Evelina Johansson Wilén: Rethinking the Abolition of the Family

• Evelina Johansson Wilén, a gender studies professor at Örebro University, argues that the movement to abolish the family misidentifies the root cause of modern social insecurities.
• She posits that the crisis of social reproduction stems from capitalism, not the family unit itself.
• Care work is presented as a fundamental class issue that requires systemic redistribution rather than personal or household restructuring.

Critique of Family Abolitionism

• Critics of the family often ignore that it functions as a "counter-site" to capitalistic logic, providing spaces governed by different norms.
• Johansson Wilén identifies a contradiction in abolitionist discourse, which often retreats to standard social-democratic demands—such as affordable housing and public healthcare—when forced to propose concrete policy measures.
• Thatcher’s neoliberal mantra, which posits that "there is no society," is ironically reinforced by policies that shift the burden of care entirely onto individual families, making their survival impossible.

The Transformative Potential of Relationships

• Feminism should view the family and romantic relationships as having emancipatory potential rather than being mere instruments of oppression.
• The rise of "heteropessimism" is criticized as a political shortcut that avoids the necessary work of cross-gender organization and dialogue.
• Her research on incels shows that meaningful, non-romantic, or romantic bonds with women can bridge the "empathy gap" that internet subcultures and profit-driven platforms frequently widen.

Addressing Insecurity

• True security is not about suppressing family life but about socializing care through robust public infrastructure.
• Economic coercion—such as the inability to afford housing—forces individuals to stay in harmful situations; resolving these pressures would allow the family to be a matter of genuine choice rather than economic necessity.