This is your last Interpreter newsletter. |
 | | A rally for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in Mexico in 2018. The PRI ran Mexico as a one-party state from 1929 to 2000.Carlos Jasso/Reuters |
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What I'm reading (and watching) |
You might not think there's any obvious thematic link between the demise of one-party rule in Mexico and the rise of the anti-feminist movement in the United States, but how wrong you would be: The theme of my reading this week is the nexus between private relationships and public policy. |
- Following on from my reading last week about one-party rule in the American South, I picked up "Why Dominant Parties Lose: Mexico's Democratization in Comparative Perspective," by Kenneth F. Greene. It examines how the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ran Mexico as a one-party state from 1929 to 2000, eventually lost power. Greene shows how the party's use of semiprivate patronage networks, which distributed money and other state benefits to its loyalists, helped the PRI win and keep power for decades. But when those state resources became scarce, the party lost its hold on power, severing the link between the state and the private patronage relationships that used to be the vector for state power and political control. That brought democracy, but left behind a power vacuum and weakened institutions that the country is still struggling to rebuild.
- I am trying to learn more about the role that anti-feminism plays in politics around the world. So, on the advice of Angie Maxwell, the political scientist whose work I discussed a few weeks ago in this column on the backlash to #MeToo, I've been reading old columns by Phyllis Schlafly, arguably the most prominent architect of anti-feminist thought in America, and almost certainly the reason that the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified. One of the most interesting themes to me was Schlafly's insistence that traditional gender norms imposed obligations on men. She argued that the feminist movement, with its emphasis on political power and legal protections over private relationships within families, would release men from those obligations without providing countervailing sources of income or protection to women. If that argument sounds familiar, it's because it's very similar to the one Deniz Kandiyoti describes in "Bargaining With Patriarchy," her academic article about women in India, which I wrote about last month. Except that Schlafly argued that the traditional, relationship-based patriarchal system was the best women could hope for, whereas Kandiyoti framed it as a reason the cycle of patriarchal oppression was so difficult to break.
- For some lighter relief, I've also been watching "Mrs. America," the 2020 mini-series that starred Cate Blanchett as Schlafly and Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem.
- I'm also enjoying this season of "Only Murders in the Building." One of my sisters told me that she thinks cozy mysteries are the ultimate in comfort content because the genre carries a promise that the mystery will be solved, and order returned, by the end of the book or show. "Only Murders" is like that, but also has Steve Martin and Martin Short, adding humor to the general cozy vibes.
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Reader responses: Books that changed your mind |
Alexander Greer, a reader in Toronto, recommends "Milkman," by Anna Burns: |
"Milkman" exposes how in a society riven by sectarianism every act — the ordinary, everyday — is suffused with danger and fraught with meaning. The most ordinary parts of life take on metaphorical value, from the books you read to the soap you purchase. The important insight is how these understandings become part of us; they are so well-understood and accepted that we cannot see them, never mind, alter them. "Milkman" may be about Ireland and the "Troubles," but its universality is applicable to all the societies riven by race, or gender, or religion. |
Jeff Fields, a reader in Beaufort, S.C., recommends "The Silk Roads," by Peter Frankopan: |
This book dismisses and revises the Eurocentric view of cultural and intellectual history in favor of an Asian one based on the trade routes of the East. |
Thank you to everyone who wrote in to tell me about what you're reading. Please keep the submissions coming! |
I want to hear about things you have read (or watched or listened to) that brought you joy this summer. It doesn't need to be erudite, just fun. |
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