The persistence of heteronormativity is not only due to the weight of social conventions and norms, but also to material conditions of existence: being in a couple means having more resources. Sophie Lewis asserts that the conditions of heterosexuality are inseparable from economic realities: ‘Most women are too overworked, too exhausted by the demands of capitalism and its culture of compulsory enjoyment to even have the opportunity to learn to love.’

Sophie Lewis wrote ‘Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation’

#relationships #domesticWork #sociology #heteroNormativity #materialistFeminism #feminism #love #subjugation #appropriation #sexism #heteroSexuality #patriarchy #subalternStudies #family

'Lewis takes up a debate with several Black feminists who have, at various times, questioned the idea of family abolition, whose central argument has been that, very often, Black families have been sites of resistance against racism. Similarly, we could point to many experiences of class struggle in which sectors of working families have played a key role against the attacks of capital: supporting strikes, establishing relations of solidarity between factories and neighborhoods, staging rent strikes, maintaining soup kitchens, creating movements in defense of public services, and many other forms of resistance. The tradition of “women’s commissions” in strikes, for example, has allowed the working class to articulate fighting forces far beyond the workplace.

'To this criticism Lewis responds that, even so, we should not cease working for the abolition of the family, since we would not need its “protective shield” if we managed to build a society without racism. The argument contains a grain of truth, but it stops halfway. It fails to contemplate the role that the family relations within sectors of the working class and oppressed can play in moments of heightened class struggle. On another level, it doesn’t account for the fact that capitalism, while it needs such a “social cell” for its own reproduction, constantly undermines working families’ very conditions of existence. Marx and Engels remarked on this in the mid-19th century, pointing to the length of the working day, the lack of decent housing, and the general precariousness of working class life.'

Josefina L. Martínez : https://www.leftvoice.org/love-and-care-beyond-capitalism/

#property #gender #subordination #dependence #family #debates #debate #abolition #antiCapitalism #Fourier #Lewis #sociology #anthropology #communities #feminism #feminisms #chores #care #queer #rainbowMafia #historyOfIdeas #Marxism #relationships #abolitionism #culturalism #radicalFeminism #materialism #classes #revolution #domesticWork #classStruggle #careWork #historyOfFeminism

Your work is never done.
No space is your own.
Use Your own plates.
Do not fall sick.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/09/the-hindujas-made-uk-headlines-for-mistreating-their-servants-in-india-no-one-batted-an-eye-heres-why

#domesticwork #exploitation