The Good Enough Momfluencer: Disavowing maternal fantasies is easier said than done / Sophie Lewis

This Is Hell!

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4.9 • 937 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2023

⏱️ 78 minutes

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Summary

Writer, theorist, and recovering academic Sophie Lewis returns to Hell to discuss her Baffler article, “The Good Enough Momfluencer: Disavowing maternal fantasies is easier said than done.” The article is a review of the book, “Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture,” by Sara Peterson. Peterson’s website says she writes about feminism, domesticity, and motherhood. Peterson also writes a newsletter about the myth of the ideal mother, ‘In Pursuit of Clean Countertops.’ Read Sophie’s article: https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-good-enough-momfluencer-lewis This is Sophie’s third appearance on This is Hell! She was on the show most recently in October of last year, 2022, to discuss her book, “Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation.” You may also remember Sophie being on the show back in July 2019 to talk about her book, “Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family.” Not only were both those interviews selected by listeners as among the best of each year – and replayed during our end of year ‘Best of’ special broadcasts – but you can find both conversations by going to thisishell.com and searching on ‘Lewis,’ and, as always, they are free. Sophie is currently hard at work on a book for Haymarket on enemy feminisms. Sophie’s lectures are archived at lasophielle.org. Follow Sophie on Twitter at (at)reproutopia and support her work at patreon.com/reproutopia Support This is Hell! at https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm listening. Oh, no, no. Oh, no.
0:14.0	Oh, no.
0:15.0	Oh,
0:17.0	And, And
0:18.0	Gee- This is hell. Oke-Doke.
0:35.0	Live from the United States where capitalism is the virus.
0:39.0	This is hell.
0:42.0	We began last week by speaking with scholar and writer M. E. O'Brien, author of family abolition,
0:48.9	capitalism, and the communizing of care.
0:52.4	The title of M.E's book is the kind of thing that's right. the
0:55.0	commonizing of care. The title of Emme's book is the kind of thing that's ripe for taking out of context,
0:57.0	for judging a book by nothing but its cover,
1:00.0	and not only by reactionary members of the right, but also so-called centrist and self-identifying liberals.
1:05.1	The family is sacrosanct in the United States and not only above criticism, but also any kind
1:12.1	of any analysis whatsoever.
1:15.0	However, as M.E. explained, abolition does not always,
1:20.0	and only mean destruction, it also can mean a transformation.
1:27.0	In the case of family abolition, that can mean an expansion of the care and love that are
1:32.0	limited exclusively to our relatives within our current political economy.
1:36.0	The traditional family, a private structure for human relations that is grounded in concepts of property and control, obfuscates any sense of community while limiting
1:45.9	imaginations that might otherwise be able to have a more collective response of us all
1:50.7	being in this together instead of at each other's throats at all times.
	...

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