Enemy Feminism occupies a distinct space in modern academia,
branding herself as a "communist feminist" linked to the broadly
defined "social reproduction theory" and publications like Salvage
and Jacobin-related outlets. Her goal is to delineate a boundary between what
she views as a corrupted, reactionary feminism—such as TERFs and liberal
"carceral" feminism—and an authentic, radical alternative.
There are valid targets to critique in her focus—liberal
feminism that depends on police, prisons, and imperialist military forces to
"liberate" women is genuinely a bourgeois dead end. However, Lewis's
approach itself has significant political issues that a Marxist cannot ignore.
Identity Politics in Socialist Clothing: Although Lewis's work hints at
anti-capitalism, it still primarily organises around gender as an independent
category of analysis and action.
Her earlier book, Full Surrogacy Now, demonstrates this by
prioritising a queer-theoretical perspective that diminishes rather than
clarifies class relations, focusing mainly on identity categories such as
gender, queerness, and trans identity rather than on the working class as a
historical class. This approach is not a praise for Marxism but a replacement
of one form of identity politics with another. From a Marxist perspective,
gender and sexual oppression are genuine consequences of a class society,
rooted in the family as an economic unit created by private property. They
cannot be eradicated through new identity-based coalitions; instead, they
require a socialist restructuring of society's material foundations.
Lewis's framework, despite its seemingly radical language,
remains focused on bourgeois social relations. The "Social
Reproduction" framework: Lewis extensively cites "social reproduction
theory" (SRT), associated with scholars like Tithi Bhattacharya. SRT
correctly highlights that reproductive labour is vital to capitalist
accumulation, offering important insights into how capitalism functions.
However, when Lewis and others apply it, it often becomes a universal theory in
which "reproduction" encompasses all social aspects, thereby
obscuring the specific role of surplus-value extraction and the significance of
the industrial working class.
A genuine feminist struggle requires adopting a Marxist
perspective on women's oppression, starting with history and political economy
instead of gender theory. Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State remains crucial: it argues that women's oppression began with the
rise of private property and the patriarchal family as key channels of
transmission. Consequently, overcoming this oppression demands abolishing
private property through a socialist revolution, rather than forming a new
feminist alliance.
The most significant advances in women's equality during the
20th century were driven not by feminist movements alone, but by working-class
revolutions: the early Soviet Union eliminated legal discrimination against
women, secured rights to divorce and abortion, and socialised domestic labour
on an unprecedented scale. However, these gains were dismantled during
Stalinism. Today, the goal is not to develop a better feminism, but to
establish a revolutionary socialist party rooted in the working class, where
fighting women's oppression is fundamentally linked to challenging capitalism
as a whole.
Identity Politics Masquerading as Marxism
Lewis’s main theoretical focus is on prioritising gender and
sexual identity as key categories in political analysis. Her earlier book, Full
Surrogacy Now, illustrates this perspective by framing the exploitation of
reproductive labour within a queer-theoretical context that blurs class
distinctions into a mix of affective and identitarian categories. As the
document notes: “The analytical centre of gravity is always identity… not the
working class as a historical subject.”
This is not just a minor flaw; it defines the pseudo-left's
core trait: replacing class with identity, materialism with subjectivism, and
revolutionary politics with moral-therapeutic language. Lewis’s feminism,
despite its radical terms, still lies within bourgeois ideological limits.
Marxism, however, starts from the material conditions of society, where women’s
oppression stems from private property and the patriarchal family—a mechanism
for its perpetuation. As highlighted in the document: “They cannot be abolished
by building new identitarian coalitions—they require the socialist
transformation of society’s material foundations.” In contrast, Lewis’s
approach leaves the capitalist foundations unchanged.
The Inflation of Social Reproduction Theory
Lewis relies heavily on “social reproduction theory” (SRT),
a framework associated with Tithi Bhattacharya and others. Although SRT offers
useful insights into how reproductive labour contributes to capitalist
accumulation, Lewis and her group reduce it to a comprehensive schema that
overlooks the unique processes involved in the extraction of surplus value. The
document highlights this issue clearly: it “tends to expand infinitely into a
theory of everything… dissolving the specificity of surplus value extraction.”
This conceptualisation of inflation is politically useful.
By substituting the industrial proletariat with a broad category of “care
workers,” SRT endorses the politics of NGOs, academic activism, and community organising—the
favoured domains of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. It promotes a politics
of fragmentation rather than unity; favours localism over internationalism; and
emphasises moral exhortation instead of class struggle.
Abolitionism: Anarchist Gesture in Place of Revolutionary
Strategy
Lewis’s support for “abolition”—including prisons, police,
and even the family—illustrates the pseudo-left’s retreat from addressing state
power. These slogans, which became prominent after 2020, are framed as radical
alternatives to reformism, but in reality, they function as substitutes for a
genuine revolutionary strategy. Abolition’politics sidesteps the question of
state power entirely, substituting prefigurative gestures for a revolutionary
strategy.”
The abolition of the capitalist state cannot be achieved
through moral appeals, community initiatives, or expanded activist networks.
Instead, it requires the organised working class to overthrow it. Lewis’s form
of abolitionism is essentially anarchism, wrapped in Marxist rhetoric—a
politics focused on negation without a clear plan for gaining power.
The Pseudo‑Left Milieu and Its Class Interests
Lewis’s prominence cannot be separated from the environment
that elevates her. The document notes: “These are not socialist institutions.
They are cultural platforms of the upper-middle class that redirect
radical-sounding discontent into safe, identity-based activism." This
environment is antagonistic toward the working class. Its politics mirror the
anxieties and hopes of a privileged group whose material interests depend on
maintaining capitalism. Its "radical" stance is largely performative,
with exaggerated rhetoric, and its activities are mostly limited to academia,
nonprofits, and social media. Lewis is not an anomaly in this environment; she
embodies its main characteristics.
The Marxist Perspective on Women’s Liberation
Marxism argues that fighting women’s oppression cannot be
separated from opposing capitalism, countering the pseudo-left’s identity
politics distortions. The document notes: “Women’s oppression arose with the
emergence of private property… Its abolition… requires the abolition of private
property itself.”
Women’s greatest progress in the 20th century largely
stemmed from working-class revolutions rather than feminist movements. The
early Soviet regime abolished legal discrimination, introduced rights for
divorce and abortion, and socialised domestic labour, all on an unprecedented
scale. However, these gains were later diminished by the Stalinist distortion
of the revolution. Today, the aim isn’t to create a “better feminism,"
whether radical or not. The primary focus is on forging a revolutionary socialist
party rooted in the working class, with a Marxist program committed to
overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism.
Conclusion
Sophie Lewis’s Enemy Feminism does not advance socialist
theory; instead, it highlights the political decline of the pseudo-left. Its
focus on identity politics, exaggerated emphasis on social reproduction,
anarchist abolitionist ideas, and ties to the academic-NGO sphere all distract
from the core importance of the working class in the quest for human
liberation. Combating women’s oppression calls for a revival of revolutionary
Marxist traditions, including those of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. It also
necessitates establishing the International Committee of the Fourth
International as the global socialist revolutionary party.
