar for what one of the what a relationship like that should look like and what it's in women's interests to pursue under those circumstances”
Where to get it
-
Rebecca
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a classic psychological thriller that follows a young second wife haunted by the lingering memory and presence of her husband's deceased first wife at a remote estate.
Discussed“he has a little discussion about Daphne Demorier's novels um and Jamaica in particularly and Rebecca and he talks you know his reading of of Daphne Demorier is as is as a feminist you”
Where to get it
-
Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism
Discussed“it was coined by a writer called David Courtright who wrote a book titled limitic capitalism which is all which which is a critique of all the ways that especially especially in more recent years the the way people the the way people make money the most profitable source of new innovation is hacking people's basic primitive drives”
Where to get it
-
Sex and the single girl
Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown is a groundbreaking 1962 cultural phenomenon and bestseller that redefined women's independence, career ambitions, and financial autonomy outside of traditional marriage.
Discussed“But the feminism which falls out of Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl in the 1960s, which is really the girl boss feminism, is the feminism of Cosmopolitan magazine, and it's really a thin ideological veneer over what is fundamentally, as you say, a hedonistic project.”
Where to get it
-
The New Dark Ages
Discussed“James Marriott calls this the new dark ages and he thinks that as we slip away from mass long- form literacy into a world of Tik Tok and slop that we're in danger of sacrificing the foundations of democracy itself.”
Where to get it
Books Mary Harrington wrote
Appearances
Other mentions (10: passing, ad reads, own books)
“I'm I my my last book was feminism against progress.”
“So Mary, you launched your book, 'Feminism Against Progress', in the spring of 2023, so why don't you start by walking us through the book and the argument that you are making there?”
“and my stance on on contraception is that there's a there's a robust feminist case against the pill um and i' in fact so much so that I devoted a chapter to it in feminism against progress”
“In fact, so much so that I devoted a chapter to it in Feminism Against Progress, the feminist case against the contraceptive pill.”
“one of the themes one of the themes in I've written about in feminism against progress is the the those ways in which like men and women have both always worked you know”
“I mean here's here's one example um talking in very general terms I mean I've made the argument that the problem with Trad wives as such is that they're just not Trad enough um in the sense that the what they're harking back to is a sort of mid mid 20th century template”
“well I guess that's just a variation on talking about productive households because I mean when again in feminism against progress the the the analogy I've given is weaving”
“but I mean this is this was all this is all what led me to to write to writing the book which I've which I've just finished writing feminism against progress”
“but i mean this is this was all this is all what led me to to write to writing the book which i've which i've just finished writing feminism against progress”
“I'm in the middle of writing up as a book chapter at the moment for the book which hopefully will come out towards the end of the year if I can shamelessly plug that here it's called feminism against progress”