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?

Enemy Feminisms is here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2440-enemy-feminisms

Abolish The Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation is here: https://lasophielle.org/writing/abolish-the-family-a-manifesto-for-care-and-liberation/

Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family is here: https://www.versobooks.com/products/711-full-surrogacy-now

Sophie’s book tour dates are available here: https://lasophielle.org/

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91: Feminism, Antagonism, and Solidarity feat. Sophie Lewis

Ordinary Unhappiness

91: Feminism, Antagonism, and Solidarity feat. Sophie Lewis