Examples of Chinese Ornament selected from objects in the South Kensington Museum and other collections by Owen Jones. Public Domain.

This Week: WPATH Files, Interdependence Feminism, and Dad Culture

Welcome to the weekly Fairer Disputations round-up: your one-stop shop for the best in sex-realist feminism. This week, we bring you commentary on the explosive WPATH Files, a compelling portrait of interdependence feminism, an update on what Featured Author Angela Franks is reading—and more!

WPATH Files Fallout is Just the Beginning

In our first featured piece this week, Featured Author Eliza Mondegreen discusses the shocking WPATH files that were leaked this week—and gives her own read on what it takes to be a “good” gender clinician.

Feminism Goes Home

Next, Featured Author Ivana Greco reviews Featured Author Mary Harrington’s Feminism Against Progress. In doing, she suggests that there are two feminist “teams”: “Team Freedom” and “Team Interdependence.”

Dad Culture Has Nothing to Do With Parenting

Finally, at The Atlantic, Saul Austerlitz points out that “dad culture” doesn’t actually have a lot to do with fathers taking an active part in caring for their children.

The old model of fatherhood—the hands-off, financial-provider stereotype that involved little participation in bath time or homework—bears less and less resemblance to reality. But cultural conceptions of what a “dad” looks like still seem to reveal a lingering discomfort with masculine caregiving, the central work of fatherhood.

SAUL AUSTERLITZ

More Great Reads:

What I’m Reading: Angela Franks

I have been reading the third volume of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theo-Drama in order to write an essay on gender ideology and Catholic thought. TD 3 covers a lot of ground; the chapter I’m reading is about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Balthasar makes interesting arguments about the sexes, based on the New Testament and on the book of Genesis. For example, he says, “When the Adam of Genesis fails to find a partner among the animals, it is not because he lacks communication from spirit to spirit.” The story indicates that he had such communication with God himself. “What he misses is the relationship in which bodily things are communicated spiritually and spiritual things bodily.” In other words, the reduction after the fall of male desire for women to sexual desire is a real distortion of the original, broader spiritual desire.


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