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silverbirch's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Some really interesting and wonderful points here - I really enjoyed the deconstruction of emotional reproduction and labour, and reframed the entire idea of the reproduction-production model of capitalism. These are ideas that I was starting to formulate for myself, and reading about them from a coherent and well-written perspective helped me to further my own opinions. The writing itself was easy to follow, academically-informed and concise, and the book was well-structured.
My critiques:
- as another reviewer points out, there is no mention of disability and disabled people within the book, which I think is a bit of an odd exclusion, especially as the whole idea of 'emotional reproduction' rests on the concept of the same (or similar) needs and support to be given to everyone, which is not realistic in this situation. For this reason, I think the book is too quick to dismiss individualism as a capitalistic concept
- I thought a lot of the arguments are very generalistic - I would have really appreciated some real-world examples of some of the social observations, and the lack of these made a good portion of the arguments very abstract and exclusive, and I found a lot of the points hard to swallow for this reason.
- There is definitely an element of intellectual assumption in the writing - a lot of what the writer is advocating for relies on the idea of universal societal intellect, and a definite level of individuals' societal awareness, which in reality is not a common feature of the individual's perspective without a well-rounded and extensive education, stretching into university (and therefore financially supported) stratas. This made some of the points a little elitist in their premise.
- The author also presupposes that the reader is a committed communist, and is 'anti-prison'. This idea surprised me when it appeared at the end of the book, but what surprised me more was that the writer seems to accept that as a given opinion for the reader. My own ideology does not align with national communism, and for this reason I found that lot of what was being argued for was not what I agreed with, and although this differing of opinion does not detract from my review, I think the perspective was a little limited because of this.
- I think something that could also have been investigated is the psychological need for community - this was surprisingly absent, assumingly because psychology is inherently more individualistic as a study of human behaviour. However, I think that this angle would have given the argument a much more rounded and nuanced edge.
My critiques:
- as another reviewer points out, there is no mention of disability and disabled people within the book, which I think is a bit of an odd exclusion, especially as the whole idea of 'emotional reproduction' rests on the concept of the same (or similar) needs and support to be given to everyone, which is not realistic in this situation. For this reason, I think the book is too quick to dismiss individualism as a capitalistic concept
- I thought a lot of the arguments are very generalistic - I would have really appreciated some real-world examples of some of the social observations, and the lack of these made a good portion of the arguments very abstract and exclusive, and I found a lot of the points hard to swallow for this reason.
- There is definitely an element of intellectual assumption in the writing - a lot of what the writer is advocating for relies on the idea of universal societal intellect, and a definite level of individuals' societal awareness, which in reality is not a common feature of the individual's perspective without a well-rounded and extensive education, stretching into university (and therefore financially supported) stratas. This made some of the points a little elitist in their premise.
- The author also presupposes that the reader is a committed communist, and is 'anti-prison'. This idea surprised me when it appeared at the end of the book, but what surprised me more was that the writer seems to accept that as a given opinion for the reader. My own ideology does not align with national communism, and for this reason I found that lot of what was being argued for was not what I agreed with, and although this differing of opinion does not detract from my review, I think the perspective was a little limited because of this.
- I think something that could also have been investigated is the psychological need for community - this was surprisingly absent, assumingly because psychology is inherently more individualistic as a study of human behaviour. However, I think that this angle would have given the argument a much more rounded and nuanced edge.
lcc37's review
4.0
Gotby unpacks the emotional labor that mostly women perform and its ties to capitalism. She also makes a case for restructuring our society in ways that allow everyone to meet their needs and access care outside the confines of the family unit.
cloudbulb's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
5.0
neoyee's review
Came off like an Instagram infographic with the amount of buzzwords and near-constant obsession with white men - 1.5 stars because it is clearly well-researched but fails when it comes to merit of ideas and accessibility to any reader who isn’t already a staunch Communist
plutosorbit's review
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Book packs a punch, it's informative and thought provoking. Repetitive but at least it's not a long book. Academic heavy girly pops used so many words I didn't know lol