Sophie Lewis, author of "Enemy Feminisms" and a recovering academic, joins the conversation to discuss the complexities of various feminist ideologies. They explore historical figures who embodied contradictions within feminism, from slave-owning activists to modern transphobic demagogues. Lewis questions how we can engage with these problematic legacies while advocating solidarity. The dialogue delves into the tensions surrounding social reproduction, race, and the necessity of critical engagement rather than dismissal within feminist discourse.
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insights INSIGHT
Solidarity as an Achievement
The "given" in feminism, like solidarity, isn't inherent; it requires conscious construction.
This challenges the naive expectation of automatic unity and highlights the work needed for true solidarity.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Confederate Women's Activism
Sophie Lewis discusses Stephanie McCurry's work on women in the Confederacy.
Women led food riots, highlighting class consciousness intertwined with racial resentment.
insights INSIGHT
Liberation Through Control
Sophie Lewis connects seemingly disparate feminist figures through shared ideologies.
These include prioritizing constraint and control as paths to liberation, visible in policing and carceral logic.
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Abolish the Family, A Manifesto for Care and Liberation
Abolish the Family, A Manifesto for Care and Liberation
Sophie Lewis
Enemy Feminisms
Enemy Feminisms
TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation
Sophie Lewis
The Scapegoat
None
René Girard
Femphilia
Femphilia
Sophie Lewis
Full Surrogacy Now
Sophie Lewis
IÑAKI TOFIÑO
Daring to be Bad
Alice Eccles
The Transsexual Empire
Janice G. Raymond
Confederate reckoning
Confederate reckoning
Stephanie McCurry
Eros and Empire
Eros and Empire
Alexander Stoffel
Tangled up in Blue
Rosa Brooks
Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich
In *Nickel and Dimed*, Barbara Ehrenreich chronicles her three-month experiment living on minimum-wage earnings, working as a waitress, maid, and retail clerk. The book highlights the impossibility of making ends meet on such wages, revealing the harsh realities faced by low-income workers in the United States. It was expanded from an article in *Harper's Magazine* and became a bestseller, praised for its impactful portrayal of economic inequality.
Abby and Patrick welcome author Sophie Lewis to discuss her latest book, Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation. Together, they explore the history of a variety of feminisms, self-identified and otherwise, that can justifiably provoke anxiety and even rejection in those invested in feminism as an emancipatory concept and project. Their conversation ranges from nineteenth-century activists who saw the rights of women as entailing the right to own slaves to those whose visions of abolition were inextricable from logics of racist imperialism; from twentieth-century eugenicists to prohibitionists; and from today’s transphobic demagogues to the pinkwashing boosters of the carceral state. What are the lessons of these movements and figures, how do they reflect material and ideological struggles over social reproduction, and what challenges do they pose for the formulation of feminist projects? How, from a psychoanalytic perspective, can we interrogate our own libidinal investments in logics of exclusion, and balance our competing desires to identify and disidentify with others? Are there ways we can receive inspiration from, and claim to be in continuity with, problematic figures in the past, while also critically acknowledging their shortcomings? And above all, can we draw on those lessons to both meaningfully practice solidarity and face opposition in the present?
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