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A review by emeraldgreen
The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future by
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