From the author of Abolish the Family a provocative compendium of the feminisms we love to
dismiss and making the case for the bold liberatory feminist politics we’ll need to stand
against fascism nationalism femmephobia and cisness. 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.
