Family Abolition:

For some of us, the family is a source of love and support. But for many others, the family is a place of private horror, coercion, and personal domination. In a capitalist society, the private family carries the impossible demands of interpersonal care and social reproductive labor. Can we imagine a different future?

In Family Abolition, author M.E. O'Brien uncovers the history of struggles to create radical alternatives to the private family. O'Brien traces the changing family politics of racial capitalism in the industrial cities of Europe and in the slave plantations and settler frontier of North America, explaining the rise and fall of the housewife-based family form. From early Marxists to Black and queer insurrectionists to today's mass protest movements, O'Brien finds revolutionaries seeking better ways of loving, caring, and living. Family Abolition takes us through the past and present of family politics into a speculative future of the commune, imagining how care could be organized in a free society.

M.E. O'Brien writes on gender and communist theory. She co-edits two magazines, Pinko, on gay communism, and Parapraxis, on psychoanalytic theory and politics. She co-authors the novel Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, and tweets @genderhorizon.

Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Publish Date: June 10, 2023
Pages: 304
Dimensions: 5.4 X 8.4 X 1.0 inches | 0.7 pounds
Language: English
Type: Paperback
EAN/UPC: 9780745343822
BISAC Categories: Feminism & Feminist Theory, Sociology - Marriage & Family
Gender Studies, LGBT Studies - Gay Studies, LGBT Studies - Lesbian Studies, LGBT Studies - Transgender Studies