Sophie Lewis w/ Emi Koyama, ENEMY FEMINISMS

From the writer of Abolish the Family comes an unflinching tour of two hundred years of enemy feminisms, making the case instead for the bold, liberatory feminist politics we need. Co-presented by Red May.

About the Book

In recent years, “white feminism” and girlboss feminism have taken a justified beating. We know that leaning in won’t make our jobs any more tolerable and that white women have proven to be, at best, unreliable allies. But in a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need.

Sophie Lewis offers an unflinching tour of enemy feminisms, from 19th century imperial feminists and police officers to 20th century KKK feminists and pornophobes to today’s anti-abortion and TERF feminists. Enemy feminisms exist. Feminism is not an inherent political good. Only when we acknowledge that can we finally reckon with the ways these feminisms have pushed us toward counterproductive and even violent ends. And only then can we finally engage in feminist strategizing that is truly antifascist.

At once a left transfeminist battlecry against cisness, a decolonial takedown of nationalist womanhoods, and a sex-radical retort to femmephobia in all its guises, Enemy Feminisms is above all a fierce, brilliant love letter to feminism.

About the Author

Sophie Lewis is an ex-academic Anglo-German writer based in Philadelphia whose writing has appeared everywhere from n+1 to the London Review of Books. She is the author of Full Surrogacy Now and Abolish the Family, both published by Verso, and you can support her at patreon.com/reproutopia, or lasophielle.org lists all her podcast appearances and articles. Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen and Girlbosses Against Liberation, from Haymarket, is her third book.

About the Interlocutor

Emi Koyama is a multi-issue social justice activist and writer synthesizing feminist, Asian, survivor, dyke, queer, sex worker, intersex, genderqueer, and crip politics, as these factors, while not a complete descriptor of who she is, all impacted her life. Emi is currently the Coordinatrix of the Coalition for Rights & Safety for People in the Sex Trade, a network of about 20 community groups in Seattle/King County area, Washington promoting rights and safety for people in the sex trade through public education and policy change.

Purchase your copy of Enemy Feminisms here.

Host or Publisher Elliott Bay Book Company