Book Review: The Feminist Utopia Project, fifty-seven visions of a wildly better future

The Feminist Utopia Project, fifty-seven visions of a wildly better future

edited by Alexandra Brodsky, Rachel Kauder Nalebuff

This was a great book. But then, I expected it to be that from the LRB interview I had seen about it. I had to buy it from Amazon USA because, as a modest art-academic project with the Feminist Press, it has not been published in the UK (yet).

The collection is mostly short stories and essays but includes poems, listicles, art, the lot. I’m in the middle of writing fiction about a world with different gender dynamics so I especially wanted to look at these, even more after I saw the contributors included Melissa Gira Grant and a few other writers I already enjoy reading.

This won’t be a particularly thorough review: if you’re the kind of person who thinks they’d like to read a book called the feminist utopia project, yes, this is the kind of book you would like to read. But here are a few observations.

YORO

Murmur under your breath in criticism of the machine

Occasionally blog against the machine

Listen to decade-old songs that rage against the machine while you work the machine

Tell people you sometimes feel frustrated by the machine

Rage against people who embody the machine more than you do

Download Taylor Swift’s latest album

Tweet against Apple’s sweatshop production model on your smartphone

Patience is a virtue in pursuit of rage

Shake it out against the machine

Smoke only rollies

Post statuses about people in countries where the machine is rather more overt and harsh

ISIS against the machine

If you see appropriate articles nuancing the approach of the machine, ‘like’ them

Consider pharmaceuticals from machines against rage

Blank spaces against the machinations of emotion

Wear hypercolour Che Guevara

Grapes of wrath against the machine make bitter wine

Doff your cap in deference to the machine but do it with a tiny smirk because you know you aren’t really submitting to the machine

Rage against the kyriarchy through multidisciplinary academic discourse

Evaluate the machine at an Atlantacist Conference on the hegemonic power of automated industry undermining organised labour’s negotiation position

Swill mouthwash to make the machine wintry fresh

Consider with disgust your youthful cultural appropriations of indigenous races’ wars against earlier machine permutations

Recall the vigour with which you raged against the machine at 22

Rage against the machine quietly

Rage against the machine tomorrow

Invest in synthetic marijuana and 10-year gilts from emerging economies

Sneer at newspapers that don’t rage as hard as you do

Dissatisfaction is a necessary but insufficient condition for successful discrete raging in all possible machine worlds

Wear ribbed condoms and a sports jacket against the machine

Double-lock your flat against the machine

Write to your MP(‘s intern) asking them to get at least a little worked up about the impending extenuation of the machine

Red trousers against the machine

Wear sunscreen against the machine

Donate to machine-rage complex charity

The sun also rises for the machine

Stick it to the man machine

Brace yourselves and other memes against the machine

One does not simply rage into Mordor

The beastie boys fought and possibly died for your right to rage against the party

Look on my rage, ye mighty! And despair

The grass is always greener on the machine’s side

YORO

Victors

Welfare policy alone is reason enough not to vote Tory

I don’t usually begin blogs talking about myself, but I will here both to illustrate my argument and excuse my long absence. I have had some health troubles. An eye condition that means it hurts to look at screens, RSI in my hands that makes typing excruciating, and an operation elsewhere that made me generally immobile and tired.

When you’re young and fit, it’s easy to think you’re basically immortal. But even a few minor ailments that refuse to be fixed, or being rushed from hospital to hospital for an emergency operation, makes you consider a new perspective. Thoughts of long-term sickness pay or part time work loom, your appreciation for the NHS blossoms, and it all makes sense why you paid that unwelcome chunk of National Insurance contribution each payday. Then you look at what the 2010-2015 government has been doing for, or rather against, those less able to work or live with dignity.

Could Brooker’s ‘White Christmas’ world be a utopia? [spoilers]

I have two thoughts of any substance, following my viewing of Charlie Brooker’s excellent Black Mirror special, White Christmas (watch it). If you are looking forward to some fresh milk, be aware it is about to spoil.

Writing about writing about London

Something really contemporary about millennials in London living in small rooms on wages smaller than they were promised during A-levels, each wondering ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ on their online dating profiles as 22 becomes 25.

Liberal Metropolitan Elite Manifesto

What would the LIME Party really look like?

Love the Machine – Review of Spike Jonze’s ‘Her’

Last week I wrote a review of Transcendence and concluded that, although better than the general critical consensus, it was certainly pretty meh and missed more goals than it set up. This review, of Spike Jonze’s Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, is intended to be read as part II, since both films touch upon identity, artificial intelligence (AI), and love. As before, there will be spoilers aplenty, so if you just want my recommendation: watch this film.

Pandora’s Excellent Box: AI in Film

Film Review of (I)Transcendence and (II) Her

After enjoying a whimsical recollection of a recent Glitch Mob gig, my mind’s been all critic-like. So I thought I’d turn it to two superficially similar films which are both about AI and love, with my usualy witty blend of philsophy, feminism and literary snobbery. Spoilers follow, but I’ll try to signpost the worst in situ so you can skip paragraphs if you really care.

Feminists won’t “banish men from power” and Penny’s not Stalin

“The Rise of Ideological Feminism” by A Free Left Blog: A Response

Ben Cobley’s original argument “The rise of ideological feminism (Part III on Karl Popper and contemporary ideologies)” can be found here on his Free Left Blog. It is a strong critique, focusing particularly on the views of Laurie Penny and parts of the British Labour Party, but applies to the wider modern feminist movement.

Poet’s romantic dilemma meets surveillance state

Executive Summary

-It’s important that clandestine government power be kept in check.
-A climate of complacency has developed which stops the media and society from holding the government to account.
-The PRISM/SOCMINT/TEMPORA revelations are genuinely terrifying.
-This revelation deserves greater civil outcry.