In Conflict Is Not Abuse, Sarah Schulman argues that conflating interpersonal conflict with systemic abuse distorts our understanding of harm—and often reinforces the very power structures we claim to resist. Moving from queer communities to the carceral state, from personal estrangement to global oppression, Schulman’s central thesis is that unnecessarily escalating conflict to the level of “abuse” is a form of avoidance that too often justifies punishment, disposability, and state violence.

There are important critiques here—particularly around the social costs of shunning, the dangers of moral panic, and the ways carceral feminism can reproduce harm in the name of safety. Schulman challenges readers to consider community accountability as a transformative alternative to state-sanctioned punishment, and she’s right to name how “safety” can be weaponized by institutions to maintain supremacy.

But despite its ambition, this book left me deeply unsettled. Conflict Is Not Abuse may be provocative, but it is not trauma-informed. Schulman’s comparisons between traumatized behavior and supremacy ideology are especially disturbing, suggesting that survivors’ boundaries or desire for estrangement mirror authoritarian rigidity. This framing erases power differentials and misunderstands trauma as a refusal to tolerate difference, rather than a response to lived harm. The section on “traumatized behavior” was so dehumanizing, I had to skip it entirely.

At its core, the book assumes that all parties in a conflict are equally resourced, safe, and capable of mutual repair. But what happens when someone isn’t? Schulman offers no roadmap for survivors navigating unsafe dynamics, nor does she account for how trauma, neurodivergence, or disability might impact our capacity for confrontation or communal healing. Her prose is rhetorically forceful, but emotionally flat—there is little compassion here for those simply trying to survive.

There are questions in this book worth engaging. But for those of us navigating relational abuse, survivorship, disability, or neurodivergence, Schulman’s framework can feel not just insufficient—but actively harmful. It critiques the criminalization of harm while replicating a punitive attitude toward those who are harmed. For trauma survivors, estranged readers, or anyone navigating relational violence, I’d approach with caution—or not at all.

📖 Not Recommended For: Trauma survivors, estranged readers, or anyone seeking a compassionate, survivor-centered lens on harm.

🔑 Key Themes: Conflict vs. Abuse, Supremacy and State Violence, Mislabeling Harm, the Limits of Punishment and Repair.