The Politics of Everybody: Feminism, Queer Theory, and Marxism at the Intersection: A Revised Edition

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The Politics of Everybody examines the production and maintenance of the terms 'man', 'woman', and 'other' within the current political moment; the contradictions of these categories; and the prospects of a Marxist approach to praxis for queer bodies. Few thinkers have attempted to reconcile queer and Marxist analysis. Those who have propose the key contested site to be that of desire/sexual expression. This emphasis on desire, Lewis argues, is symptomatic of the neoliberal project and has led to a continued fascination with the politics of identity. By arguing that Marxist analysis is in fact most beneficial to gender politics within the arena of body production, categorization and exclusion, Lewis develops a theory of gender and the sexed body that is wedded to the realities of a capitalist political economy. Boldly calling for a new, materialist queer theory, Lewis defines a politics of liberation that is both intersectional, transnational, and grounded in lived experience. With a new preface, Lewis discusses the argument for an explicitly Marxist understanding of trans rights - an understanding grounded in solidarity and materialist/scientific queer analysis. She also discusses the new wave of Marxist Social Reproduction Theory that has emerged since the first edition, family abolition, and the complexities of building an internationalist Marxist movement that is in solidarity with queer and trans struggles, attentive to women's realities, and one that refrains from imposing Western definitions (particularly American/Anglo definitions) onto global movements for liberation. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents Dedication Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgements Introduction I. The politics of everybody II. Communitarian ideals and culture wars III. How is every body sorted? Chapter 1: Terms of the debate I. Debates in Western gender politics Epistemology and identity politics Queer (anti-)identity Sex and social gender: dichotomy or dialectic? A final word on queer language II. What is capitalism? The origins of capitalism The basics of capitalist exchange The extraction of surplus value III. Philosophy and the Marxian roots of queer political thought Marx and philosophy Epistemology revisited Changing words or changing worlds? The separation of politics and economics From Western Marxism to poststructuralism IV. Conclusion Chapter 2: Marxism and gender I. Don’t be vulgar … II. From the woman question to the gender question III. Marxism at the center and the periphery IV. Marx on women V. Marx on gender and labor VI. The major works: Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks and Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State VII. Early Marxist and socialist feminism Who is the woman in the woman question? Sex and the utopian socialists Sex and the Second International Sex and the Russian Revolution VIII. Theories of social reproduction IX. Race and social reproduction X. Marxism and the second wave Chapter 3: From queer nationalism to queer Marxism I. The vector model of oppression II. Racecraft and ideological repetition III. Sexcraft and ideological repetition IV. Class is not a moral category V. The rise of queer politics VI. Marxist critiques of queer theory VII. Beyond homonormativity and homonationalism VIII. The spinning compass of American queer politics The problem of marriage and family The problem of queer imperialism IX. The world is a very queer place X. The queer Marxist critique of postcolonialism Chapter 4: Conclusions I. Solidarity means taking sides Solidarity and ideologies of sex/gender II. Ten axioms towards a queer Marxist future Notes Bibliography Index