reading is CRUCIAL! discussing Caliban & the Witch by Silvia Federici & queer/feminist histories
Fri Dec 19 2025
Are white queers entitled about their history and culture? Can femmes be nonbinary? And other pressing questions that our listeners, patrons, and substack subscribers have submitted to us... (Email us your hot takes at thelavendermenacepodcast@gmail.com!!!)
Queer history is so so so important and most gay people do not know enough of it! The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader edited by Joan Nestle is one of the most important lesbian history books ever BTW, especially for femmes and butches.
Silvia Federici's 2004 book Caliban & the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation is a book all feminists, Marxists, and Marxist feminists need to read. The politics of magic, the witch hunts, and the relationship between European colonialism and the dispossession of women and workers are some of the topics this book thoroughly explores. We cannot recommend it enough.
Check out Sunny's recommendation of Sophie Lewis's books (Abolish the Family, Full Surrogacy Now, & Enemy Feminism) and Sunny's interview with Sophie, and Renaissance's Letterboxd and their recommendation of the documentary Feminism Inshallah: A History of Arab Feminism.
Disclaimer: we recorded this episode back in the spring.
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Are white queers entitled about their history and culture? Can femmes be nonbinary? And other pressing questions that our listeners, patrons, and substack subscribers have submitted to us... (Email us your hot takes at thelavendermenacepodcast@gmail.com!!!) Queer history is so so so important and most gay people do not know enough of it! The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader edited by Joan Nestle is one of the most important lesbian history books ever BTW, especially for femmes and butches. Silvia Federici's 2004 book Caliban & the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation is a book all feminists, Marxists, and Marxist feminists need to read. The politics of magic, the witch hunts, and the relationship between European colonialism and the dispossession of women and workers are some of the topics this book thoroughly explores. We cannot recommend it enough. Check out Sunny's recommendation of Sophie Lewis's books (Abolish the Family, Full Surrogacy Now, & Enemy Feminism) and Sunny's interview with Sophie, and Renaissance's Letterboxd and their recommendation of the documentary Feminism Inshallah: A History of Arab Feminism. Disclaimer: we recorded this episode back in the spring.