Femmephobes and Femmephiles:

Enemy Feminisms and Femme-inism Against Cisness

Tonight we will be joined by writer, theorist and teacher Sophie Lewis for a talk and discussion on femmes and feminism, largely looking at Sophie’s last two books: Enemy Feminisms and Femmephilia. 

In Enemy Feminisms, Sophie Lewis offers an unflinching tour of feminisms we love to dismiss: 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. 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.

However, where neoliberal women’s empowerment has failed to combat the eruption of right-wing, anti-trans, and anti-feminist attacks, Lewis argues that femmephilia can help us imagine a radical future.

In Femmephilia, Sophie Lewis makes the case for the vital importance of politicized femme-ness: a feminism that is self-consciously artificial, extravagant in its erotic and political appetites, and staunchly anti-work, abolitionist, and utopian.

All Sophie’s books will be available on the night, at a special discount price for event attendees.

Sophie Lewis is a writer living in Philadelphia. They are working on a book called The Liberation of Children and keep a newsletter at Patreon.com/ReproUtopia. Sophie has written several books about family abolition and gender liberation, and teaches courses, online, at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, which are open to all.