Five Leaves Non-fiction Book Group Discusses Abolish the Family, by Sophie Lewis

Our non-fiction book group is open to all. Attend every meeting, occasionally or just once a lifetime. All we ask is that you read the book in advance and take part in the discussion. There’s a short introduction by a member of staff or a group regular or someone we know with a special interest in the book in question.

What if we could do better than 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 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.

Free, refreshments provided. We don’t mind where you source the book – libraries are good! – be we offer 15% discount on book group titles.

Our book groups – Fiction (monthly), Pagan (bi-monthly), Non-Fiction every two or three months