Join us as we explore the captivating intersection of feminism and utopianism, drawing on rich historical and theoretical perspectives on American feminist thought. This episode delves into the concept of ideal societies as envisioned through a feminist lens, challenging existing norms and imagining radical futures.

The Feminist Park Project: Connects the practical design of the Feminist Park to a broader tradition of feminist utopian thought, positioning the park as a tangible step towards realizing more equitable and just societal ideals within an urban context.

Source for Podcast Episode:

• Book/Paper: "Excerpt on Feminism and Utopianism"

• Author: Johns, Alessa . In The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature , edited by Claeys, Gregory, 174-199.
  Intro/Outro Music: big-band-tv-show-logo-164230 Music by Anastasia Chubarova from Pixabay

7. Utopian Visions: Feminism & Ideal Societies

The Feminist Park Podcast – Designing for Liberation!

0:12

Welcome to the Feminist Park podcast.

I'm Kwame.

And I'm Leilani.

It's great to be kicking off this journey with you all today.

Yeah.

We're diving into work that's really closely tied to the vision behind the Feminist Park project, which was founded by Hussain Stuck.

That project's goal is pretty ambitious, isn't it?

0:28

Imagining these truly equitable public spaces, starting with the idea for an intersectional feminist park right here in Berlin.

Exactly.

And this podcast, well, it's kind of an extension of that.

We're going to be digging into the academic research that, you know, supports and informs that kind of vision.

0:46

We'll be taking these dense, sometimes quite academic papers and really pulling out the core and insights.

And looking at them through specific lenses.

Things like environmental justice, intersectionality, anti colonial thought, queer theory.

All the stuff that helps us think critically about space.

1:03

We're actually starting with some background research that Hussein came across early on, and it highlighted something, well, frankly quite jarring that the benefits we think we all get from urban green spaces, you know, parks and squares and thing like physical and mental well-being, they're often deeply gendered.

1:19

Meaning women and also gender diverse people.

They just don't get the same access or experience those benefits in the same way men do.

Right.

Less equitable access, fewer benefits.

It seems almost counterintuitive, doesn't it?

A park is just a park open to everyone.

1:35

Today, we're plunging into a really fascinating intersection of ideas, feminism and utopianism.

Right now, when you think of classic utopias, you might picture, you know, Thomas Moore's utopia back in 1516, this perfectly mapped, really orderly society.

1:51

But here's where it gets really interesting.

Historically, women often well, they fared quite poorly in these seemingly ideal worlds.

Yeah, often forced into endless labor subservience.

Exactly.

Subservience.

It seems like paradox, doesn't it?

2:07

Despite that often grim reality in those texts, the utopian imagination has been absolutely crucial for feminists across centuries.

That does seem strange.

How could a genre that often excludes or marginalizes women become such a powerful vehicle for their liberation?

2:23

That's exactly what we're we're going to unpack today.

We'll be drawing insights from Alessa John's work Feminism and Utopianism, which explores how feminists have both celebrated and critiqued utopianism.

And created their own distinct visions for a better world in the process.

Right.

Our mission is to understand why this mode of thinking became so vital for feminist thought, how it evolved, and what what profound lessons it holds for us in imagining a more just and equitable future.

2:49

Not just for women, but for everyone.

Absolutely.

So let's start with that utopian paradox you mentioned when we examine what are often called these classical or blueprint end state utopias like Moore's utopia.

Right, the highly structured ones.

3:04

Yeah, they typically depict fully mapped, geometrically organized towns.

You see centrally located power infrastructure, design for strict discipline, rigid hierarchies, it all sounds quite.

Controlled and even when there were provisions for inhabitants, the overall vision is often described as well distasteful.

3:21

And for women, the impact was particularly really harsh, wasn't it?

Oh, absolutely.

The text often shows them forced to labor endlessly and bow to humorless patriarchs.

It's hard to imagine anyone really wanting to live there.

So given how problematic these traditional utopias were for women, it seems counterintuitive that the utopian imagination would be so crucial for feminists.

3:44

What's the core driver here?

Well, there are a few key reasons I think. 1st, and perhaps most fundamentally, genuine gender equality has never fully existed in reality.

Like ever.

Right, so you can't point to.

It exactly so if you can't see it, you can't easily build it.

4:00

It must be imagined first just to become a subject of conscious thought and discussion.

As the scholar Ann Miller put it, those seeking A viable model of a non sexist society must look to the future.

Their model must be constructed first as utopia.

4:16

That makes perfect sense.

You can't strive for something you can't even conceive of.

Right.

And 2nd, historically, feminists often had limited political and economic clout, so they needed other ways to make a different future seem, well, comprehensible.

So they turned to culture.

Precisely.

4:31

They turned to cultural modes, especially artistic and literary representations, to explore these possibilities.

OK, the utopian literary mode, being so open to imaginative construction and unhindered theorizing, became an incredibly useful vehicle.

4:48

It was like a thought experiment space.

Making the familiar seem strange, kind of altering perceptions about what society could be.

Exactly, and that leads to 1/3 powerful reason why this genre was so vital.

It offered a socially viable pathway for what was considered, you know, deviant or revolutionary thinking at the time.

5:05

Deviant, right?

How so?

Well, as Darby Lewis pointed out, this dialectical and ambiguous genre, meaning, you know, a complex, sometimes contradictory literary form, often depicted lost outsiders in disorienting worlds.

OK.

And that mirrored women's own situation perfectly, didn't it?

5:21

They were told they were central to human existence, yet legally they often had no status.

They were politically voiceless, domestically subordinated.

Utopia provided a space to articulate those contradictions.

Yes, and to imagine alternatives, it was a crucial outlet.

This brings us to a really crucial question, then.

5:39

If traditional utopias were so problematic, how did feminist writers actually transform the genre?

You know, to serve their own ends?

Good.

Question.

What distinguishes their visions from those classic, often patriarchal models?

That's where we see a really fundamental shift.

5:56

Feminist authors generally.

They sidestepped the blueprint form.

The static, fully planned, ideal society, right?

They moved away from that to privilege what's called a process or reproductive or sometimes critical model of utopia.

And this isn't just a modern thing.

6:12

Not at all.

It actually characterizes feminist utopian writing from way back in the late Middle Ages right up to today.

You see it in Christina Pisan centuries later in Ursula K Le Guin, even before what we think of as the modern women's movement.

So this process oriented approach, it isn't about a static perfect society, but something much more dynamic evolving.

6:32

Is that right?

Exactly.

Think of it maybe like a simple graph. 1 axis goes from static blueprint utopia over to a fluid process oriented one, and the other axis moves from patriarchal or sexist content up to feminist content.

What's fascinating, according to John's, is that feminist utopia is consistently clustered in that top right area.

6:54

Meaning they're both dynamic in their structure and feminist in their vision.

Precisely process oriented and feminist.

That diagram idea really helps clarify things.

OK, because while most feminist utopias fit that pattern, there are exceptions.

Right.

Oh, definitely.

There are intriguing exceptions.

7:11

For instance, you have Margaret Cavendish's Blazing World, which is maybe more static but still has feminist traits.

And conversely, William Morris's News From Nowhere is quite process oriented, but you wouldn't necessarily call its content overtly feminist.

And there are even male authors who wrote process oriented feminist utopias.

7:29

Yes, like Samuel Delaney's Triton.

So it's complex, but the trend is clear.

So if we connect this to the bigger picture, this shift really fundamentally changes how we think about societal improvement.

Absolutely.

It moves away from a fixed perfect end state.

And towards continuous evolution.

7:45

It's not a destination, it's more like a journey of ongoing growth and adaptation.

Roll put.

OK, so now let's explore the five consistent features John's identifies that really give feminist utopianism its distinct process oriented character.

8:01

Where should we start?

Let's start with the 1st and maybe the most pervasive feature, the absolute centrality of education.

Education, OK.

Education and intellectual development are just central, both for individuals and specifically for women's empowerment.

That makes so much sense, doesn't it?

8:17

Because historically, women had far less access to education than men.

Exactly.

And they rightly saw this lack of access as absolutely key to their subordinate status.

The question kept coming up, if women's minds are just as keen as men's, why are they denied the means to develop their intellects?

8:35

You see this emphasis showing up repeatedly then.

Oh, constantly.

Early works, like Mary Estelle's serious proposal to the ladies back in the late 17th century, she envisioned female monasteries focused on cultivating the soul.

Theology, Philosophy, Friendship.

Wow, back then.

Yeah, and later Sarah Scott, in her 18th century novel Millennium Hall, described these quite elaborate school systems for girls of all classes, education as a pathway to freedom.

9:01

And then you get to someone like Mary Wollstonecraft.

Right in the radical spirit of the Enlightenment, in her Vindication of the rights of Women from 1792, she passionately called for public coeducation for boys and girls.

Aiming for more rational relationships, better citizens.

Precisely.

And you can Fast forward centuries to Ursula K Le Guin's The Dispossessed in the 1970s.

9:21

The protagonist, Shivek, teaches himself languages, challenging the very idea of intellectual property, because knowledge is meant to be shared.

It's not just about formal institutions either, is it?

It's also education through reading, through conversation.

Absolutely.

Sarah Fielding in The Governess showed characters having these proctored discussions about didactic stories and Mary Hamilton.

9:43

She emphasized reading lists, even designed an octagonal library in her Munster.

Village an octagonal library.

Yeah, highlighting education, sort of reproductive power on society and future generations.

It's remarkable how consistent this threat is across centuries.

9:59

It really is, and even just conversation becomes this powerful educational tool.

Yes, Wollstonecraft saw everyday spaces like coffee houses, tea tables, salons as potentially utopian spaces where women could increase their knowledge, challenge norms.

And you see the flip side in dystopian works too.

10:16

Definitely.

Like in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, it's starkly illustrates the power of education by showing books outlawed, the narrator illicitly devouring words, playing Scrabble, it's portrayed as this profound act of resistance.

Wow.

What's truly profound here, I think, is this consistent feminist vision that education isn't just about accumulating facts.

10:38

It's the fundamental tool for self realization, for societal transformation, for dismantling oppressive structures.

A radical act of liberation.

Exactly spanning centuries of writing.

That's a powerful point, and it seems tied to a particular view of human nature, which you mentioned is the second salient feature.

10:56

Absolutely feminist utopian authors generally embrace a view of human nature as malleable, adaptable, social, rather than fallen or rigidly determined.

So unlike someone like Thomas Moore who saw human nature as inherently flawed and needing external checks.

11:14

Right.

Feminists tend to see people as at least partially alterable from within.

There's a kind of faith in our capacity for change.

So it's a deep faith in behavior modification, but through social means.

Precisely.

They show faith that things like stories, conversation, education, even play can teach new habits, new goals, new values.

11:35

And it happens socially.

Yes.

Crucially, it happens socially, within communities, within tribes, not just strictly within the nuclear family model.

The idea is that inhabitants absorb society's aims and are motivated to act morally.

This nurture over nature idea seems quite early then.

It really does.

You see it in Christine de Pisan's City of Ladies, where she implies people can alter their actions by being motivated by virtuous examples.

11:55

Later authors like Sarah Scott even designed games within their stories specifically to help characters evolve behavior to become sort of utopian subject.

Games as tools for chains.

Yeah, and then much later in Marge Pierces, Woman on the Edge of Time, the utopian community Matapoise, It actively educates all the senses, the imagination, the social being.

12:16

The goal is to prevent isolation and create a net of connecting between people.

That's fascinating.

What about the exceptions, like communities that exclude men?

That's an important point.

Some utopias, like Scott's Millennium Hall or Gilman's Her Land or Gearhart's Wander Ground, do banish men, suggesting perhaps that men, or at least patriarchal masculinity, might be irremediably violent or resistant to change.

12:39

But it's not always absolute.

Often, not even in some of those, you often find trustworthy men appearing offering alternative versions of masculinity or sexuality.

Think of characters like Devorah, Jeff Van, or the Gentles in Wander Ground.

Joanna Russ's The Female Man is maybe a more notable exception in its stricter separatism.

12:58

And this ties back to the perspective of the dependent, doesn't it?

Understanding subtle persuasion.

Exactly.

Feminists, often writing from that perspective, deeply understood how women or other underlings subtly persuade when they lack formal power.

Christine de Pisan in The Treasure of the City of Ladies acknowledged that a woman's power, especially without formal authority, often came from her skill as an effective psychologist and manager of those around her.

13:24

That deep understanding of the subalterns position seems key.

It is Sarah Fielding in an earlier work described the Toad Eater, which is a painful term for a dependent person who had to become an expert reader of personalities constantly flattering, adapting just to survive and maybe exploit small opportunities.

13:43

So feminist utopian authors looking from this position of the underling, held on to hope in the canny and persuasive strengths of the powerless.

They believed even those in authority could potentially be educated towards mercy or towards accepting utopian values.

This.

Faith in human malleability isn't just optimism, then, it's pretty radical.

14:02

It really is.

It's asserting that our biggest limitations aren't inherent flaws, but products of our social conditioning, and therefore they are changeable.

In central to all these values you're describing is the importance of community and love.

Oh absolutely.

That's a huge theme.

Feminist utopias consistently show intense comradeship, love, intimacy, spiritual connection.

14:22

Like Mary Estellegan.

Yes, in her serious proposal, she envisioned that female monastery offering the purest and noblest friendship, calling it the choicest jewel in our celestial diadem.

Friendship as charity contracted a very high ideal.

14:39

And you see it in later works too.

Definitely.

Sarah Fielding's David Simple ends with this community built on shared property, shared work, shared emotion, specifically to counter the acquisitiveness she saw in early capitalism.

The narrator concludes it is impossible for the most lively imagination to form an idea more pleasing than what this little society enjoyed.

14:59

That's lovely, and Gilman's Herlan describes inhabitants who thought in terms of the community whose loyalty was given collectively to one another.

This vision of deep interconnectedness, rather than just isolated individuals or traditional nuclear families, is absolutely foundational.

15:17

OK, so we have education, malleable human nature, strong community.

What's the third feature?

The third salient feature is the approach to change itself.

Feminist utopias consistently depict gradualist change, a cumulative view of history, and shared power.

15:33

So not sudden revolutions.

Generally, no.

Unlike traditional utopias that often relied on abrupt revolutionary shifts like, you know, Moore's Utopia where the Conqueror utopias quickly transforms the land and sets up a patriarchal power structure.

Right?

Feminist visions tend to build their societies piece meal step by step.

15:51

How does that look in the texts?

Well, Pisans allegorical figure reason tells the narrator of the book of the City of Ladies to first set the foundations deep, then raise the walls and then start to people.

This noble city.

Now it's sequential.

In Scotts Millennium Hall, the inhabitants appear 1 by 1.

16:07

The society grows organically, adapting to circumstances.

Hamilton's Munster village is also slowly created in Le Guin's.

The dispossessed couples on the anarchist planet and ours literally build rooms onto existing structures as their families need them.

16:23

These partners truck trains.

Form follows function.

There's no Grand Master plan.

One improvement just leads to another.

Which naturally leads to more decentralized power structure.

Exactly decentralized, non hierarchical power.

Joanna Ross, writing in the 20th century, observed that the general classlessness in the feminist utopias of the 1970s naturally fostered a dispersion of power.

16:46

And even way back in the 18th century.

Right.

Sarah Scott's Millennium Hall really emphasized women's self determination, their freedom to decide how they spend their time, and crucially, the fundamental right to leave or withdraw from the community.

Freedom begins with the right to come and go.

17:02

That's a powerful idea.

What about proliferation?

You mentioned that earlier.

Yes, that's fascinating, too.

These utopias often tend to proliferate.

They spill over into sequels, expanding by replication.

Peasant City of Ladies leads to the Treasure.

Estelle's serious proposal gets a Part 2.

17:20

Scott's Millennium Hall leads to Sir George Ellison.

So they reproduce themselves.

In a way, yes.

There's this reproductive inner energy, which is a key distinction from traditional utopias.

Once a traditional utopia reached its supposed perfection, it had nowhere else to go.

17:36

It was static.

But these feminist utopias keep growing, adapting.

Exactly.

And in later texts, this expansion happens through movement between societies, sometimes even time travel, like in Russ is the Female man, Le Guin's The dispossessed, Pierce's Woman on the Edge of time.

The message The model spreads through space and time.

17:54

This idea of proliferation may be stemming from that dependence view of power you mentioned.

It seems to shape their whole view of history too.

It absolutely does.

It's not about waiting for some sudden Eden or a single revolutionary moment.

Instead, it's a theory of history as accumulation.

Accumulation.

Yeah, where the combined power of many small, discreet events and actions leads to large impacts over time, as Sarah Scott observed, great injuries or great benefits are seldom in our power.

18:21

The opportunities for either are few national events often arise from the private views, small actions of even the lowest officer.

Marge Piercy's novel seems central here, too.

Woman on the Edge of Time illustrates this powerfully.

The utopian future of Mattapoise.

18:37

It isn't guaranteed, it's just one possible future, and it's actively engaged in a struggle against other possible less desirable futures.

And the protagonists actions in the present matter.

Critically, Connie's rebellion in the present day asylum directly impacts whether Mattapoise it survives.

18:53

The message is clear.

Change is the sum total of changes we ourselves create day by day.

It's not a fixed endpoint, it's a continuous collective journey we're all part of.

Wow, that emphasis on gradual cumulative change driven by distributed power and this belief in ongoing evolution.

19:10

It feels very distinctive and hopeful actually.

It is, and it connects to the 4th salient feature, a dynamic view of the environment.

OK environment.

How does that fit in?

Well, unlike traditional views that might see nature as inert or just a resource to be exploited, feminists utopias tend to recognize the non human natural world as dynamic, something to be respected, something that profoundly effects human actions.

19:36

And you mentioned this connects to the feminist perspective.

Yes, John suggests that familiarity with the position of the dependent or the exploited likely sensitize these authors to the plight of abused nature.

You can see this early on in Sarah Scott's Millennium Hall.

19:51

Oh, so the ladies create these beautiful English garden landscapes?

Yes, but they also actively foster indigenous plants and animals.

They see the human role as preserver instead of the tyrant of the inferior part of the creation.

That's quite forward thinking for the 18th century.

20:07

It really is.

And of course you also get dystopian warnings like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or The Last Man showing human culture failing precisely because it doesn't accommodate non human nature.

How does this play out in later works with more technology?

It gets more complex.

20:22

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Her Land features ingenious inventions, sure, but it's matched by meticulous environmental practices like careful composting.

The principle being everything which came from the earth went back to it.

A circular economy, basically.

Exactly.

20:38

Now there are early exceptions, like Mary Bradley Lane's Misera, which had a very optimistic, almost naive view of technology, seeing it as benign, teaching humans how to make her nature obey us.

But that's not typical.

Not really.

A more common, nuanced view comes through in Piercey's Woman on the Edge of Time.

20:56

The matapoisic community has sophisticated reproduction tech, yes, but it's fundamentally a rural own fed village relying on plant proteins.

And that's contrasted with.

Starkly contrasted with 20th century New York, which is described as an age of greed and waste, burning compost, polluting rivers, the implication is clear.

21:15

True progress has to integrate with nature, not dominate it.

Is there an emotional connection too?

Often, yes.

Joanna Russ noted that some authors present characters feeling a strong emotional connection to the natural world thing of Sally Miller Gearhart's Wander Ground.

21:32

Right, the ill women.

They live in a green world.

Nature literally speaks to them.

They converse with trees, ride the winds.

It's very deeply connected and.

Look when.

In The Dispossessed, the character talk, Fir has this passionate concern for landscapes and living creatures, and Shavec, looking at the lush planet eras, sees it as what a world is supposed to look like.

21:53

Which highlights the state of other worlds.

Exactly.

Ambassador Kang from Terra points out bluntly that her home planet is a ruin, a planet spoiled by the human species.

It really brings home the idea that truly progressive societies have to recognize the interconnectedness of all life.

22:10

It's not just about human relationships, but our relationship with the planet itself.

Precisely.

OK, that brings us to the 5th and final salient feature, pragmatism.

Yes, pragmatism.

Feminist utopians are, as Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote about the inhabitants of her land, nothing if not practical.

22:28

Practicality and practice.

Absolutely.

In Joanna Russ's While Away, girls learn heavily practical things.

Running machines, law, transportation, medicine, swimming, shooting.

Very hands on skills.

On ligands and nurse.

Ligand describes a nurse as a society that has to be practical, fundamentally concerned with survival only.

22:50

Collective effort is literally the only means of staying alive in that harsh environment.

So this isn't just about lofty ideals, it's grounded.

Very grounded.

And this isn't just about day-to-day survival, Johns argues.

It has profound philosophical underpinnings.

Also well, philosopher Aaron McKenna argues that the most useful feminist utopias actually align well with philosophical pragmatism.

23:12

Especially for thinking about a freer global future.

We need visions that account for connectedness, multiplicity, complexity.

And it connects to specific philosophers.

Yes, like John Dewey's concept of the end in view, this isn't a fixed final goal, but a provisional goal that arises from a critical understanding of the present and our desires for the future.

23:31

So.

It's constantly evolving.

Exactly.

It's a continuous chain of ends becoming means for further ends.

Drusilla Cornell suggests something similar.

Freedom comes through universal access to the imaginary domain, and utopia is part of that.

What we see as possible actually changes as we change.

23:51

So imagining possibilities is a practical act.

It is.

Angelika Bammer calls it anticipatory pragmatism, or thinking about a concrete utopia in process.

It's about accommodating change by thinking in concrete and practical terms.

And this aligns with block.

Yes, it lines up nicely with Ernst Blockch's concept of the not yet that potentiality within the present.

24:12

It's part of what he called anticipatory consciousness, where we understand possibilities that haven't quite taken shape yet.

The Daydream isn't just fantasy, it can be a kind of road map.

So it's not just about dreaming, is it?

It's been a very grounded, practical approach to making those dreams, those possibilities a reality.

24:29

Exactly.

This isn't in escapism.

It's a powerful call to action rooted in practicality.

What's truly fascinating that is how these 5 features the centrality of education, the belief in human malleability and community, gradual change, that dynamic view of nature, and this unwavering pragmatism, how they all come together.

24:50

Right.

They form a powerful, distinct vision of utopia.

It's not about some distant, static, unreachable ideal.

No.

It's an ongoing reproductive process, something that requires constant engagement, constant work.

Exactly.

And looking back at centuries of feminist utopian writing, it's clear these aren't just literary exercises, are they?

25:09

Not at all.

They've been a consistent force for transforming discontent into critique and turning desire into practical political action.

And you can argue they've directly contributed to real world changes.

Things like public education, women's independence, environmental movements.

25:25

These ideas had to be imagined first.

Absolutely.

In a world that often feels, well, overwhelming with pressing issues, poverty, prejudice, climate change, it could be tempting to be a bit pessimistic.

Can it?

Very tempting, but the consistent call from thinkers like those John's discusses for a return to utopian imagining it really reminds us of its enduring power.

25:46

It's.

Not about ignoring problems, but about finding constructive ways forward.

In essence, maybe the most profound take away from this deep dive is that our collective imagination isn't just for escaping reality.

But for actively?

Shaping it precisely.

So what does this all mean for you listening right now?

26:05

It means that thinking about a better future isn't just for academics or authors locked away somewhere.

No, it's a fundamental human capacity that anticipatory consciousness Block talked about.

And it can help organize our own discontent, our own frustrations with the way things are, and help sketch out Rd. maps for real change.

26:22

One small, practical step at a time.

Exactly.

Perhaps the most profound take away is just that our collective imagination is a tool not just for escape, but for actively building the future we want.

So the question becomes, what future are you imagining and what small practical steps can start to bring it closer?

26:39

This knowledge is a tool really.

A tool for seeing your city differently and potentially for helping to change it.

It's been a really insightful deep dive.

I think this document provides such a vital framework, especially for projects like the Feminist Park Project that are trying to build something fundamentally different.

26:56

It shows just how interlinked urban design and social justice are.

It really does.

But it also shows the scale of the challenge right?

It requires sustained effort, real commitment and a genuine willingness to shift power dynamics in how cities get made and managed.

Definitely.

27:12

It makes you think about how we ensure those voices, the ones that have been excluded, are actually heard and centered.

There's another quote from Sarah Ahmed in the Handbook that feels relevant here.

Come on, she says.

If you have to shout to be heard, you are heard as shouting.

27:30

That's powerful.

It makes you ponder, doesn't it?

How can the design of public space itself work differently?

How can it amplify the voices of those who've been historically silenced, ensuring their needs are met without them having to shout just to be noticed?

How can design itself listen?

That's a really provocative thought to end on a.

27:47

Lot to think about.

Indeed, thanks for joining us for this deep dive.