Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation

This lively counter-history from “recovering academic” Lewis (Abolish the Family) takes readers on a tour of the dark side of Western feminism. She explores multiple eras and examples of what she dubs “enemy feminism,” a reactionary strain of pro-woman politics that Lewis pegs as promoting conservative, racist, capitalist, or puritanical ideology under cover of its supposed radicalism or liberalism. Her archetypes range from the colonial-era “Civilizer” (“well-to-do British ladies” who “actively nurtured an ethos of condescension toward nonwhite women and men at the center of their pro-woman thought”) to the modern “Girlboss,” encompassing along the way some of the more controversial feminist positions of recent decades, from the anti-porn crusades of second wave feminist Catherine MacKinnon to the “anti-trans” politics of J.K. Rowling. But she also touches on lesser-known figures, like Josephine Butler, a “flawed but often genuinely subversive feminist” of the Victorian era whose attempts to aid sex workers—who were often being trafficked—ended up leading to “reforms” that simply criminalized the women rather than the pimps, and led in some cases—especially in British colonies—to the state simply taking over as pimp. Throughout, Lewis approaches her subject with a biting wit (on Sophia Amoruso, whose 2016 memoir #Girlboss popularized the term: “Amoruso used to have principles. But then she realized: this is no way to live”). This is sure to entertain and provoke. (Feb.)