Lean on Me, Lynne Segal
Lean on Me, Lynne Segal
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Lean on Me
A Politics of Radical Care

Author: Lynne Segal

Narrator: Brigid Lohrey

Unabridged: 9 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/14/2023


Synopsis

Longtime feminist activist and writer Lynne Segal searches for hope in her own life and in the world around her, and finds it in our intimate commitments to each other and our shared collective engagements, the two being intertwined. Issues of care, intimacy, education, alongside meaningful work, and social engagement, lie at the core of our ability to understand the world and its possibilities for human flourishing.

Not only does our dependence on others not disappear into self-sufficient autonomy once we leave childhood behind—only to re-emerge in very old age—but ignoring human interdependence and our lifelong need for care has been part of a massive and destructive public denial that must be resisted.

Segal looks at our shared lifelong dependence on care and the well-being of others. In recounting from her own life the moments of motherhood, and of being on the front line of second wave feminism, Segal 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 radically transform how we approach education, motherhood, and our everyday vulnerabilities of disability, aging, and enhanced needs.

About Lynne Segal

Lynne Segal was the Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College. Her books include Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, Out of Time: The Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing, and Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy. She cowrote Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism with Sheila Rowbotham and Hilary Wainwright. She was part of the Care Collective, who wrote The Care Manifesto, 2021.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Victor on 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......more

Goodreads review by Malcolm on 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, foundation......more

Goodreads review by Gavin on January 21, 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 ra......more

Goodreads review by Don on 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 mar......more

Goodreads review by Shima on March 01, 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."......more