Sophie Lewis

Abolish the family. A manifesto for care and liberation seems to be a reiteration of a blip, or a phantom flash of an idea that died a while ago. Although the book is not mainly about gay and lesbian people, the book's main idea is profoundly based in ideas from the gay and lesbian movement, as it existed in from the 1960s to the middle 1990s. Particularly in the 1980s, the gay and lesbian movement fought for equal rights, and as liberalism favoured their cause, they achieved more than they had strived for. That is to say, as their movement gained momentum they reached beyond their call for equal rights, and won the battle for the gay marriage.

In the early days, gay marriage had not been the goal. Rather, progressively minded gay and lesbians envisaged an alternative form of partnership, and entirely different type of matrimonial bond: a different form and a different name. They lost their cause to the mainstream that wanted gay marriage.

Sophie Lewis draws this argument one more, expanding it to other groups of people, and for different purposes. Instead of attacking matrimony, Lewis wants to abolish the family. Her book is not particularly woke. It's ideological base is that preceding wokeism. Abolish the family. A manifesto for care and liberation is, as it says, a manifesto, harking back to that other influential manifesto: Marx and Engels' The Communist Manifesto. Abolish the family. A manifesto for care and liberation is a neo-Marxist pamphlet.

Feminist writers throughout this period have pointed at the significance of Engels's Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: in the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan). Abolish the family. A manifesto for care and liberation seems to be a bit too inconsequential on the idea to abolish the family altogether.

Superficially, in the light of eroding gender stereotypes toward a more open society, and large, looming issues such as care for the aging population in a world where fewer people can rely on their family, it seems the book has a valid point. However, for all fierce and revolutionary gusto with which the book presents its argument, it is mum on alternatives that could fill the gap left after the abilition of the family.… (more)

This is written in a faux-naive tone that I found grating; one would assume that it's written as such because it's meant to be an introduction to Marx's more complex Capital, but it's not, because by the time you get to the "Epilogue" it would help to have some knowledge of Marx to know what is being put forth. And not a whole lot is being put forth. You can get the gist of it by looking at Twitter. For me it just read like a lot of theoretical wankery and a conclusion that goes, "Who knows", which is probably where you'll end up if you don't look at concrete historical examples (and this book doesn't--it's not that kind of book).

I don't want to give this a low rating because that puts me in the company of American conservatives going through the seven stages of the Red Scare or whatever. But I would suggest that everyone read Marx instead.… (more)