Feminist Visions of the Future

The following brief discussion of resources for teaching
about feminist visions of the future took place on WMST-L in
December 2003.  For additional WMST-L files available on the
Web, see the WMST-L File Collection.

Can anyone recommend sources for a colleague who teaches future studies
and who wants literature on feminist visions or plans as to what a
nonpatriarchal society would look like?  He is familiar with feminist
utopian novels such a Woman on the Edge of Time, which he and I both use
with great success in our classes. I've also pointed him toward the
literature on feminist organizations, such as Feree and Martin's volume.
He is looking, I think, for some fairly practical analysis of how a
feminist society would work.

Thanks,

Kathy Ferguson

Is he familiar with actual intentional communities such as Twin Oaks
in Louisa, VA?  He might visit their website: www.twinoaks.org - or go
to the website of the Fellowship for Intentional Communities -
www.ic.org/

Charlene

M. Charlene Ball, Ph.D., Academic Professional
Women's Studies Institute
Georgia State University
University Plaza
Atlanta, GA   30303-3083
mcharleneball  AT  gsu.edu
http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwwsi

A book that might be of use is the anthology "Fabric of the Future:
Women Visionaries Illuminate the Path to Tomorrow," edited by
M.J. Ryan.

Marilyn Grotzky
Auraria Library
Denver, CO

There's a book called _The Futures of Women_ (one of the authors is futurist
Pamela McCorduck) which has ferreted out two defining pivotal struggles as
the determinants:  will the economy continue downhill (Y/N) and which will
triumph (individualism or community values)...  each of the four
combinations of outcomes leads to a detailed vision of separate futures..

There is however an alternative view on the combination I see as most likely
(individualism/economic demise) and it's outlined in the unabridged epilogue
to _Token Woman_ which is at the book's website (there's a link to it at
www.bergerac.tv) which proposes steps for women to implement to find a
better outcome than autlined by McCorduck...

J.H. Raichyk, PhD.
cighe  AT  earthlink.net
Dectiri Publishing

Why not teach on a society that actually exists? I am thinking of the new
book by Peggy Reeves Sanday. 2002. Women at the Center; Life in a Modern
Matriarchy. This is an account of the Minangkabau in Indonesia (Sumatra).
They have a matrilineal philosophy and social structure. Their views of the
world and their gender dynamics are very different from ours (US culture).
Barbara Watson

Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke, Ph.D.
Department of Women's Studies
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182
mbwatson  AT  mail.sdsu.edu

 Judith Lorber's Paradoxes of Gender (pp. 292-302) ends with two different
scenarios for a gender-equal world -- one which structures for equality, the
other which scrupulously divides everything half and half by gender.

What also might be useful to recommend is --
Judith Lorber. 2000. "Using Gender to Undo Gender: A Feminist Degendering
Movement." Feminist Theory 1:101-18.

I'm finishing a new book on degendering -- Breaking the Bowls: Degendering
and Feminist Change, which will be published by Norton.

JL

***************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Brooklyn College and Graduate School, CUNY
Email: jlorber  AT  rcn.com
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