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The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future
What do we want?
In this groundbreaking collection, more than fifty cutting-edge voices, including Melissa Harris-Perry, Janet Mock, Sheila Heti, and Mia McKenzie, invite us to imagine a truly feminist world. An abortion provider reinvents birth control, Sheila Bapat envisions an economy that values domestic work, a teenage rock band dreams up a new way to make music, Katherine Cross rewrites the Constitution, and Maya Dusenbery resets the standard for good sex. Combining essays, interviews, poetry, illustrations, and short stories, The Feminist Utopia Project challenges the status quo that accepts inequality and violence as a given—and inspires us to demand a radically better future.
In this groundbreaking collection, more than fifty cutting-edge voices, including Melissa Harris-Perry, Janet Mock, Sheila Heti, and Mia McKenzie, invite us to imagine a truly feminist world. An abortion provider reinvents birth control, Sheila Bapat envisions an economy that values domestic work, a teenage rock band dreams up a new way to make music, Katherine Cross rewrites the Constitution, and Maya Dusenbery resets the standard for good sex. Combining essays, interviews, poetry, illustrations, and short stories, The Feminist Utopia Project challenges the status quo that accepts inequality and violence as a given—and inspires us to demand a radically better future.
360 pages, Paperback
First published October 13, 2015
About the author
Alexandra Brodsky
2 books38 followersAlexandra Brodsky is a civil rights attorney. She is the author of "Sexual Justice" (Metropolitan Books, August 2021) and the co-editor of “The Feminist Utopia Project” (The Feminist Press, October 2015), along with Rachel Kauder Nalebuff. Alexandra cut her teeth in the anti-violence movement as a founding co-director of Know Your IX, a youth-led campaign to end sexual harassment in schools.
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August 24, 2016I was excited by the premise of this book, and I applaud all of the contributors for exercising their imaginations, but what I mostly felt while reading this anthology was... sad.
Why I was excited: We're in the midst, I think, of a profound crisis of imagination. We don't even know, I suspect, how to think the thoughts we would need to think in order to imagine a way out of the worldwide crises of climate change and escalating hate-based violence. And so we need to provoke ourselves to envision a world of truly different relationships, both among people and between people and the rest of the planet.
Why I felt sad: When asked to imagine a feminist utopia, the contributors to this volume mostly summoned up... the Democratic Party platform. Universal health care. Paid family leave. Reproductive freedom. All fine and important, but hardly the stimulating imaginary I was hoping for.
And then came the disappointments: Trans liberation mostly envisioned as rights/acceptance within the same old gender binary, as if it were impossible to imagine 5 genders or no genders or something else altogether to replace that particularly constrictive social construct. No attention whatsoever to how humans exploit the earth and other animals, as if utopia would be a world where we continue to trample all over everybody else but are nicer to each other.
I'm hesitating to publish this, because I don't want anybody involved with the project to feel sad as a result. But I really do think that our crisis of imagination is a real crisis and that, unfortunately, this book shows how constricted our dreams have become. It IS wonderful to imagine a world where people have to work hard to figure out what the word "rape" might have meant (that was actually one of the handful of truly creative contributions that I did enjoy). We just have to learn to imagine much more expansively.
Why I was excited: We're in the midst, I think, of a profound crisis of imagination. We don't even know, I suspect, how to think the thoughts we would need to think in order to imagine a way out of the worldwide crises of climate change and escalating hate-based violence. And so we need to provoke ourselves to envision a world of truly different relationships, both among people and between people and the rest of the planet.
Why I felt sad: When asked to imagine a feminist utopia, the contributors to this volume mostly summoned up... the Democratic Party platform. Universal health care. Paid family leave. Reproductive freedom. All fine and important, but hardly the stimulating imaginary I was hoping for.
And then came the disappointments: Trans liberation mostly envisioned as rights/acceptance within the same old gender binary, as if it were impossible to imagine 5 genders or no genders or something else altogether to replace that particularly constrictive social construct. No attention whatsoever to how humans exploit the earth and other animals, as if utopia would be a world where we continue to trample all over everybody else but are nicer to each other.
I'm hesitating to publish this, because I don't want anybody involved with the project to feel sad as a result. But I really do think that our crisis of imagination is a real crisis and that, unfortunately, this book shows how constricted our dreams have become. It IS wonderful to imagine a world where people have to work hard to figure out what the word "rape" might have meant (that was actually one of the handful of truly creative contributions that I did enjoy). We just have to learn to imagine much more expansively.
April 20, 2020
Bringing together scattered interviews, essays, poems, art, and utopian stories, the collection aims to present several conflicting feminist visions of what a more humane society might look like, but the contributions are incredibly uneven in quality. The fiction typically reads as vague and underdeveloped, the essays as cautious and uninspired. All too often, the fiction writers paint a picture of a fairytale-esque world free of conflict, instead of exploring the possible forms that an actual anti-racist, feminist society might take. The essayists, by contrast, are painfully pragmatic—most merely argue for adopting modest social democratic policies. Readers looking for radical but realistic ideas will be disappointed, then, in the collection's fiction and nonfiction alike. Despite that, some of the poems and artworks are quite imaginative, and most of the interviews are informative as well as engaging.
December 20, 2020
Good god I’m depressed
November 21, 2017
There is something in this book for everyone, I think. One of the pieces spoke to me quite directly, while another I completely disagreed with, although I could see where the author was coming from. Then there are interviews and art pieces that break up the utopia set pieces, and allow us to awaken in other ways. This book, even the pieces that you might disagree with, is a nice collection of awakenings; it offers a little something in each piece that makes us think more critically about the world as it is, and what it might be, without constraining ourselves to trying to modify the things that are already deeply embedded.
We can start with the idealized thing we are working towards, then work back to where we are now as well. When studying gender and history, one can sometimes get overwhelmed by all of the things that intermesh and present as historically weighted oppression. Such that it becomes difficult to see where we would be without these interlocking unwanted systems. Some of these little stories and opinion pieces can give us ideas about that path, while others can make us think in ways we have never considered before.
We can start with the idealized thing we are working towards, then work back to where we are now as well. When studying gender and history, one can sometimes get overwhelmed by all of the things that intermesh and present as historically weighted oppression. Such that it becomes difficult to see where we would be without these interlocking unwanted systems. Some of these little stories and opinion pieces can give us ideas about that path, while others can make us think in ways we have never considered before.
October 5, 2020
Great collection of writings that imagine the world as a feminist utopia in the distant and not-so-distant future. This collection approaches the idea of a feminist utopia from a wide range of perspectives, taking up and challenging today's status quo from a number of angles. It's a mix of fiction, letters of a sort, essays of a sort, and interviews, with some illustration in the mix for good measure. I definitely recommend it for a burgeoning feminist or anyone who needs to expand their view of what feminism really entails.
March 13, 2021
3.5 stars rounded up, though I reserve the right to waffle on this up/down rounding.
Contributor Sam Huber quotes James Baldwin in their essay “I Don’t:” “The vision people hold of the world to come is but a reflection, with predictable wishful distortions, of the world in which they live.”
This is, I think, my biggest gripe with many of the pieces in this anthology: they are simply too mired in the reality of our current world. I feel like a bit of a brat complaining about the lack of imagination in some of these pieces while knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to dream up anything more radical, but then I also didn’t write a piece reflecting on feminist utopia.
The pieces I loved most challenged me. Maya Dusdbery’s “Dispatch From A Post-Rape Future” fucked me up, pointing out how what we think of as meaningfully progressive ways of having sex are still a direct reflection of rape culture. Tessa Smith and Suey Park dared me to stop pathologizing my own emotional experiences and mental states. There were other superb contributions. Sadly, though, many utopian visions included nothing beyond “no one uses “slut” as a pejorative” or “there’s a childcare facility at work/school” as their big reveal. It’s not that these things aren’t important of course, but too few authors expanded on the “why” behind the necessity of adding or removing things from our worlds. I don’t need to hear that street harassment is bad. Tell me how, in a feminist utopia, the safety granted to people free of the preoccupation street harassment (etc) are building radically new systems that allow us not just to live but to thrive.
Some of these pieces made me sad to reflect on how crummy our realities can be; others made me sad that we can’t even imagine demanding - deserving - more. But the special few forced me to do just that.
Edit: here's a great review that focuses on another critique I noticed but didn't mention: this book is very much written by people in the first decade of their adult lives, and it shows! That doesn't make it bad per se, but it is something to think about for sure. https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-...
Contributor Sam Huber quotes James Baldwin in their essay “I Don’t:” “The vision people hold of the world to come is but a reflection, with predictable wishful distortions, of the world in which they live.”
This is, I think, my biggest gripe with many of the pieces in this anthology: they are simply too mired in the reality of our current world. I feel like a bit of a brat complaining about the lack of imagination in some of these pieces while knowing full well that I wouldn’t be able to dream up anything more radical, but then I also didn’t write a piece reflecting on feminist utopia.
The pieces I loved most challenged me. Maya Dusdbery’s “Dispatch From A Post-Rape Future” fucked me up, pointing out how what we think of as meaningfully progressive ways of having sex are still a direct reflection of rape culture. Tessa Smith and Suey Park dared me to stop pathologizing my own emotional experiences and mental states. There were other superb contributions. Sadly, though, many utopian visions included nothing beyond “no one uses “slut” as a pejorative” or “there’s a childcare facility at work/school” as their big reveal. It’s not that these things aren’t important of course, but too few authors expanded on the “why” behind the necessity of adding or removing things from our worlds. I don’t need to hear that street harassment is bad. Tell me how, in a feminist utopia, the safety granted to people free of the preoccupation street harassment (etc) are building radically new systems that allow us not just to live but to thrive.
Some of these pieces made me sad to reflect on how crummy our realities can be; others made me sad that we can’t even imagine demanding - deserving - more. But the special few forced me to do just that.
Edit: here's a great review that focuses on another critique I noticed but didn't mention: this book is very much written by people in the first decade of their adult lives, and it shows! That doesn't make it bad per se, but it is something to think about for sure. https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-...
July 21, 2016
I love, love, love the premise of this book. Too often, in our fight to win ridiculously tiny (but hard-won!) victories, such as equal pay for equal work, we can lose sight of what the end goal really is - not just equal pay, but equal access to EVERYTHING. As the introduction says, patriarchy can sometimes even limit our imagination of what is possible and where we're headed. Because of this, I loved the idea of a project where activists and thought leaders could be unfettered by what is possible, and just imagine where they'd like to be.
Some authors took full advantage of this opportunity and imagined extraordinary utopias. Highlights for me included a world where medical practitioners are required to take gender studies classes, a world where every teenager woman is assigned a Reproductive Support Counselor who will help them make fully informed choices, and a world where free daycare is a universal right for all teenagers, and allows them to complete their education. I also loved what Melissa Harris Perry said about the importance of struggle, even in utopia, to make connections with other humans. There were times I got a little teary at the possibilities of a world without rape, street harassment, etc.
However, too many of these essays stopped at critiquing the obvious problems we have now, such as street harassment and sexual assault, and didn't go further into imagining what the world would look like without these societal plagues. Others offered solutions, such as talking circles instead of jails, that I would like to believe in, but am unsure of. I walked away feeling like I had read a ton of Feministing articles in a row, but not necessarily anything new or revolutionary.
This book was still very cathartic, and had some really great moments. If patriarchy has you down, I would still recommend this book.
Some authors took full advantage of this opportunity and imagined extraordinary utopias. Highlights for me included a world where medical practitioners are required to take gender studies classes, a world where every teenager woman is assigned a Reproductive Support Counselor who will help them make fully informed choices, and a world where free daycare is a universal right for all teenagers, and allows them to complete their education. I also loved what Melissa Harris Perry said about the importance of struggle, even in utopia, to make connections with other humans. There were times I got a little teary at the possibilities of a world without rape, street harassment, etc.
However, too many of these essays stopped at critiquing the obvious problems we have now, such as street harassment and sexual assault, and didn't go further into imagining what the world would look like without these societal plagues. Others offered solutions, such as talking circles instead of jails, that I would like to believe in, but am unsure of. I walked away feeling like I had read a ton of Feministing articles in a row, but not necessarily anything new or revolutionary.
This book was still very cathartic, and had some really great moments. If patriarchy has you down, I would still recommend this book.
March 5, 2017
Different stories, essays, and interviews worked differently on me, but most importantly, reading this collection gave me the courage and the fodder to dream specifically, materially, of what it is I'm struggling for, and always have been. One interview highlights the changes in feminism between generations, and the importance of collective action; one story envisions circle-based restorative justice as society's approach to crime; another memoir imagines a world a woman could travel alone and undefiant. I borrowed a copy from the library, then ordered my own copy; I want to dogear pages and scribble notes and lend it out heavily and then make it come true.
March 23, 2016
I really wanted to love this book, and there were definitely some gems, but many of the pieces felt like they could have been a little better thought out, and I wish they tied together a bit more. Ultimately, I wasn't quite able to finish it.
August 28, 2019
Büyük hayaller kuralım, günlük özgürlük hayalleri kuralım, hayallerimizi paylaşalım, güçlenelim. Her kadın arkadaşımın bu kitabı okumasını ve içlerinde umut, ferahlık, güzellik hissetmelerini isterim.
August 27, 2022
This book is incredible. Some of the writings are just lighthearted and fun but others are more serious and literally changed my entire outlook on life. None really discuss the logistics of ‘how’ these utopias could be achieved, but that also doesn’t feel like the point of the book. It’s inspiring, optimistic, and I had so much fun reading through it. My personal favourites were: Dispatch From the Post-Rape Future, Justice, I Don’t 115, Interview with Rudy Rebick, and No Escape Hatch, but there’s so many others that I’ll also be coming back to. I can’t overstate how phenomenal this was, I highly recommended it.
January 19, 2018
Wow, this book gives me so much excitement/empowerment....so pumped to read all these (mostly) women envisioning a good future. 😍 read it real quick
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June 1, 2019Some visions are stronger than others ("Seven Rituals From the Feminist Utopia: Prebirth to Postdeath" by Yumi Sakaguwa and "Justice" by Mariame Kaba and Bianca Diaz were my particular favorites), but I would definitely recommend checking it out to reorient yourself to not only addressing what's wrong in the world but to building a world that is good.
March 23, 2016
Cleverly conceived idea to collect visions of the future from a diverse crew of folks, this book is comprised of fiction, interviews, art, poetry, essays, and down-to-earth hopes for the future. Many of the pieces utilize the fiction of future people looking back at the previous eras--though one smartly uses time travel. These and the other fiction pieces are mostly awesome; stories are powerful ways to transform thinking. Like most anthologies, there's hits and misses, but my biggest surprise was actually the lack of imagination.
It isn't surprising that people would envision a utopia based around the issues they face, live through, experience, or work on in daily life. What is surprising is how few contributors--there are some good ones, don't get me wrong--actually envision an actual utopia; a liberated place. Most of the visions are progressive--offering us a similar system but where things are better. For instance, one woman imagines a future where sex workers have health care, good wages, etc. and I'm thinking, couldn't we imagine an egalitarian utopia where women didn't have to sell access to their body?
Anyway, I don't mean to take away from the general awesomeness of this project, as nearly all of the ideas, experiences, and visions are worthwhile.
It isn't surprising that people would envision a utopia based around the issues they face, live through, experience, or work on in daily life. What is surprising is how few contributors--there are some good ones, don't get me wrong--actually envision an actual utopia; a liberated place. Most of the visions are progressive--offering us a similar system but where things are better. For instance, one woman imagines a future where sex workers have health care, good wages, etc. and I'm thinking, couldn't we imagine an egalitarian utopia where women didn't have to sell access to their body?
Anyway, I don't mean to take away from the general awesomeness of this project, as nearly all of the ideas, experiences, and visions are worthwhile.
April 12, 2017
YES! YES!! YES!!! This book was SO good and SO necessary and I loved it and I want everyone to read it. It's a collection of short pieces portraying each contributor's hopes and dreams for a feminist utopia, including pieces that focus on education, sexuality, work/employment, body image, race, the justice system, and more. Some of the writings are fictionalized narratives, placing characters of the writer's creation in a futuristic setting to illustrate what the world would be like in that writer's utopia. Others take more of a non-fictional approach, describing the differences between the present and the imagined future. Still others are presented as interviews, including one phenomenal one with a rock/punk band of 12y/o girls. A magnificent compilation.
August 28, 2017
like most writing, these short essays are at their best, most affecting, and most engaging when they are at their most specific. unfortunately, there are too many essays in this collection that do not offer distinctive visions of feminist utopia that carve out a specific dream separate from that which is already established in poppy articles for bitch/feministing/jezebel/etc etc. a quarter of the way through, i was engaged and daring myself to ask questions i had not in a long time. three-quarters of the way through, it was hard for it to feel fresh.
February 26, 2017
This is such an important book! I loved every page of it. The mix and match of the types of writing, the different subjects and the beautiful imagery was awesome. I need more of this type of work! Great job!
November 13, 2017
I enjoyed this book and it felt like fresh air and escapism. I am happy to be introduced to many new feminist writers and have my perspectives widened from the viewpoints of a diverse crowd of women. I hope to see some level of this utopia of equality achieved in my lifetime.
April 14, 2016
This should've been good. Such a great premise with such trite essays.
December 14, 2017
Delightful and inspiring!
February 4, 2019
This hopeful, wholesome book is a lovely tome. Like many compilations, there are highs and lows, but overall it is compelling and often tender. I very much enjoyed this book.
May 11, 2017
Te Feminist Utopia Project Review:
Key Areas
**Rape culture - how normalized it is; 1 in 5 American women get raped - they call it an “epidemic” and that’s somewhat true
**intelligence is sexy - and it’s compatible intelligence that’s - the kind of smart that works with your kind of smart
**kids - body image issues - black hair - tied to respectability, cleanliness, neatness; dark skin - media portrayal - she didn’t think she could be loved or desired or respected; shaving/waxing - completely socialized
**body is. A miracle that breaths; you love it without question;
**violence and its affect on kids: lead poisoning, Birmingham church bombing girls
**public space: women being afraid to go into public space; time, resources, moneys - time and energy it takes up to just think about safety at all times of day - disproportionately for women; “cars that became dungeons”
*Private sphere; marriage treated as private - domestic violence a “personal problem” and not considered as the state’s problem; concept of family pulled out of “private sphere”
**an alternative to heterosexuality, but also an alternative to marriage as an ideal; civil partnerships getting more rights; any other sort of platonic partnerships also getting rights; dismantling the idea that marriage is the bedrock of society; any and all sort of civil partnership or none or friendship as the primary social structure will be socially acceptabel, ie no one will scramble together to get a date to go to your granny’s birthday party because of acceptability and repectability.
**Education: “classrooms are not neutral”; through what teachers chose to emphasize and what they leave out of curriculums, and through historiography, and because we already live in a society which has preconceived notions —> classrooms are already charged environments; a teacher should interrogate the nature of education and what voice the curriculum is taking (ie if the curriculum itself is preaching white supremacy through what it does)
*Science is not neutral or objective either; science can be used to serve political or philosophical interests; e.g. women and men’s physical dissimilarities have LONG been used to argue that women should stay at home; BUT apart from breastfeeding a man can do everything that a woman can for their kid
*same with racism; eugenics was a respectable biological discipline; that thing where they measured bones.
*biology literally teaches EVERYTHING as man and woman separately; hormones, sexual system; we call testosterone “virile”; the act of sexual reproduction is though of as a fast, sperm on its way to conquer the docile egg and many sperms and which one wins
**labor: smaller work week - more time to grow, explore interests etc; more free time
**porn - porn artists also enjoy their work; “i am actually just really good at sex and can make money off of it” ; taking control of their own labor - more porn film directors are women; profiting form one’s own emotional and sexual labor; emotional work is also a kind of porn - air stewardess, hairdressers; The Managed Heart; porn is about intimacy
**tone policing - a form of patriarchy; gatekeeping keep people comfortable rather than truly expressing ourselves Accessibility should be the norm; hearing, physical and mental ability
**mental illnesses - “hysteria” (gender charged language) forcing people to get well in inpatient psychiatric units; neurotypical prized above everything else
*men treated as creative eccentric whereas women expected ro conform to normalization (counter argument: manic pixie girl?
*states of mind that aren't normative nurtured instead of medicated/
*free and open accommodation for everyone; woven into every fabric of society - vision, hearing, space accessibility
**neoliberalism’s impact; interesting idea that when in 1930’s capitalism first started burgeoning, social programs were created that kinda kept it in check; but now we want to cut social programs
**art: art vs crafts; embroidery, quilting etc
**Justice - restorative justice as opposed to “bad people”, “criminals” - the idea that justice cannot be served if there is advantage to be gained by the judges at the expense of those judged; e.g. that if all the judges are foxes, a goose will not really get justice
*prison system, public safety - are we really locking up the “bad guys” or ones who pose most risk to public safety?
*Who is included and who gets left out of an idea of public safety? - e.g. in the Muslim ban - the rhetoric is that of public safety but x% of muslims also make ups he public
BIG THEMES
**sexuality - source of worry and fear, stigmatized, oppressed - whether in private or public space; domestic violence, rape.
**Ableism
**difference should be neutral
!!Brilliant, innovative ideas/painful realizations I hadn’t thought before!!
**Protecting childhood
**being able to walk in public space without fearing violence
**Abortion just as a part of reproductive planning and reproductive planning as par tof growing up
**we don’t need to justify all use of time; don’t need to always do something or be productive; we can just enjoy being alive
**eating every bite with mindfulness and jus enjoying the food, regardless of calories, nutrients; the food is all “good food” and doesn't have hormones etc saturated fats, chemicals etc
**“am i in love or am i seduced by the patriarchy into feeling comfortable and happy”; “am i heartbroken because it was real or because I feel pressure to have a male partner” and 101 other hetreorseuxal feminist romance-related problems
**Listening as activism
**the personal is political
**“sexism surcharge” as tip LOL
**a premedical classroom where people think about how medicine has been used to carry out racist and sexist policies (sterilizations; inequality; colonial medicine; medicine a site of violence
*we call testosterone “virile”; the act of sexual reproduction is though of as a fast, sperm on its way to conquer the docile egg and many sperm and which one wins
Critique
*intersectionality/identity politics etc more needed
*Privilege - white feminism - the privilege to have citizenship
*decolonization not enough content
Key Areas
**Rape culture - how normalized it is; 1 in 5 American women get raped - they call it an “epidemic” and that’s somewhat true
**intelligence is sexy - and it’s compatible intelligence that’s - the kind of smart that works with your kind of smart
**kids - body image issues - black hair - tied to respectability, cleanliness, neatness; dark skin - media portrayal - she didn’t think she could be loved or desired or respected; shaving/waxing - completely socialized
**body is. A miracle that breaths; you love it without question;
**violence and its affect on kids: lead poisoning, Birmingham church bombing girls
**public space: women being afraid to go into public space; time, resources, moneys - time and energy it takes up to just think about safety at all times of day - disproportionately for women; “cars that became dungeons”
*Private sphere; marriage treated as private - domestic violence a “personal problem” and not considered as the state’s problem; concept of family pulled out of “private sphere”
**an alternative to heterosexuality, but also an alternative to marriage as an ideal; civil partnerships getting more rights; any other sort of platonic partnerships also getting rights; dismantling the idea that marriage is the bedrock of society; any and all sort of civil partnership or none or friendship as the primary social structure will be socially acceptabel, ie no one will scramble together to get a date to go to your granny’s birthday party because of acceptability and repectability.
**Education: “classrooms are not neutral”; through what teachers chose to emphasize and what they leave out of curriculums, and through historiography, and because we already live in a society which has preconceived notions —> classrooms are already charged environments; a teacher should interrogate the nature of education and what voice the curriculum is taking (ie if the curriculum itself is preaching white supremacy through what it does)
*Science is not neutral or objective either; science can be used to serve political or philosophical interests; e.g. women and men’s physical dissimilarities have LONG been used to argue that women should stay at home; BUT apart from breastfeeding a man can do everything that a woman can for their kid
*same with racism; eugenics was a respectable biological discipline; that thing where they measured bones.
*biology literally teaches EVERYTHING as man and woman separately; hormones, sexual system; we call testosterone “virile”; the act of sexual reproduction is though of as a fast, sperm on its way to conquer the docile egg and many sperms and which one wins
**labor: smaller work week - more time to grow, explore interests etc; more free time
**porn - porn artists also enjoy their work; “i am actually just really good at sex and can make money off of it” ; taking control of their own labor - more porn film directors are women; profiting form one’s own emotional and sexual labor; emotional work is also a kind of porn - air stewardess, hairdressers; The Managed Heart; porn is about intimacy
**tone policing - a form of patriarchy; gatekeeping keep people comfortable rather than truly expressing ourselves Accessibility should be the norm; hearing, physical and mental ability
**mental illnesses - “hysteria” (gender charged language) forcing people to get well in inpatient psychiatric units; neurotypical prized above everything else
*men treated as creative eccentric whereas women expected ro conform to normalization (counter argument: manic pixie girl?
*states of mind that aren't normative nurtured instead of medicated/
*free and open accommodation for everyone; woven into every fabric of society - vision, hearing, space accessibility
**neoliberalism’s impact; interesting idea that when in 1930’s capitalism first started burgeoning, social programs were created that kinda kept it in check; but now we want to cut social programs
**art: art vs crafts; embroidery, quilting etc
**Justice - restorative justice as opposed to “bad people”, “criminals” - the idea that justice cannot be served if there is advantage to be gained by the judges at the expense of those judged; e.g. that if all the judges are foxes, a goose will not really get justice
*prison system, public safety - are we really locking up the “bad guys” or ones who pose most risk to public safety?
*Who is included and who gets left out of an idea of public safety? - e.g. in the Muslim ban - the rhetoric is that of public safety but x% of muslims also make ups he public
BIG THEMES
**sexuality - source of worry and fear, stigmatized, oppressed - whether in private or public space; domestic violence, rape.
**Ableism
**difference should be neutral
!!Brilliant, innovative ideas/painful realizations I hadn’t thought before!!
**Protecting childhood
**being able to walk in public space without fearing violence
**Abortion just as a part of reproductive planning and reproductive planning as par tof growing up
**we don’t need to justify all use of time; don’t need to always do something or be productive; we can just enjoy being alive
**eating every bite with mindfulness and jus enjoying the food, regardless of calories, nutrients; the food is all “good food” and doesn't have hormones etc saturated fats, chemicals etc
**“am i in love or am i seduced by the patriarchy into feeling comfortable and happy”; “am i heartbroken because it was real or because I feel pressure to have a male partner” and 101 other hetreorseuxal feminist romance-related problems
**Listening as activism
**the personal is political
**“sexism surcharge” as tip LOL
**a premedical classroom where people think about how medicine has been used to carry out racist and sexist policies (sterilizations; inequality; colonial medicine; medicine a site of violence
*we call testosterone “virile”; the act of sexual reproduction is though of as a fast, sperm on its way to conquer the docile egg and many sperm and which one wins
Critique
*intersectionality/identity politics etc more needed
*Privilege - white feminism - the privilege to have citizenship
*decolonization not enough content
November 16, 2022
I enjoyed this, but it had the potential to be adored. 57 essays in just under 350 pages was an ambitious project, and I'm not sure it delivered. The topics were so interesting, but all underdeveloped. To add up, I thought that the choice of editing was a bit weird. Putting all the essays that have a similar idea back to back was indeed the logical thing to do, but it got boring and repetitive pretty fast. I also think that some authors didn't get the assignment. Their essays were about actual problems, without proposing any solutions to live in an utopia. So I do understand all the reviews that claim the depressive and demoralizing aspect of this book.
HOWEVER, I'm still glad I read it and I think that it's an important book to have on my shelves as a feminist activist. I also really really liked that they invited women of color, immigrants, trans and more diversity to the conversation! And a few ideas here and there really peeked my interest and I'll keep them in mind for the future.
7.5/10
HOWEVER, I'm still glad I read it and I think that it's an important book to have on my shelves as a feminist activist. I also really really liked that they invited women of color, immigrants, trans and more diversity to the conversation! And a few ideas here and there really peeked my interest and I'll keep them in mind for the future.
7.5/10
August 7, 2021
I keep coming back to this book. Not only is it a fun read, but the use of temporality by some of the contributors is ground breaking. Entries sometimes contradict each other, and while speculative of a feminst utopia, this book does an incredible job of being critical of the present while showing a possible blueprint of a way out.
December 28, 2022
READ FOR MY 2022 READING CHALLENGE, ITEM 7 : A book with at least two authors .
I loved the pitch for this book. But for some reason I just couldn't read it to the end. I think the idea was great and probably some of the writing was really good but it didn't click with me.
I loved the pitch for this book. But for some reason I just couldn't read it to the end. I think the idea was great and probably some of the writing was really good but it didn't click with me.
December 10, 2019
3.5, for sure. Loved the concept and really got into the more fiction pieces. TONS to digest and discuss!
Read
April 12, 2022I read from pages 43 to 103 for my Gender and Society class. I’ll have to stop reading cause I am gonna be too busy to continue but I will be coming back to it this summer
August 11, 2016
We have to do things that are hard to feel fully human, to feel we have accomplished and that we have achieved. But in my utopia, the struggles we would experience would be more fundamental to or humanity and less tied to the accidental identities we are assigned at birth
This is a collection of essays, stories, poems, interviews and artwork, examining the concept of a 'feminist utopia' across law, healthcare, education, sex and much more. The power of this collection lies in its demonstration of the breadth of inequality across every stage of a woman's life. Whether it's the enforcement of gender onto newborn babies through the rigidly narrow colour palette or single mothers fighting to look after their children with no support from the community or the state. The lack of safety she will feel in public spaces at any age. The double, triple, quadruple discrimination experienced by women whose identities intersect with other social groups - non-white, non-heterosexual, trans, gender-fluid, disabled, working class. We can measure the level of inequality in our society by the common things that are missing from 57 different ideas of utopia.
Remember those dudes catcalling on the street? They have literally become cats (there is always room for more cats). Or, better yet, they will have stopped calling and started respecting
In my feminist utopia, the story can end here. I am able to interact with other members of my community and appreciate the splendor of a kaleidoscopic city without fear of violence. I can smile at a man and know that he feels the joy radiating from my body without the need to touch it. We can share the world's oldest hello without ever exchanging words
This is the transaction we make as women, a bargaining with fate to allow us an inch of restricted freedom, at the cost of an assumed risk. As women travelers, and women off of the grid, we are vigilant in our assessment of our environments, constantly identifying our escape hatch: if they try to ___, I will ___, with ___. The armor of observation and readiness carries us into the wild. When we go unscathed, the world around us is perceived as just. When we do not, we didn't listen and it is our fault and our fate.
A common theme throughout the collection, is the desire to feel free and safe. A basic basic need that is so often unmet. Despite never having felt truly safe when out in the world alone, it still surprises me how common this is among many women. The idea that if we accidentally make eye contact with a man, or smile at him out of friendliness, this could somehow be misinterpreted into an encounter which has said man following us home, as if a smile is an open door to anything he may wish to do to us. The idea that if we dare to travel without a male friend, society will not be held responsible for the consequences of our naivete.
If we were able to travel not as consuming tourists but as compassionate learners, we would not become war-mongering, we would not become power-hungry, and we would not become so hateful to and dominating of one another
Another thing I liked about this collection was the broader ideas on humanity. When asked to write about 'utopia' (whether feminist or not), the authors cannot help but imagine a better world on every level, not just that of solving gender inequality.
Measure the sickness of a society by how frequently its children see their own reflections - in surfaces, photographs, PhotoBooth, iPad screens, and, subtly, but relentlessly, in software designed to learn, replicate and reinforce their behavior. A vicious cycle of self-surveillance narrows experience until there is no self left to reflect. In its place, merely the frantic scramble for confirmation of existence: I am that I look in the mirror
The only negatives I had about this book was that it was occasionally repetitive (but hardly surprising given the common inequality that many women experience); but also sometimes too unrealistic for me. Clearly a 'utopia' is often something that is wildly different what we have today - otherwise it wouldn't be utopian! However, there were pieces that talked about a world which seemed tangible; a consequence of people waking up and taking notice and making small, basic changes, that would change the lives of many. Those were the pieces I preferred, as opposed to those where the new world just seemed so impossible, it was almost depressing.
A book I'd recommend to anyone with a remotely feminist inclination - if only to get our heads out of what is and thinking about what could be.
October 17, 2016
Review originally posted on Tsundokuholic.
The Feminist Utopia Project Overview
The Feminist Utopia Project, edited by Alexandra Brodsky and Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, begins with a short but powerful declaration: “We want more.” In the fifty-seven pieces that follow, feminists present their views on the components of a feminist utopia. These views are expressed through art, poetry, photos, interviews, short fictional stories, and personal narratives spanning a variety of feminist-interest topics. One writer imagines a future where girls are coached in family planning from puberty and abortion restrictions are archaic. Another piece imagines how humans of the future will look back on the early 21st-century issues of “rape” and “consent” with incredulity because the concept of people having sex with each other without them both wanting to have sex is unfathomable. While some writers imagined a feminist utopia, others analyzed the issues humanity must overcome in order to reach a feminist utopia. Others imagine specific facets of a feminist utopia, such as justice systems, education reform, workplace reform, and medical practice. The feminism presented in this anthology is inclusive, with many pieces focusing on how sexism affects women of color, transgender women, and men. Each piece explores something “we want more” of, whether it’s more paid parental leave or more freedom to move freely through the world without the constant nagging feeling that we will be victims of gender-based violence.
My Thoughts
This book, being an anthology, contains a little something for everyone, as long as you’re not a bitter, ill-informed meninist, I guess. There are fifty-seven unique works by fifty-seven different people. I enjoyed some of the pieces more than others, depending on each author’s voice. I really enjoyed the fictional imaginings of utopian futures where feminism isn’t a dirty word, it’s common sense. The pieces that centered on economics were a bit dry in my opinion, and I’m sure others would find it fascinating to consider a more feminist take on medical care but it just wasn’t stimulating enough for me. That’s not to say I disagreed with the authors’ messages, I just can’t get deeply invested in those topics past a page or two. The fact that a few of the chapters weren’t up my alley shows the diversity of the subject matter. At the end of the book is a categorized index for those who want to read about specific topics like food, sex, art, disability rights, queer rights, or trans justice. What strings together this cornucopia of opinions about all of the issues underneath the feminist umbrella is the theme of wanting more, and the question of why we’re struggling to reach a feminist utopia. I frequently see women being subtly demeaned by friends and family. Sexist ideas about what it means to male and female are so ingrained into our culture that they appear to be fact. It’s easy to demean emotions and other stereotypically feminine traits at the expense of both men and women. The visions of feminist utopias presented in this book depend on the willingness of people to challenge our own beliefs and imagine a better, safer, inclusive future.
Rating: 4 out of 5 feminist utopias
The Feminist Utopia Project Overview
The Feminist Utopia Project, edited by Alexandra Brodsky and Rachel Kauder Nalebuff, begins with a short but powerful declaration: “We want more.” In the fifty-seven pieces that follow, feminists present their views on the components of a feminist utopia. These views are expressed through art, poetry, photos, interviews, short fictional stories, and personal narratives spanning a variety of feminist-interest topics. One writer imagines a future where girls are coached in family planning from puberty and abortion restrictions are archaic. Another piece imagines how humans of the future will look back on the early 21st-century issues of “rape” and “consent” with incredulity because the concept of people having sex with each other without them both wanting to have sex is unfathomable. While some writers imagined a feminist utopia, others analyzed the issues humanity must overcome in order to reach a feminist utopia. Others imagine specific facets of a feminist utopia, such as justice systems, education reform, workplace reform, and medical practice. The feminism presented in this anthology is inclusive, with many pieces focusing on how sexism affects women of color, transgender women, and men. Each piece explores something “we want more” of, whether it’s more paid parental leave or more freedom to move freely through the world without the constant nagging feeling that we will be victims of gender-based violence.
My Thoughts
This book, being an anthology, contains a little something for everyone, as long as you’re not a bitter, ill-informed meninist, I guess. There are fifty-seven unique works by fifty-seven different people. I enjoyed some of the pieces more than others, depending on each author’s voice. I really enjoyed the fictional imaginings of utopian futures where feminism isn’t a dirty word, it’s common sense. The pieces that centered on economics were a bit dry in my opinion, and I’m sure others would find it fascinating to consider a more feminist take on medical care but it just wasn’t stimulating enough for me. That’s not to say I disagreed with the authors’ messages, I just can’t get deeply invested in those topics past a page or two. The fact that a few of the chapters weren’t up my alley shows the diversity of the subject matter. At the end of the book is a categorized index for those who want to read about specific topics like food, sex, art, disability rights, queer rights, or trans justice. What strings together this cornucopia of opinions about all of the issues underneath the feminist umbrella is the theme of wanting more, and the question of why we’re struggling to reach a feminist utopia. I frequently see women being subtly demeaned by friends and family. Sexist ideas about what it means to male and female are so ingrained into our culture that they appear to be fact. It’s easy to demean emotions and other stereotypically feminine traits at the expense of both men and women. The visions of feminist utopias presented in this book depend on the willingness of people to challenge our own beliefs and imagine a better, safer, inclusive future.
Rating: 4 out of 5 feminist utopias
April 26, 2016
This anthology brings forward many different types of and viewpoints to describe their various thoughts on a feminist utopia. Some I adored and some totally missed the mark for me but I appreciated the diverse range of backgrounds it brought to the table.
"We wouldn't even need the term 'universal design' because, in my utopia, the drive to build a world for all bodies wouldn't need a special term. It would just be life."
"And that for me is the utopia project--it's to keep pushing the feminist question of what truths are missing, who's not sitting at the table, whose concerns are not being articulated, whose interests aren't being represented, and whose truths aren't being told or acknowledged."
"In my feminist utopia, I am human and my name is not 'baby'."
"We now know that while exercising one's voice in the context of a society that seeks to silence it is undoubtedly vital, this uproar can't exist alone."
"That doesn't mean the love is any less valuable, any less meaningful, any less life changing, any less heart shaping--but you break up because that's how a lot of happy relationships work."
"You should never silence someone by putting your mouth on their mouth. It's not a great way to get consent; it's not a great way to honor what someone's trying to say."
"Acknowledging people with extraordinary mental and emotional perspectives as not only valid but also valuable members of society, not despite but because of their exceptional mental and emotional conditions, is a key element of an ideal feminist society. Support, not suppression, should be the principle on which we base our mental health care. The culture of the feminist utopia must be one in which people experiencing extraordinary mental states can both survive and thrive."
"States of mine that don't conform to the normative standard of happiness are seen as undesirable and unacceptable because they are at odds with the great lie of capitalism: that life is nothing but the individual pursuit of happiness and that the measure of that happiness is money. Any state of mine that is out of line with the agreed-on principle that happiness is the human default is seen as a sickness that must be cured, just as any person who exists in a manner inconsistent with the bourgeois status quo is a blight on society at best and a terrorist at worst."
"The free girl with love being her birthright, liberation being her mission, and self-realization being her quest is my vision for an ideal society. The free girl will down down a crowded street in the daytime--unnoticed...she is not merely included; she is actually centered. She is centered because there are no gatekeepers to womanhood. It belongs to her, and no one can police her out. She is centered because solidarity is an act, not a label. She will never tiptoe toward sisterhood. She is centered because our feminism is solidly built on the belief that our freedom lies in her being free. And she will expect nothing less from us because she is everything."
"We wouldn't even need the term 'universal design' because, in my utopia, the drive to build a world for all bodies wouldn't need a special term. It would just be life."
"And that for me is the utopia project--it's to keep pushing the feminist question of what truths are missing, who's not sitting at the table, whose concerns are not being articulated, whose interests aren't being represented, and whose truths aren't being told or acknowledged."
"In my feminist utopia, I am human and my name is not 'baby'."
"We now know that while exercising one's voice in the context of a society that seeks to silence it is undoubtedly vital, this uproar can't exist alone."
"That doesn't mean the love is any less valuable, any less meaningful, any less life changing, any less heart shaping--but you break up because that's how a lot of happy relationships work."
"You should never silence someone by putting your mouth on their mouth. It's not a great way to get consent; it's not a great way to honor what someone's trying to say."
"Acknowledging people with extraordinary mental and emotional perspectives as not only valid but also valuable members of society, not despite but because of their exceptional mental and emotional conditions, is a key element of an ideal feminist society. Support, not suppression, should be the principle on which we base our mental health care. The culture of the feminist utopia must be one in which people experiencing extraordinary mental states can both survive and thrive."
"States of mine that don't conform to the normative standard of happiness are seen as undesirable and unacceptable because they are at odds with the great lie of capitalism: that life is nothing but the individual pursuit of happiness and that the measure of that happiness is money. Any state of mine that is out of line with the agreed-on principle that happiness is the human default is seen as a sickness that must be cured, just as any person who exists in a manner inconsistent with the bourgeois status quo is a blight on society at best and a terrorist at worst."
"The free girl with love being her birthright, liberation being her mission, and self-realization being her quest is my vision for an ideal society. The free girl will down down a crowded street in the daytime--unnoticed...she is not merely included; she is actually centered. She is centered because there are no gatekeepers to womanhood. It belongs to her, and no one can police her out. She is centered because solidarity is an act, not a label. She will never tiptoe toward sisterhood. She is centered because our feminism is solidly built on the belief that our freedom lies in her being free. And she will expect nothing less from us because she is everything."
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