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martha_is_reading's review
4.0
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.
geriatricgretch's review
4.0
SO fun and so important. There are myriad perspectives in this book and you're not expected to agree with all of them (obviously), but it's even more fun to read about all the different ways things could be better. It makes it seem more like a real possibility.
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