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tofutofutofu's review against another edition
2.0
Utopias tends to be boring because everybody tends to be well-behaved to the point where they no longer resemble humans. That's why every utopian story in the history of art introduces a rogue actor to ruin the utopia or reveals that it was never a utopia at all. It's nice to have a variety of perspectives in this book, although the variety undercuts most of the essays, which seem to believe that it is possible to create a society that would satisfy everybody. The only essay which successfully navigates the absurdity of describing a utopia is "Lesbo Island," which is truly the only bit of humor in this excessively earnest collection.
emeraldgreen's review against another edition
4.0
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
jeninmotion's review against another edition
5.0
Oh, this was a fabulous collection. I didn't love every essay, but it was hopeful and it's one of those books where you can easily go back and read one or two of the entries and get something new out of it, or use one of their lists in the appendix to read on a topic, et cetera. Very cool concept well-executed.
mcbolt's review against another edition
4.0
The very first essay in this collection is called "Reproductive Supporters," which describes a utopia where every woman has basically a doula assigned to her for life and who supports her through any and all reproductive options and outcomes. I'm probably a little biased but damn did that make a good impression on me.
Most of the other material was great too; it was an enriching read. I loved the science fiction stories describing the reality of the author's utopia. Sometimes the essays could be a little dry, but many of them were still enlightening and great to read.
Most of the other material was great too; it was an enriching read. I loved the science fiction stories describing the reality of the author's utopia. Sometimes the essays could be a little dry, but many of them were still enlightening and great to read.
madiejolliffe's review against another edition
5.0
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.
grannyweatherwax88's review against another edition
4.0
This book was like a feminist vision board and I am here for that. I'm so glad that I read it during such a demoralizing time because it reinforces the need to do more than simply resist the attacks on our rights happening in the present by holding onto visions of a feminist future. My only critique is that this book could have delved deeper into what feminist utopias would look like for male-identified individuals. Although it touched on that a little, I would have liked to see a couple more essays that radically re-imagined masculinity, not by its abolishment but via redefiniton.
hdicicco's review against another edition
4.0
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-feminist-utopia-project-isnt-quite-utopian
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-feminist-utopia-project-isnt-quite-utopian
likeaduck's review against another edition
3.0
With fifty-seven different takes, some are going to grab more than others and I was way more in the mood for the fiction than the interviews, but a lot of it was really thought-provoking. What’s stayed with me most is the attitude check I had to give myself reading the teen parent schedule and realizing that in a world that better supported teen parenting there would be more teen parents—was a good check when I’m used to metrics showing decreases in teen parenthood as a good thing to realize the world I’d want to work towards is a world where it happens more. Also some interesting community justice visionings. I had mixed feeling about the reproductive life plan utopia: so cool to have a dedicated mentor role for that, but it seemed to come at the expense of the main character’s autonomy.
Altogether a cool read, and clearly one I’m still remembering (filling this out in Aug 2018 but I actually finished it a year and a half ago I guess).
Altogether a cool read, and clearly one I’m still remembering (filling this out in Aug 2018 but I actually finished it a year and a half ago I guess).
madhu5's review against another edition
4.0
Insightful. Challenging. Really made me think about what a feminist utopia would look like to me. While I didn't connect with all the authors overall I recommend.
megatza's review
4.0
I liked an awful lot of things about this anthology. I like the glimpses into what different feminist utopias would look like from different perspectives. It tries (and I think succeeds) to encompass feminist views that are often overlooked is discarded from mainstream "Feminism."
It felt a little disjointed and at times sparse. Many of the utopias were fragments (does that represent how hard it is to imagine a feminist utopia, though?). The anthology selection order was strong, and the variety of presentations from art to poetry to essay to interview to short story made it feel less academic and more open to readers. I obviously wonder if the selection or content would change, given the current political climate. Does it become harder to imagine a feminist utopia now?
Note on the format: I read it on Kindle. Will be purchasing a hard copy, in the future, though. There were some illustrations and poems that didn't come across well in digital format.
I'm a little afraid the audience is still already-feminist. I'm not sure how many minds this book would change.
It felt a little disjointed and at times sparse. Many of the utopias were fragments (does that represent how hard it is to imagine a feminist utopia, though?). The anthology selection order was strong, and the variety of presentations from art to poetry to essay to interview to short story made it feel less academic and more open to readers. I obviously wonder if the selection or content would change, given the current political climate. Does it become harder to imagine a feminist utopia now?
Note on the format: I read it on Kindle. Will be purchasing a hard copy, in the future, though. There were some illustrations and poems that didn't come across well in digital format.
I'm a little afraid the audience is still already-feminist. I'm not sure how many minds this book would change.