Mary Harrington

What are children for? For my grandmother, this would have seemed a strange question. For her, having children was not a matter of choice but simply, as she once put it to me, “what one did.” Today, though, children have become decisions we make: an opt-in variation on our default state of . . . . Continue Reading »

We’re all familiar with the policy debates that surround the family. How does the tax code interact with family stability and the needs of children? Who should care for children, and how is this care to be supported? What are the ethical implications of fertility technology? But behind all these . . . . Continue Reading »

Within mainstream modern liberal feminism—especially as filtered through America’s bitterly polarized culture wars—to be feminist is self-evidently to be left-wing. Admittedly, one need not dig very deep among “anti-feminist” writers to find individuals who seem to dislike women. . . . . Continue Reading »

My childhood religious education was, you might say, haphazard. I met many of the most famous Bible verses for the first time not in church, or through a family member, but in Handel’s Messiah, which I listened to so many times as a youth that I memorized much of the libretto. But somewhat . . . . Continue Reading »

Our departure from the Enlightenment is apparent everywhere today. “Truth” is contested territory at all points on the political compass, whether in conservative cynicism about liberal bias in the “mainstream media” or liberal claims that “objectivity” is merely “whiteness” . . . . Continue Reading »

A newly-influential strand of feminism aims to free us from the inconvenience of embodiment. Continue Reading »

Two books marshal cogent arguments against gender identity ideology. But is argument enough? Continue Reading »

What science reveals about the mom-baby relationship. Continue Reading »

When I was about ten, I began to notice that my father would leave the table after dinner, assuming my mother would clear the dishes. As we grew older, my brothers did the same. I thought this unfair to my mother, whose chores seemed never to end. As the only daughter, I faced a dilemma: Should I . . . . Continue Reading »