The dust jacket on the British edition of Mary Harrington’s Feminism Against Progress features Artemis, Greek goddess of apparent paradoxes. She is the hunter, but also the hunted; she stands for chastity, but also childbirth. It’s a fitting image for a book that advocates “reactionary feminism,” which on the surface is a contradiction in terms. Feminism of the popular variety raises the specter of a supposedly regressive past, always threatening to reimpose itself. “Progress” is the legend of how historically marginalized identity groups continue to climb tooth and nail from this outdated morass of gratuitous repression. How could a woman oppose progress, the very thing that propelled her to her current, supposedly elevated status? How could “feminism” be “reactionary”?
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