On Wed, 16 Apr 1997, Judith A. Little wrote:
> For Janet:
> From my syllabus-- (probably more than you want to know!)
[snip]
> What is a Feminist Utopia? Sally Miller Gearhart sets out four
> characteristics of Feminist Utopian literature: it "a. contrasts the
> present with an envisioned idealized society (separated from the present by
> time or space); b. offers a comprehensive critique of present
> values/conditions; c. sees men or male institutions as a major cause of
> present social ills; and d. presents women not only as at least the equals
> of men but also as the sole arbiters of their reproductive functions." In
> any case, conditions of full equality between the sexes must hold in a
> Feminist Utopian society.
Ack. I have problems with that definition. Certainly some feminist
utopias see men as "the problem." However, any feminist utopia that
includes men with the same biology as they currently have in percentages
similar to the current day must not take that position. Why not a much
simpler definition? How about:
Presents an idealized society which has as an integral, necessary part
gender roles that do not put men above women.
Another possible requirement is that this society is presented as
reasonable for beings "essentially" human.
> Perhaps we can tentatively characterize a Feminist Dystopia, then,
> as a work that warns of the potential sexist and otherwise harmful
> consequences of Traditional or Feminist Utopian thought, and critiques a
> particular set of Traditional or Feminist social, political, and moral
> theories by depicting a future in which these theoretical assumptions
> ground the systemic oppression of one sex by the other.
> Judith
The question is how to classify a thought-experiment like Tepper's
_Gate_to_Women's_Country_ or David Brin's _Glory_Season_ that presents a
utopian world and critiques it without putting it in the realm of a
dystopia? After all, I would think that _Handmaid's_Tale_ might be a
feminist dystopia, but neither of the above comes even close to being
similar to that book.
-- Joel VanLaven
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