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Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care
Have you ever relied on the kindness of strangers? What brings people together to find hope and solidarity? What do we owe each other as citizens and comrades?
Questions of care, intimacy, education, meaningful work, and social engagement lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. In Lean On Me feminist thinker Lynne Segal goes in search of hope in her own life and in the world around her. She finds it entwined in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective endeavours.
Segal calls this shared dependence 'radical care'. In recounting from her own life the moments of motherhood, and of being on the front line of second-wave feminism, she draws upon lessons from more than half a century of engagement in left feminist politics, with its underlying commitment to building a more egalitarian and nurturing world. The personal and the political combine in this rallying cry to transform radically how we approach education, motherhood, and our everyday vulnerabilities of disability, ageing, and enhanced needs.
Only by confronting head-on these different forms of interdependence and care can we change the way we think about the environment and learn to struggle — together —against impending climate catastrophe.
Questions of care, intimacy, education, meaningful work, and social engagement lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing. In Lean On Me feminist thinker Lynne Segal goes in search of hope in her own life and in the world around her. She finds it entwined in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective endeavours.
Segal calls this shared dependence 'radical care'. In recounting from her own life the moments of motherhood, and of being on the front line of second-wave feminism, she draws upon lessons from more than half a century of engagement in left feminist politics, with its underlying commitment to building a more egalitarian and nurturing world. The personal and the political combine in this rallying cry to transform radically how we approach education, motherhood, and our everyday vulnerabilities of disability, ageing, and enhanced needs.
Only by confronting head-on these different forms of interdependence and care can we change the way we think about the environment and learn to struggle — together —against impending climate catastrophe.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published November 14, 2023
27 people are currently reading
1181 people want to read
About the author
Lynne Segal
19 books39 followersLynne Segal is an Australian-born, British-based socialist feminist academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
December 23, 2023
More of an anthology mixed with an autobiography than a treatise on radical care the title limns itself to be. Not much I felt I gained by reading this book but it is filled with heavy references to other more extensive works on prison abolition, critical pedagogy, disability rights, and ecological justice. Certainly not a bad read, just not as informative as I'd like it to be.
March 18, 2024
Lynne Segal has been a powerful presence in British feminist politics for 50 years or so, cutting her teeth in North London’s activist word of the 1970s, building on her student life in Sydney. She’s the author of a number of essential texts in the field, including co-writing the classic, foundational foray into contemporary socialist feminism
Beyond the Fragments
, still essential reading over 40 years after its first publication. Trained in psychology, much of her work seemed more alert to dynamics between individuals and their social worlds than many of her comrades, yet she also managed to avoid the ahistoricism of much of the feminist psychoanalytic approaches of the era.
One of the things I have long liked about her writing is the way she weaves her life and experience of struggle into her work, not in a biographical sense (although we do learn a lot about her life) but as a way to bring historical tendencies in theory, experience, and practice to life as she draws on those struggles and outlooks to build her understanding and demonstrate her argument. In recent years she has focused more explicitly on a tendency that has run through much of her work – the role of the collective and the social both in those politics both as concept and as lived. This engaging, punchy weaving together of many of those trends explores the feminist politics of care. In doing so, she adds flesh to the bones of the longer run exploration in philosophy of a feminist ethics of care
She builds her case from the individual out – starting with the care relationship most vaunted and abused in social and political discourses, that of motherhood, critiquing and unpacking those claims. In doing so, she unravels many of the ways the image of the mother has been evoked across an array of political perspectives, critiquing the romanticised, celebrated image of the mother as individual sacrifice while also exploring the vital role of the wider politics of reproduction in her analysis. It’s a subtle but effective way into not just a feminist politics of care, but a socialist feminist politics of care. She builds on this to incorporate a sense of collective knowledge making in struggle, and of the practice that shaped and shapes a particular form of feminism that gets well beyond the equal rights in an unequal world form of liberal feminism.
So far, so expected. It’s in the second half of the case that it starts to get really interesting – firstly because she begins to make the case that a politics of care is relational and interactive, so it is not just about caring but being cared for. Secondly she argues that this politics is also social and environmental, and it is here that her earlier argument against the ‘naturally caring’ mother really kicks in, because it allows her to critique the eco-feminist outlook of inherent women’s associations with ‘the natural’.
The environmental aspect is powerful, but also not unexpected; the punchy part, for me at least, is her case about the need to admit vulnerability and therefore the need to be cared for. This case is delicately built, drawing on disability politics and aging. It’s the argument about disability that needs the most care, in part because of the importance of a social model of disability – where an inflexible social order and practice turns difference into impairment into disability – in rebutting the medical model. Segal is a good socialist however, and seems (implicitly) to treat these not as absolutes but as factors in dialectical relation, noting that some forms of difference/impairment have a significant impact, whatever the social circumstances/condition. In short, when combined with her exploration of aging she is arguing that all of us are likely to need some extra care at some stage, and that our wellbeing depends on admitting that vulnerability.
This then builds to an argument in favour of a more egalitarian world, a stronger welfare state and public sphere, and a recognition and practice of interdependence –personally, collectively and globally. It’s a powerful rebuttal of the dominant tendencies in neoliberal feminism and neoliberal individualism more generally in favour of a collective, transformational politics, while recognising that we bring different skills, styles, and ways to that work.
Segal is 15-20 years older than me, but we grew up in a similar leftish world of socialist feminist activism although I came to political life through an early environmentalism and international anti-imperialist solidarity action and the anti-nuclear movement. Even as recognise many of the trends and tendencies she draws on, I doubt that it is age/generation that makes this resonate. This is a feminist politics of care that is both theoretically rich (if unobtrusive) and pragmatically grounded the demands of the now. That makes it highly recommended.
One of the things I have long liked about her writing is the way she weaves her life and experience of struggle into her work, not in a biographical sense (although we do learn a lot about her life) but as a way to bring historical tendencies in theory, experience, and practice to life as she draws on those struggles and outlooks to build her understanding and demonstrate her argument. In recent years she has focused more explicitly on a tendency that has run through much of her work – the role of the collective and the social both in those politics both as concept and as lived. This engaging, punchy weaving together of many of those trends explores the feminist politics of care. In doing so, she adds flesh to the bones of the longer run exploration in philosophy of a feminist ethics of care
She builds her case from the individual out – starting with the care relationship most vaunted and abused in social and political discourses, that of motherhood, critiquing and unpacking those claims. In doing so, she unravels many of the ways the image of the mother has been evoked across an array of political perspectives, critiquing the romanticised, celebrated image of the mother as individual sacrifice while also exploring the vital role of the wider politics of reproduction in her analysis. It’s a subtle but effective way into not just a feminist politics of care, but a socialist feminist politics of care. She builds on this to incorporate a sense of collective knowledge making in struggle, and of the practice that shaped and shapes a particular form of feminism that gets well beyond the equal rights in an unequal world form of liberal feminism.
So far, so expected. It’s in the second half of the case that it starts to get really interesting – firstly because she begins to make the case that a politics of care is relational and interactive, so it is not just about caring but being cared for. Secondly she argues that this politics is also social and environmental, and it is here that her earlier argument against the ‘naturally caring’ mother really kicks in, because it allows her to critique the eco-feminist outlook of inherent women’s associations with ‘the natural’.
The environmental aspect is powerful, but also not unexpected; the punchy part, for me at least, is her case about the need to admit vulnerability and therefore the need to be cared for. This case is delicately built, drawing on disability politics and aging. It’s the argument about disability that needs the most care, in part because of the importance of a social model of disability – where an inflexible social order and practice turns difference into impairment into disability – in rebutting the medical model. Segal is a good socialist however, and seems (implicitly) to treat these not as absolutes but as factors in dialectical relation, noting that some forms of difference/impairment have a significant impact, whatever the social circumstances/condition. In short, when combined with her exploration of aging she is arguing that all of us are likely to need some extra care at some stage, and that our wellbeing depends on admitting that vulnerability.
This then builds to an argument in favour of a more egalitarian world, a stronger welfare state and public sphere, and a recognition and practice of interdependence –personally, collectively and globally. It’s a powerful rebuttal of the dominant tendencies in neoliberal feminism and neoliberal individualism more generally in favour of a collective, transformational politics, while recognising that we bring different skills, styles, and ways to that work.
Segal is 15-20 years older than me, but we grew up in a similar leftish world of socialist feminist activism although I came to political life through an early environmentalism and international anti-imperialist solidarity action and the anti-nuclear movement. Even as recognise many of the trends and tendencies she draws on, I doubt that it is age/generation that makes this resonate. This is a feminist politics of care that is both theoretically rich (if unobtrusive) and pragmatically grounded the demands of the now. That makes it highly recommended.
January 22, 2024
I didn't expect to tear up reading this, but the intimate autobiographical style in which Segal writes really moved me – especially regarding aging/ageism and disability activism.
While this book doesn't necessarily provide the reader with textbook-like exposition or a deep-dive on 'a politics of radical care' it recounts an activist and scholar's life of distinguished activism within and beyond communities/networks of care.
While other reviews seem to find the title a little misleading, I disagree somewhat, as the book does indeed outline a politics of radical care. Segal writes on the development of socialist feminism, in and around her life and its relationship to contemporary and historical politics of care. Often the autobiographical vignettes offered up by Segal, and the political moments they contain, provide real, striking, and urgent parallels to socialist/feminist issues of today.
Outside of this, however, I found Segal's chapter on vulnerability –especially the part on aging– incredibly moving and enlightening and I realized it highlighted a potential gap in my activism/advocacy.
If nothing else, this quick and intimate read offers one a hopeful (if urgent) autobiography tracing a preeminent (socialist) feminist's political engagement with care over their long activist career, all viewed through a lens of radical care – thus putting forward a politics of radical care.
While this book doesn't necessarily provide the reader with textbook-like exposition or a deep-dive on 'a politics of radical care' it recounts an activist and scholar's life of distinguished activism within and beyond communities/networks of care.
While other reviews seem to find the title a little misleading, I disagree somewhat, as the book does indeed outline a politics of radical care. Segal writes on the development of socialist feminism, in and around her life and its relationship to contemporary and historical politics of care. Often the autobiographical vignettes offered up by Segal, and the political moments they contain, provide real, striking, and urgent parallels to socialist/feminist issues of today.
Outside of this, however, I found Segal's chapter on vulnerability –especially the part on aging– incredibly moving and enlightening and I realized it highlighted a potential gap in my activism/advocacy.
If nothing else, this quick and intimate read offers one a hopeful (if urgent) autobiography tracing a preeminent (socialist) feminist's political engagement with care over their long activist career, all viewed through a lens of radical care – thus putting forward a politics of radical care.
May 30, 2024
The socialist feminist currents which became prominent in leftist circles in the1960s and 70s are best known for their critique of patriarchal power and the way it functions under capitalism. As well as helping understand the reasons why women were placed at particular disadvantage in the labour market it also dissected the role of the family in reproducing the cultural and material subordination of the female sex.
Lynne Segal’s latest book is a reminder that it also shaped the sense of what the struggle for a socialist society is about and how it must go the productivism of the orthodox Marxist model. The work done in the nineteenth century to map out a route to social transformation can often seem like the proclamation of a world with more factories and more people subject to the discipline of the production line.
Segal’s own work across the years, together with the colleagues she references throughout these pages, points to a different outcome. She argues for an emancipation achieved through a revolution in the ways in which human beings care and sustain each other as its key goal. There is an impeccably materialist foundation to this ideal. This stems from the fact that human beings live in a constant state of vulnerability, from infancy, through the years of attaining social standing, and then through the time of the decline of our powers. This is not to say that we are perennial victims deprived of agency, but that we become effective as individuals because we live lives embedded in many different kinds of social support structure.
This is a very personal account written by an author aware of the ways her own life illustrates the case she wants to make. The chapters of the book elaborate on how social support functions at different stages of life. Motherhood is first in line for this scrutiny, with Segal explaining against its manifestation as a ‘private affair’ as it appears today, but for the concept to be expanded as a verb – mothering – which makes the task of raising children a task for all people, of all genders, parents and non-parents alike.
The development of the human person sees it moving from dependency on relationships within a family through to the stage of formal education, which has fallen to the lot of schools similar institutions to provide. Segal has spent her professional life working in higher education and is deeply unimpressed with the way that has being going in recent years. Its direction was set decades ago when the neoliberal economy fostered by the reforms of the 1980s and after increased the role of intellectual work in creating and distributing surplus value. The expansion of universities to meet the demand for degree-level education came at the cost of making the process of becoming highly educated transactional, geared towards securing status in the labour market rather than, in the words of the progressive Dearing Report of the late-90s, “to increase knowledge and understanding for its own sake.”
In the chapter “A Feminist Life” Segal considers the years when she and her colleagues were at the height of their powers, rolling out social and political works as forensic and penetrating as anything that appeared in the second half of a tumultuous century. This was accompanied at every step of the way by activist initiatives that brought many others into the fray. The diversity of feminist themes increased and this produced a series of bifurcations which in some versions led to a dilution of radical potential. By the 1990s everyone claimed to be a feminist, with the steeliness of Margaret Thatcher and the ascendency of protagonists of the ‘lean-in’ school being cited as the direction that women’s liberation was now bound to take in future. The demand to transform workplaces through the universal provision of creche spaces and rigorous equal pay regimes was replaced by the availability of a low wage domestic labour force which would support women with childcare and housekeeping tasks whilst they went about their high power professional careers. For many, the new expectations of what a ‘liberated’ women could achieve rose to the point where they became oppressive, with anyone falling below that level being considered not up to the task of equality with male counterparts. Before long, feminism found itself being blamed for making things so much worse for the majority of women.
The socialist feminist current resisted being dragged down to that level. Segal makes clear throughout the book that the yardstick for its measure of liberation was the quality of life that radical reforms were able to offer to all women, with groups like migrant domestic and care workers being at the forefront of its concerns. Segal’s feminist life meant advancing these ideals as life lived in the here and now, through a social movement that generated the resources to make all of this possible.
In a chapter that consider the imperative of admitting vulnerability, the acknowledgment of physical and health conditions that restrict individual autonomy is considered as an act of liberation in itself. To experience disability of any kind can (or at least, ought) to have the effect of bringing into existence social networks and arrangements that distribute power across relationships. Neither does this have to be considered as a zero sum outcome - what I have gained comes as a consequence of what you have lost. A society which has a higher level of awareness of the facilities that exist within it is likely to be better adapted to the need for change and adaptation over the course of time. This is particularly so from the standpoint of a individual human life, which almost inevitably involves periods of dependency as a consequence of infancy, of ill-health or accident at any time, and declining physical and mental power through ageing. Vulnerability is not something that happens exclusively to other people – short of a catastrophic event that ends life in its prime, it will happen to you.
All of this is rounded off with a reflection of an approach towards caring which extends to the biosphere which we all inhabit, and which we know is prone to damage as a consequence of the absence of human care. Feminists have long set out an approach to critical analysis which has been biased towards what is now called environmentalism. So ancient in fact that the whole notion of a life-sustaining environment is enmeshed with ‘motherhood’ ever since the days when philosophers started to think about this stuff. Socialist feminists have moved beyond the female personification of the Earth as a mother figure by rejecting the idea of life processes as being female qualifies arising from the functions of ovaries and wombs. We are back with mothering as a verb at this point, with the obligation to nurture and sustain the planet we life on falling equally on females and males.
Anyone familiar with Lynne Segal’s work, either by reading her many books or seeing her at in real-time (as in my case) will value this book. Frantz Fanon famously proclaimed a wish for his life as in the words, “O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” Lynne Segal has always been a woman who asks questions, and who constantly goes beyond them to act.
Lynne Segal’s latest book is a reminder that it also shaped the sense of what the struggle for a socialist society is about and how it must go the productivism of the orthodox Marxist model. The work done in the nineteenth century to map out a route to social transformation can often seem like the proclamation of a world with more factories and more people subject to the discipline of the production line.
Segal’s own work across the years, together with the colleagues she references throughout these pages, points to a different outcome. She argues for an emancipation achieved through a revolution in the ways in which human beings care and sustain each other as its key goal. There is an impeccably materialist foundation to this ideal. This stems from the fact that human beings live in a constant state of vulnerability, from infancy, through the years of attaining social standing, and then through the time of the decline of our powers. This is not to say that we are perennial victims deprived of agency, but that we become effective as individuals because we live lives embedded in many different kinds of social support structure.
This is a very personal account written by an author aware of the ways her own life illustrates the case she wants to make. The chapters of the book elaborate on how social support functions at different stages of life. Motherhood is first in line for this scrutiny, with Segal explaining against its manifestation as a ‘private affair’ as it appears today, but for the concept to be expanded as a verb – mothering – which makes the task of raising children a task for all people, of all genders, parents and non-parents alike.
The development of the human person sees it moving from dependency on relationships within a family through to the stage of formal education, which has fallen to the lot of schools similar institutions to provide. Segal has spent her professional life working in higher education and is deeply unimpressed with the way that has being going in recent years. Its direction was set decades ago when the neoliberal economy fostered by the reforms of the 1980s and after increased the role of intellectual work in creating and distributing surplus value. The expansion of universities to meet the demand for degree-level education came at the cost of making the process of becoming highly educated transactional, geared towards securing status in the labour market rather than, in the words of the progressive Dearing Report of the late-90s, “to increase knowledge and understanding for its own sake.”
In the chapter “A Feminist Life” Segal considers the years when she and her colleagues were at the height of their powers, rolling out social and political works as forensic and penetrating as anything that appeared in the second half of a tumultuous century. This was accompanied at every step of the way by activist initiatives that brought many others into the fray. The diversity of feminist themes increased and this produced a series of bifurcations which in some versions led to a dilution of radical potential. By the 1990s everyone claimed to be a feminist, with the steeliness of Margaret Thatcher and the ascendency of protagonists of the ‘lean-in’ school being cited as the direction that women’s liberation was now bound to take in future. The demand to transform workplaces through the universal provision of creche spaces and rigorous equal pay regimes was replaced by the availability of a low wage domestic labour force which would support women with childcare and housekeeping tasks whilst they went about their high power professional careers. For many, the new expectations of what a ‘liberated’ women could achieve rose to the point where they became oppressive, with anyone falling below that level being considered not up to the task of equality with male counterparts. Before long, feminism found itself being blamed for making things so much worse for the majority of women.
The socialist feminist current resisted being dragged down to that level. Segal makes clear throughout the book that the yardstick for its measure of liberation was the quality of life that radical reforms were able to offer to all women, with groups like migrant domestic and care workers being at the forefront of its concerns. Segal’s feminist life meant advancing these ideals as life lived in the here and now, through a social movement that generated the resources to make all of this possible.
In a chapter that consider the imperative of admitting vulnerability, the acknowledgment of physical and health conditions that restrict individual autonomy is considered as an act of liberation in itself. To experience disability of any kind can (or at least, ought) to have the effect of bringing into existence social networks and arrangements that distribute power across relationships. Neither does this have to be considered as a zero sum outcome - what I have gained comes as a consequence of what you have lost. A society which has a higher level of awareness of the facilities that exist within it is likely to be better adapted to the need for change and adaptation over the course of time. This is particularly so from the standpoint of a individual human life, which almost inevitably involves periods of dependency as a consequence of infancy, of ill-health or accident at any time, and declining physical and mental power through ageing. Vulnerability is not something that happens exclusively to other people – short of a catastrophic event that ends life in its prime, it will happen to you.
All of this is rounded off with a reflection of an approach towards caring which extends to the biosphere which we all inhabit, and which we know is prone to damage as a consequence of the absence of human care. Feminists have long set out an approach to critical analysis which has been biased towards what is now called environmentalism. So ancient in fact that the whole notion of a life-sustaining environment is enmeshed with ‘motherhood’ ever since the days when philosophers started to think about this stuff. Socialist feminists have moved beyond the female personification of the Earth as a mother figure by rejecting the idea of life processes as being female qualifies arising from the functions of ovaries and wombs. We are back with mothering as a verb at this point, with the obligation to nurture and sustain the planet we life on falling equally on females and males.
Anyone familiar with Lynne Segal’s work, either by reading her many books or seeing her at in real-time (as in my case) will value this book. Frantz Fanon famously proclaimed a wish for his life as in the words, “O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” Lynne Segal has always been a woman who asks questions, and who constantly goes beyond them to act.
July 3, 2025
A solid analysis of historical and modern movements for feminist and social liberation with the expertise of someone like Segal, whose own experiences sharpen her campaign for radical care. While perhaps not the full exploration of care promised, it is a powerful reaffirmation of the need for radical change through a politics of care, compassion, and empathy.
“Being able to admit the interconnected vulnerability of human existence ought to be sufficient to cement our ties to others, near and far. It means disregarding the drumbeat of market-driven rhetoric that works to thwart such recognition, with its illusory assurances of individual gratification. Surely, it is past time for us to respond to the persistent perils of the present and fatalistic forebodings of the future by deepening our commitment to a compassionate inclusive socialist, placing care at the heart of our lives and politics. As the eminent theologian and poet Rowan Williams affirms: ‘In a fragile world we must turn to our fellow humans.’
‘So, Let’s do it together.’
“Being able to admit the interconnected vulnerability of human existence ought to be sufficient to cement our ties to others, near and far. It means disregarding the drumbeat of market-driven rhetoric that works to thwart such recognition, with its illusory assurances of individual gratification. Surely, it is past time for us to respond to the persistent perils of the present and fatalistic forebodings of the future by deepening our commitment to a compassionate inclusive socialist, placing care at the heart of our lives and politics. As the eminent theologian and poet Rowan Williams affirms: ‘In a fragile world we must turn to our fellow humans.’
‘So, Let’s do it together.’
January 29, 2024
not sure what exactly I was expecting, but this did not read as the radical care manifesto it marketed itself to be. felt more like a summary or anthology, to the point that I’m not entirely sure what the through argument was? I’m not sure how “radical care” as Segal defines it differs in any meaningful way from other academic accounts of care or what new is added into the conversation.
perhaps more for care 101, but I really think newbies would be better placed to read up on some of the articles/scholars/theories Segal mentions rather than her book itself.
perhaps more for care 101, but I really think newbies would be better placed to read up on some of the articles/scholars/theories Segal mentions rather than her book itself.
March 1, 2025
"being able to admit the interconnected vulnerability of human existence ought to be sufficient to cement our ties to others, near and far. It means disregarding the drumbeat of market-driven rhetoric that works to thwart such recognition, with its illusory assurances of individual gratification."
December 24, 2023
This is a great Care 101 reading, especially if you’re looking for more radical socialist leanings. Being a bit more fluent in care politics I am familiar with what a lot what Segal wrote about from prison abolition, eco feminism, and interpersonal relationships outside of kinship. Nevertheless glad I read it and love anything from Verso.
Read
May 20, 2024read this for nothing pt2
April 10, 2025
Very thought-provoking, a powerful call for a more caring world that takes our mutual and universal vulnerability and dependency seriously
March 5, 2024
The first part of the book is a review of how we got to the point of pleading for more caring approaches to policies and politics: basically Thatcher and Reagan. And that orange guy. While I wondered if it was good for my mental health to read through history I already regretted the first time, Segal was able to bring British and Australian perspectives to the timeline -- although none of these three Anglophone countries is a hero in her call for a more care-based system post capitalism. Segal's personal experiences really give the book human context to the history lesson.
December 20, 2023
Unfortunately, despite Segal's illustrious career and numerous achievements, I didn't find this book intellectually rigourous or especially interesting. It's basically a lit review with some personal reflection mixed in. I'll admit off the bat that I'm familiar with most of the topics Segal touches on, so this might be more useful for someone with different knowledge than me. From my perspective, it reads as a pretty basic overview of existing thought tenuously held together by the idea of "care", which comes in and out of focus unevenly.
I was pretty much on board with this as a simple but okay book until the chapter on feminism, which is where the book's shortcomings really emerge. Segal's almost compulsive need to relitigate her own grievances with forms of feminism not totally aligned with her politics massively gets in the way of anything that could be illuminating in this section. (e.g. The dismissal of the Wages For Housework campaign basically boils down to "my people deal with this issue better", with no reflection on the limitations identified by Angela Davis and other Black feminists about the fact that many Black women and other women of colour do waged domestic labour... in fact, she only mentions Davis on page 192 of 214. It reads as a petty grievance when it could be a much more robust critique of the shortcomings of the WFH movement.) I don't think she realizes how aggressively she positions herself as a gatekeeper of legitimate feminist participation; her critiques of others' work are so limited that it doesn't read as an actual intellectual exercise in evaluating the multiple feminisms that have co-existed for decades but rather as a complaint that her particular brand of of feminism has decreased in cultural relevance. That's not me dismissing socialist feminism; indeed, I am in favour of leftist feminisms and much of my doctoral dissertation is a critique of (neo)liberal feminisms. But there is a subtext here that Segal has figured out feminism and there's simply no self-reflexivity as to why 70s socialist feminism may have fallen out of favour or been supplemented by other feminisms emerging to fill the inevitable gaps. Indeed, Segal tries very hard to pre-empt any critiques of her own feminism as, perhaps, not entirely attentive to all women's experiences; for example, when discussing intersectionality (briefly), she doesn't deny the importance of the concept but asserts that socialist feminists have always understood the idea (because socialist feminism is beyond reproach, I guess). This not only downplays Kimberlé Crenshaw's immense contribution, it denies that there might be any exclusions in her own feminist circles. (Crenshaw is cited once.)
Segal unfortunately belies her own constant attempts to position her own 70s socialist feminism as essentially above critique by failing to effectively integrate multiple positionalities into the text. Of course she pays lip service to Black and Third World feminisms, but these don't feel integral to her political orientation, and in subtle ways she positions them as marginal to the "real" work of (implicitly white) socialist feminism. For example: "Although short-lived, by the early 1980s [the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent] had helped place the experiences of Black and Asian women firmly on the feminist agenda" (106). The experiences of women of colour are implicitly placed outside of "the feminist agenda" which, led by white women, generously accommodates their experiences. The thinkers she returns to again and again are overwhelmingly white, which indicates to me that she centers white socialist feminist thought while selectively citing the work of women of colour without actually integrating it into her worldview. It's incomprehensible that she cites bell hooks only twice when hooks had a prolific output on the topics of care, love, human relationships, and many of the other topics Segal takes up. (First, a critique of white feminism; then a critique of Paulo Freire's sexism - so, nothing substantively related to the actual topic of the book, on which hooks wrote plenty!) Similarly, Segal rarely discusses queer women at all; the first time she does, it's to denigrate lesbians as annoying and unnecessarily divisive to the movement, and she simply never interrogates the atmosphere of heternormativity or considers lesbian or queer feminist perspectives as having anything to offer the movement. This is actually insane to me because any queer person can tell you that rethinking care networks and kinship ties is central to queer social life!!!!! She also falls short when discussing disability, several times referring to people as "wheelchair-bound" (definitely not preferred terminology!) and assessing the "disability movement" as limited by its adherence to a rights-based framework, which completely ignores the queer of colour led disability justice movement! Disability justice was founded in large part to address the fact that a rights-based framework is inadequate!!!!!!!
I don't want my review to be taken as an evaluation of Segal's work as a whole, as her long and accomplish academic career certainly attests to a higher lever of intellectual achievement than this book indicates. Unfortunately, though, this is a pretty disappointing text.
I was pretty much on board with this as a simple but okay book until the chapter on feminism, which is where the book's shortcomings really emerge. Segal's almost compulsive need to relitigate her own grievances with forms of feminism not totally aligned with her politics massively gets in the way of anything that could be illuminating in this section. (e.g. The dismissal of the Wages For Housework campaign basically boils down to "my people deal with this issue better", with no reflection on the limitations identified by Angela Davis and other Black feminists about the fact that many Black women and other women of colour do waged domestic labour... in fact, she only mentions Davis on page 192 of 214. It reads as a petty grievance when it could be a much more robust critique of the shortcomings of the WFH movement.) I don't think she realizes how aggressively she positions herself as a gatekeeper of legitimate feminist participation; her critiques of others' work are so limited that it doesn't read as an actual intellectual exercise in evaluating the multiple feminisms that have co-existed for decades but rather as a complaint that her particular brand of of feminism has decreased in cultural relevance. That's not me dismissing socialist feminism; indeed, I am in favour of leftist feminisms and much of my doctoral dissertation is a critique of (neo)liberal feminisms. But there is a subtext here that Segal has figured out feminism and there's simply no self-reflexivity as to why 70s socialist feminism may have fallen out of favour or been supplemented by other feminisms emerging to fill the inevitable gaps. Indeed, Segal tries very hard to pre-empt any critiques of her own feminism as, perhaps, not entirely attentive to all women's experiences; for example, when discussing intersectionality (briefly), she doesn't deny the importance of the concept but asserts that socialist feminists have always understood the idea (because socialist feminism is beyond reproach, I guess). This not only downplays Kimberlé Crenshaw's immense contribution, it denies that there might be any exclusions in her own feminist circles. (Crenshaw is cited once.)
Segal unfortunately belies her own constant attempts to position her own 70s socialist feminism as essentially above critique by failing to effectively integrate multiple positionalities into the text. Of course she pays lip service to Black and Third World feminisms, but these don't feel integral to her political orientation, and in subtle ways she positions them as marginal to the "real" work of (implicitly white) socialist feminism. For example: "Although short-lived, by the early 1980s [the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent] had helped place the experiences of Black and Asian women firmly on the feminist agenda" (106). The experiences of women of colour are implicitly placed outside of "the feminist agenda" which, led by white women, generously accommodates their experiences. The thinkers she returns to again and again are overwhelmingly white, which indicates to me that she centers white socialist feminist thought while selectively citing the work of women of colour without actually integrating it into her worldview. It's incomprehensible that she cites bell hooks only twice when hooks had a prolific output on the topics of care, love, human relationships, and many of the other topics Segal takes up. (First, a critique of white feminism; then a critique of Paulo Freire's sexism - so, nothing substantively related to the actual topic of the book, on which hooks wrote plenty!) Similarly, Segal rarely discusses queer women at all; the first time she does, it's to denigrate lesbians as annoying and unnecessarily divisive to the movement, and she simply never interrogates the atmosphere of heternormativity or considers lesbian or queer feminist perspectives as having anything to offer the movement. This is actually insane to me because any queer person can tell you that rethinking care networks and kinship ties is central to queer social life!!!!! She also falls short when discussing disability, several times referring to people as "wheelchair-bound" (definitely not preferred terminology!) and assessing the "disability movement" as limited by its adherence to a rights-based framework, which completely ignores the queer of colour led disability justice movement! Disability justice was founded in large part to address the fact that a rights-based framework is inadequate!!!!!!!
I don't want my review to be taken as an evaluation of Segal's work as a whole, as her long and accomplish academic career certainly attests to a higher lever of intellectual achievement than this book indicates. Unfortunately, though, this is a pretty disappointing text.
July 13, 2024
Eh I would take out the word radical, I enjoyed but it read more as a selection of autobiographical essays mixed with book reviews rather than anything about care
September 1, 2025
So I think I misunderstood the premise a little, or the marketing was slightly off. I thought it would be on how we can built community and use care as the central idea, but it was more an argument for left wing policies while reflecting on its history, which depending on your position in your left wing journey may be super inspiring, or super "Well yes, of course we need that."
I would have liked to see more.how the concept of care should be the basis of policy, e.g.:
In the education chapter, she talks about why access to education is important. But what about how schools and what they provide e.g. meals can be a crucial part of society? Also access to university is not just about the fees, but the living expenses, the housing, the mental health.
On mental health, more about male loneliness and access to mental health services could have been good if we truly want a caring society.
Also more emphasis on community care being needed, but not in lieu of state support.
On intergenerational solidarity, good points were made but it felt pointing the finger too much at young people. Yes ageism is a thing, but equally so are the close minded attitudes and actions of older generations.
I would have liked to see more.how the concept of care should be the basis of policy, e.g.:
In the education chapter, she talks about why access to education is important. But what about how schools and what they provide e.g. meals can be a crucial part of society? Also access to university is not just about the fees, but the living expenses, the housing, the mental health.
On mental health, more about male loneliness and access to mental health services could have been good if we truly want a caring society.
Also more emphasis on community care being needed, but not in lieu of state support.
On intergenerational solidarity, good points were made but it felt pointing the finger too much at young people. Yes ageism is a thing, but equally so are the close minded attitudes and actions of older generations.
March 9, 2025
Ban British academics from the word “radical” in their political writings 2026 challenge!
Lacking substance, seemed more about providing a public platform for the author to collect her own thoughts, experiences and knowledge on the topic for validation rather than any actual messaging or education intended for external audiences.
Enjoyable nonetheless - makes a nice filler book in between heavier readings and allows plenty of brain space to remain for personal content reflection in between chapters.
Lacking substance, seemed more about providing a public platform for the author to collect her own thoughts, experiences and knowledge on the topic for validation rather than any actual messaging or education intended for external audiences.
Enjoyable nonetheless - makes a nice filler book in between heavier readings and allows plenty of brain space to remain for personal content reflection in between chapters.
January 21, 2024
What I thought may be a thesis on community care and mutual aid was instead a much wider take on how many leftist and feminist principles feed a broader sense of care and interdependence, from a family, to local, to global scale. The book definitely introduced me to some ideas to chew on, from “communal luxury” to men opting for suicide over the eventual necessity of accepting dependence.
April 2, 2025
caring is cool!
socialist feminism is cool!
intersectionality is cool!
fighting for climate justice is cool!
“I am going to fight capitalism even if it kills me. It is wrong that people like you should be comfortable and well fed while all around you people are starving” (Sylvia Pankhurst, 1921, pg 83).
“along with the many reasons for gloom, resistance continues” (pg 178).
socialist feminism is cool!
intersectionality is cool!
fighting for climate justice is cool!
“I am going to fight capitalism even if it kills me. It is wrong that people like you should be comfortable and well fed while all around you people are starving” (Sylvia Pankhurst, 1921, pg 83).
“along with the many reasons for gloom, resistance continues” (pg 178).
November 30, 2023
An enjoyable read and fantastic sourcing throughout the book, with hundreds of new books opened up through this one book. Not sure the argument is entirely clear but the feeling is there. Really enjoyed the writing style, Lynne Segal is a fantastic voice both to hear in person and to read.
January 4, 2025
more literature review than the "rallying cry for radical transformation" that it promises to be. especially agree with some of the other reviews' critiques of the feminism chapter feeling like an airing of interpersonal grievances.
January 4, 2024
Maybe this should have been an article??? It went off the rails by the half way mark.
June 9, 2024
Lynne, bu sayede seninle tanıştığıma çok mutlu oldum <3
İhtimam kültürünü birlikte oluşturacağız. Dur bir şeyleri harekete geçirelim Türkiye'de, buraya tekrar gelicem.
İhtimam kültürünü birlikte oluşturacağız. Dur bir şeyleri harekete geçirelim Türkiye'de, buraya tekrar gelicem.
March 18, 2024
Weaves together a hundred different topics, but even if unable to plumb particular depth from any one of them the ensuing tapestry stands proudly, personal.
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