The Feminist Utopia Project: Fifty-Seven Visions of a Wildly Better Future

by Alexandra Brodsky (Editor), Rachel Kauder Nalebuff (Editor)

Overview

This “incredible addition to the feminist canon” brings together the most inspiring, creative, and courageous voices concerning modern women’s issues (Jessica Valenti, editor of Yes Means Yes).

In this groundbreaking collection, more than fifty cutting-edge feminist writers—including Melissa Harris-Perry, Janet Mock, Sheila Heti, and Mia McKenzie—invite us to imagine a world of freedom and equality in which:

An abortion provider reinvents birth control . . .
The economy values domestic work . . .
A teenage rock band dreams up a new way to make music . . .
The Constitution is re-written with women’s rights at the fore . . .
The standard for good sex is raised with a woman’s pleasure in mind . . .

The Feminist Utopia Project challenges the status quo that accepts inequality and violence as a given, “offering playful, earnest, challenging, and hopeful versions of our collective future in the form of creative nonfiction, fiction, visual art, poetry, and more” (Library Journal).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558619005
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	10/13/2015
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	699,969
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Alexandra Brodsky is an editor at Feministing.com, student at Yale Law School, and co-founder of Know Your IX, a national student campaign against campus gender-based violence. Alexandra regularly writes about feminist law in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Nation and has spoken about strengthening civil rights responses to gender-based violence on national television and radio programs and before the Senate.

Rachel Kauder Nalebuff is a playwright living in Los Angeles. She is the creator of The New York Times bestseller My Little Red Book, an anthology of women’s first period stories. She has given talks about periods to schools, conferences, and Girl Scout troops around the country. Her work reducing the taboos around menstruation has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Huffington Post, NPR, and Jezebel. You can learn more about her at itsrachelkaudernalebuff.com.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
About This Book 3
Acknowledgements 4
INDEX A: Imperfect Categories 7
Introduction 14
Dispatches from a Body Perfect World —Jenny Trout 17
Our Bodies, Us —Elizabeth Deutsch 20
My Own Sound —Christine Sun Kim 22
Reproductive Supporters—Anonymous 24
What Would a Feminist Utopia Look Like For Parents of Color?—Victoria Law 26
Feminist Utopia Teen Mom Schedule—Gloria Malone 30
I Don’t —Sam Huber 33
Queer in Public —Courtney Baxter 38
Interview with Suey Park 39
A LIST OF 34 IMPOSSIBLY BEAUTIFUL BRAS FOR GIRLS WITH SMALL BOOBS —Sarah Matthes 42
Interview with Chloe Angyal 43
Poems for Past Lovers 1-3 —Charlotte Lieberman 46
Dispatch from the Post-Rape Future: Against Consent, Reciprocity, and Pleasure —Maya Dusenbery 52
Interview with Kate Orazem 57
Sliding Doors —Jasmine Giuliani 62
Finding an Erotic Transcendence: Sex in a Feminist Utopia —Lori Adelman 63
Learning Our Bodies, Healing Our Selves —William Schlesinger 69
Crazy Bitches: Redefining Mental Health (Care) in the Feminist
Utopia— Tessa Smith 70
Interview with Melissa Harris-Perry 75
No Escape Hatch —Ria Fay-Berquist 79
Not On My Block: Envisioning a World Without Street Harassment—
Hannah Giorgis 83
The Day Without Body Shame —Erin Matson 85
Raising Generation E (For Empathy): The Final Frontier of Feminism
—Mindi Rose Englart 87
Interview with Jessica Luther 90
Interview with Lauren Chief Elk 94
Justice Mariame Kaba and Bianca Diaz 98
The New Word Order —Amy Jean Porter 103
Renouncing Reality —Chanelle Adams 104
What Will Children Play with in Utopia? Or: What is the Opposite of a Mirror —Richard Espinosa and Kate Riley 105
New Rites of Transition —Gabrielle Gamboa 106
Back to School 1 & 2 —Tyler Cohen 107
Flag for the United Nations of Magical Girls —Nicole Killian 108
Feminist Constitution —Katherine Cross 109
Less Work, More Time —Madeleine Schwartz 114
Not a Favor to Women: The Workplace in a Feminist Future— Ellen Bravo 117
Working Utopia —Melissa Gira Grant 123
Imperfectly: A Feminist Utopian Economy that Embraces and Addresses Human Flaws —Sheila Bapat 126
Equity Eats— Eileen McFarland 129
An Unremarkable Bar on an Unremarkable Night —s.e. smith 132
Description of a Video File From the Year 2067 to be Donated to the Municipal Archives from the Youth Voices Speech Competition —Dara Lind 135
Interview with Judy Rebick —Sheila Heti 141
Interview with Miss Major Griffin-Gracy Suzanna Bobadilla 146
Noisy Utopia —Karla Schickele 152
Embroidering Revolution —Verónica Bayetti Flores 154
Lesbo Island —Jill Soloway 156
Dispatch from Outside the Girl Talk Incubator— Katie J.M. Baker 161
Welcome to Arcadia —Julie Zeilinger 162
Interview with Mia McKenzie 165
Beyond Badass: Towards a Feminist, Antiracist Literature— Daniel José Older 167
Interview with Ileana Jiménez 169
Let Him Wear a Tutu —Yamberlie M. Tavarez 173
If Absence Was The Source of Silence Reginald —Dwayne Betts 176
The Free Girl Who Is Everything —Janet Mock 178
7 Rituals From the Feminist Utopia: Prebirth to Postdeath— Yumi Sakugawa 180
When God Becomes a Woman —Abigail Carney 181
Interview with Harsh Crowd 182
INDEX B: Sightings of Utopia 187
About the Editors 188

Editorial Reviews

"Wildly creative." —Kirkus

"A joyful cacophony of voices offering playful, earnest, challenging, and hopeful versions of our collective future in the form of creative nonfiction, fiction, visual art, poetry, and more." —Library Journal

“The Feminist Utopia Project is an incredible addition to the feminist canon. With contributions from some of the most important voices in gender justice, this book looks to the future with optimism, strength, and intelligence. Your feminist library is not complete without it.” —Jessica Valenti, editor of Yes Means Yes

"The collection's diverse visions and the applause-worthy, rallying intro prove that we might not have to wait for these dreams to become real."—BUST

“The imaginative and exhilarating artwork, stories, and essays here are smart, funny, moving, significant—and inspire hope for what might be.” —T Cooper, author of Changers

"Brodsky and Nalebuff have captured the vibrancy that is currently infusing a new generation of feminists, while challenging the limitations still informed by politics and history." —Booklist

“This remarkable collection of essays, stories, and artwork showcases multiple ways in which feminists have and continue to struggle for equality and a just society. Brodsky and Nalebuff have created a collection of highly readable interpretations of feminist utopias as they emerge from a wide array of perspectives, including women's political standpoints, their ethnic and racial situations, sexual preferences, and class positions. Taken together these brilliant and beautifully crafted essays signal new and radical directions in feminism. The Feminist Utopia Project is essential reading for anyone who has ever imagined a better world.” —Crystal N. Feimster, author of Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching

"This book shows a state-of-the-art feminism where human experience meshes with institutional policy and public life." —Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick

"How beautiful! Here, you can taste, touch, speak, hear, see, and feel liberation. Our journey toward justice is lifelong—the fierce stories in this book light the path." —Joanne N. Smith, executive director Girls for Gender Equity

“The voices in this volume are high voltage—full of youth, determination, and power.”—Emily Bazelon, author of Sticks and Stones

From the Publisher

10/15/2015
The slow, uneven, and labor-intensive process of social change can often leave those on the front lines of a movement vulnerable to disillusionment. Realities involved in negotiating pragmatic compromises and shoring up incremental victories often leaves little time to look toward the horizon and contemplate where the journey will lead. This volume seeks to provide just such a glimpse into the future as imagined by 57 individuals who took a step back from their present-day struggles to explore how feminist activism could lead to a more humane world. Coeditors Brodsky (Know Your Title IX; Feministing) and Nalebuff (My Little Red Book) bring us a joyful cacophony of voices offering playful, earnest, challenging, and hopeful versions of our collective future in the form of creative nonfiction, fiction, visual art, poetry, and more. Like many futuristic visions, the project turns a discerning and often discomfiting mirror on our unjust present-day circumstances, prompting us to consider why we do not dare to dream (and demand) more boldly. VERDICT Assembled with great energy and care, this volume will be read and passed among those keen to explore how feminist dreaming may advance a more feminist reality.—Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Massachusetts Historical Soc. Lib., Boston

Library Journal

2015-07-25
A few dozen writers envision a more balanced world. This collection illuminates a potential new environment in which women, girls, and the entire realm of feminism are subjects that are revered and honored instead of denigrated and/or pushed into the background. As editors Brodsky and Nalebuff write, "it's so easy to internalize the limitations imposed on us by American electoral politics today. Our hopes for progress are confined by what (usually male) politicians tell us we can and can't have." In order to define what a better realm might look like if women had more influence on the ways their lives are governed and treated, the editors offer these essays, interviews, and art, which explore a vast array of topics concerning inequality, the present-day norm. In these optimistic viewpoints, women can take up to five years of parental leave after the birth of a child, the Constitution is rewritten to reflect a female perspective, boys can wear pink, teen moms can attend high school while their child is enrolled in the on-campus day care, and transgender people are accepted like everyone else. Some of the pieces look far into the future, showing that a certain amount of time has passed before government and society have advanced enough to embrace these ideas, while other thoughts could be easily obtained if given enough support. The editors have done a solid job balancing the seemingly impossible with ideas that should already be in place, which only emphasizes how important it is that women continue to speak their minds in defense of their bodies and beliefs. The contributors include Jill Soloway, Sheila Heti, Janet Mock, Maya Dusenbery, Jenny Trout, and Julie Zeilinger. Wildly creative ideas from intelligent writers who want more for women, regardless of race, religion, or sexual preference.

Kirkus Reviews