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.

How to be Feminist Missionaries?

I’ve been thinking (always dangerous) about how to spread awareness and support for feminism.

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.

16 reasons why you, a man, should hate the patriarchy

This is a slightly longer version of the blog first published on HuffingtonPostUK on 15/01/2014. This piece was prompted by Emer O’Toole’s excellent article, Men –if you’re not a feminist, it’s fine, just move on. I loved it, I found it very convincing. Hopefully this list complements it. O’Toole’s point is that men who interact with feminism but care more about male issues can be ‘allies’ but shouldn’t claim to be ‘feminists’. This then isn’t a feminist article per se, but certainly an anti-patriarchy one.

Bugger the Toddlers

David Cameron seems to be pre-emptively thwarting my wicked plan to kidnap Prince George and make an insalubrious film about him featuring a red hen, a toy train set and a paddling pool.

I won’t write too much on this myself, as a lot of good ink has been spilled criticising Dave’s announcements already. I’ll just give you the links and a few key points.

More of the same, and no elephant

As in, the presidential debates were more of the same. My blog remains a shining beacon of creative brilliance, unique and innovative in every conceivable way. As such, I’m going to criticise the debates for issues that haven’t been brought up in the various articles/news items I’ve seen so far. Lots of them are obvious, and I invite you to read a fact-checker and see Romney’s position-changes to see just how centrist he’s suddenly decided he’s become. This blog will be somewhat disparate, then, as it struggles to remain original and relevant.

Fingernails! Abortion in Hollywood and Hollyoaks

To continue by inauspicious run of linking current events to topics I’d probably discuss anyway, British readers will have heard about the case of Sarah Catt, who terminated her foetus in the last stage of pregnancy and has been jailed for eight years. The prosecution (‘administering poison with intent to cause a miscarriage’, a law from 1867) and sentencing are interesting for a number of reasons. Medical abortions performed before the 24^th week are perfectly legal, and a woman performing one on herself would not expect serious prosecution. In the UK there were 189,100 legal terminations in 2009 and 195,296 in 2008 (ONS).

Foetus art is pushing boundaries almost as much as Rihanna

Too Dumb To Vote, Part VII – Post-Democracy And The New Asshole

Lots of the shit I lament in earlier posts is human. We can’t eliminate ‘people being affected by language’ or ‘people having cultural points of view’ without fundamentally changing what humans are, or by eliminating ‘people’.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t go some way in alleviating & ameliorating the situation, at least insofar as politics is concerned.

Too Dumb To Vote, Part III – Physical Maleficia

The previous blog looked at the ways in which your mind’s responses to the spoken word itself resembled excrement. By joyous fortune, we can now move onto the ‘ephemera’ if you will – things external to the speech which have no business affecting your responses.
These largely revolve around the appearance and reputation of the speaker.