Skepticism and Realism
Betrayals of the Feminist Dream
This week, we are proud to present our final new Featured Author: Kate Phelan.
Kate Phelan is a Lecturer in the School of Global, Urban, and Social Studies at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University in Australia. Kate’s first book, Feminism, Defeated, is coming out with Polity in 2025.
She has written for us before, arguing that reactionary feminism is doomed to fail; reviewing Carole Hooven’s book on testosterone; and as part of a dialogue between Catholicism and radical feminism. Here’s what she has to say about Fairer Disputations:
In Kate’s first piece for us as Featured Author, she offers a nuanced appraisal of both sex-skeptical and sex-realist feminism. Although she praises the work of Mary Harrington and Louise Perry, she also offers a word of caution, questioning whether their emphasis on the goods of marriage is a radical enough response to the sexual asymmetry between men and women.
Skepticism and Realism: Betrayals of the Feminist Dream
Kate Phelan
Ultimately, feminist skeptics and feminist realists alike have accepted patriarchal terms: unlike the male human being, the female human being is not inviolable. She is not owed the unconditional respect that is owed to him. Accepting this, feminist skeptics disavow women’s female bodies. Feminist realists acknowledge women’s female bodies, but they give up on unconditional respect, settling instead for protection.
On one level, the skeptics have sacrificed certain women: those who have not repudiated their sex, paradigmatically mothers. But the realists too are guilty of sacrificing women: those in prostitution.
This Week in Sex-Realist Feminism: Forgetting Feeling, Men Making News, and the New Marriage Inequality
This week: Freya India on how the right has forgotten feeling, Helen Joyce on why trans stories are suddenly making the news, and Stephanie Murray on the new marriage of unequals. Plus: the new singlehood stigma, working moms, America's missing men, beyond the feminist debate, a conference on marriage, motherhood, and women's happiness—and more!
From the Archives:
Featured Author Kate Phelan took part in a dialogue with Catholic theologian Rachel Coleman about what Catholicism and Radical Feminism share—and what they don’t.
Catholicism & Radical Feminism: A Dialogue
Kate Phelan & Rachel Coleman
Feminists are not Marxists by another name, nor anti-racists, nor leftists, nor trans activists. Nor, I must now say, Catholics. Ours is not the language of economic class, race, social justice, gender-identity, or sex; it is the language of sex-class.
In Pursuit: What do Marriage and Motherhood have to do with the Happiness of Women
On April 8, 2025, the National Marriage Project is hosting its Spring Conference discussing the nature and consequences of marriage and motherhood today. This conference is co-sponsored by Fairer Disputations.
The conference will be held at the University of Virginia, in Old Cabell Hall. There will be a research presentation at 3:30 and a keynote lecture at 7pm. It is free and open to the public.
Fairer Disputations Editor-in-Chief Erika Bachiohi will present as part of the research panel, Featured Author Louise Perry will speak on the main panel. Editor Serena Sigillito will also be there—drop by and say hi if you attend!