Liberating Motherhood S2 Ep23: Jane Ward: The Tragedy of Heterosexuality and Toward a Liberatory Model of Parenting
Dec 3, 2025
01:11:24
I am so excited about this episode! Jane Ward is a brilliant queer feminist scholar who has written extensively about the harmful dynamics heterosexual relationships normalize. Her book, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, has heavily influenced my own work, and I am so grateful to her. She’s working on a new book about parenting that we hit on a bit, but we mostly talk about what is going on in heterosexual relationships.
Some of the topics we cover include:
Some of the topics we cover include:
- Why maybe it’s not being queer that is difficult, but being straight. Perhaps rather than worrying about our queer children, we need to worry about straight kids.
- The misery of heterosexual culture, and why queering relationships can make them better.
- How heteronormative culture conceals the horrors of heterosexual relationships to reel women into these often-harmful romances.
- The phenomenon where heterosexual marriage often puts women in a worse situation than they otherwise would have found themselves in.
- The normalization of marital hatred, and how male homosociality influences everyone.
- Why queer divorce rates indicate a healthier approach to relationships.
- What it means to queer parenting practices, and how we can embrace a truly liberatory parenting ethic.
- Parenting as a cultural experience rather than an individual one.
Quick scheduling note: For December, I’ll have a podcast every other week, in addition to the paid bonus at the end of the month. In January, I will be returning permanently to the new schedule of weekly podcasts. Season three will be out the first full week of January.
As always, please consider leaving a quick review and heart-reacting or sharing. It really helps a lot!
About Jane Ward
Jane Ward is professor and chair of Feminist Studies at University of California Santa Barbara. She teaches and writes about gender and sexual cultures and has published on topics including the anti-gender movement, online misogyny, the marriage self-help industry, the ebb and flow of interest in lesbian feminism, the meaning of sex between straight-identified men, queer childhood and parenting, the corporatization of gay pride festivals, and the labor of producing gender.
Ward is the author of multiple books, including The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, described by The New York Times Book Review as “at heart a somber, urgent academic examination of the many ways in which opposite-sex coupling can hurt the very individuals who cling to it most.” Her book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (2015) was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is the co-editor, with Soma Chaudhuri, of the first global feminist collection of academic and popular essays about witches and witchcraft, The Witch Studies Reader.
Jane is also cofounder or SURJ DENA, the Altadena chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, and a member of the board of the racial justice and mutual aid organization My TRIBE Rise.
You can find all of Jane’s books, as well as numerous booklists and book recommendations, at the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop.
As always, please consider leaving a quick review and heart-reacting or sharing. It really helps a lot!
About Jane Ward
Jane Ward is professor and chair of Feminist Studies at University of California Santa Barbara. She teaches and writes about gender and sexual cultures and has published on topics including the anti-gender movement, online misogyny, the marriage self-help industry, the ebb and flow of interest in lesbian feminism, the meaning of sex between straight-identified men, queer childhood and parenting, the corporatization of gay pride festivals, and the labor of producing gender.
Ward is the author of multiple books, including The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, described by The New York Times Book Review as “at heart a somber, urgent academic examination of the many ways in which opposite-sex coupling can hurt the very individuals who cling to it most.” Her book Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (2015) was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is the co-editor, with Soma Chaudhuri, of the first global feminist collection of academic and popular essays about witches and witchcraft, The Witch Studies Reader.
Jane is also cofounder or SURJ DENA, the Altadena chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, and a member of the board of the racial justice and mutual aid organization My TRIBE Rise.
You can find all of Jane’s books, as well as numerous booklists and book recommendations, at the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop.