I must admit, I’m disappointed. I mean, this book wasn’t bad. Its overview of these different kinds of enemy feminisms is valuable and illuminating. I generally agree with most of what Lewis writes. I think this book certainly helps one understand that, first of all, there are different feminisms, not just one Feminism, and then also that they need to practice discernment to understand whether whoever they are speaking to truly aligns with their values, views, and beliefs or not. I think it’s also good for pointing out reactionary tendencies.

However, my biggest issue with this book is how overwhelmingly white it is, even as it tries not to be by its shallow understanding that the enemy feminisms it describes are products of whiteness to some degree. And I also kept getting the sense that despite saying the contrary (kind of), Lewis finds patriarchy, capitalism, and capitalist relations to be more problematic (that is the origin point of other issues) than racism. I mean, at one point she did say that she believes “racism is a patriarchal form of feminism”, which I disagree with. That Lewis can arrive to this conclusion is indicative of her positioning as a white woman who has not sufficiently deconstructed her own whiteness, in my opinion. They both are ideologies and subjugations meant to uplift one group at the expense of the other, but while patriarchal feminism might use racism as a tool, racism is also what allows for it to exist in the first place given the antiBlackness that undergirds global society and how Blackness is how these capitalist gender markers are able to define themselves because those markers are truly only afforded to the white and white-aligned.

Reading the conclusion was honestly the final nail in the coffin for this book, I fear. Lewis muses on what an alternative western feminism could be. I’d hoped that, given the extensive research undergirding this book, she would have come to the conclusion that I have—there was never going to be an alternative. Because feminism is not ready to interrogate, dissect, and ultimately eliminate the markers and basic politics that undergird it. For true liberation, all markers of Humanity, including gender/sex, must go, at least in my opinion. This book never takes the opportunity to come from a lens that doesn’t privilege whiteness. It talks about white feminists, it cites primarily white feminists, it is written by a white feminist…even if Lewis clearly understands that most/all (all in my opinion, most seemingly in hers) that these enemy feminisms are all racist, there is never that moment of “why”. There is never an interrogation of what feminism without whiteness looks like. There is never a moment of understanding that the socially understood and accepted definition of “woman” is a product of whiteness. Perhaps this is implicitly understood by Lewis, but it is never made explicit for the purpose of analysis.

I also disagree with Lewis’s assertion that most feminism was not for cisness. Or, well, it depends on what feminism we’re discussing. For me, feminism immediately signifies a legitimization of these gender and sex markers which means a legitimization of whiteness and white supremacy, and even if not those, then undoubtedly a legitimization of Humanism or Human supremacy. That is the thing that holds us back from liberation. And to be clear, Humanism is not separate from global antiBlackness, they’re just about the same thing. This book makes no mention of either of these things (and in fact performs microaggressions and cultural theft), and so I know that it does not go far enough for me.

I also find it troubling that despite the multiple passing mentions of “decolonial feminism”, indigenous feminisms are never given even an indication of acknowledgement. Black feminisms are right behind them in invisibility. I don’t find I like this. I also really do not at all like Lewis’s attitude towards decolonial pessimism that comes from feminists and theorists of color. It’s a small moment in the conclusion but it infuriates me, because it’s just so egotistical in my opinion. Oh, she “welcomes” “moments” of “tetchy” decolonial pessimism?? Are you being serious right now? As a white woman, she needs to have several seats and she needs to have them now. Calling a personal expression of a woman of color’s anger at white feminist imperialists “tetchy” is disrespectful, and implying that she can only handle these feelings in “moments” (implying they are not always pessimistic) is quite audacious. The conclusion of this book truthfully soured me on the entire thing. Disappointing.