Abolish the Family : A Manifesto for Care and Liberation

What if we could do better than the family? We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonment and neglect, to abuse and violence. Nobody is more likely to harm you than your family. Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting. It could be otherwise: in this urgent, incisive polemic, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis makes the case for family abolition. Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after. We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonment and neglect, to abuse and violence. Nobody is more likely to harm you than your family. Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting. It could be otherwise: in this urgent, incisive polemic, leading feminist critic Sophie Lewis makes the case for family abolition. Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer Marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after." --inside front cover flap Sommario fornito dall'editore What if everyone was family? We need to talk about the family. For those who are lucky, families can be places of love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: from abandonment and neglect, to abuse and violence. In this urgent, incisive pamphlet, leaving feminist critic Sophie Lewis introduces the idea of family abolition as a question of universalizing and generalizing the good things about our families. In this short and exhilarating text, Sophie Lewis takes the reader through the various histories of family abolition, from utopian socialists to queer, Black and indigenous feminists and into the future, imagining what life might be like after the family. Radical and utopian as it undeniably is, family abolition is the real movement working to undo the care austerity that fundamentally structures life under racial capitalism. The argument for family abolition has become even clearer under COVID 19 where the myth of the nuclear unit has been seen to be a fiction. We were told to keep a 'social distance' (from everyone... except family). Consequently, those without family were left alone, isolated and abandoned. There is no justice in these rules, which keep loved ones from being with one another, treat children like property, and shore up wealth (or poverty) within a class. What is the alternative? Cover Page Halftitle Page Title Page Dedication Copyright Page Contents 1 But I Love My Family! 2 Abolish Which Family? 3 A Potted History of Family Abolitionism 4 Comrades Against Kinship Notes Acknowledgments Further Reading About Salvage Editions