Editor's Introduction Imagining a Better World: A Survey of Feminist Utopian Literature

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12255
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Alexandra W. Lough
• Published date: 01 November 2018

Editor’s Introduction

Imagining a Better World: A Survey of

Feminist Utopian Literature

By AlexandrA W. lough*

When studying or imagining a eutopia, a happy place, w e experien ce a

rite of passage to a better future. As we dr eam of the not yet known, we

change our conception of the possible. As we try to imagine the unimag-

inable—namely, where we’re going before we’re there —we move toward

new and as yet unrealized ends. (Kessler 1985: 189)

The dominant story of Western culture in t he past two centuries

has been one derived from Thomas Robert Malthus and Charles

Darwin, presented in term s of biological determinism and uncom-

promising economic competition. A society based on these princi-

ples will eventually devour itself through the destruct ion of nature

and the human spirit. That story has been pa rticularly devastating

to women, minorities, and the poor. There is a desperate need for

alternative stories to reveal the sickness of our current system and to

present strategies for change. To paraphrase novelist Marge Piercy

(2003), if you cannot imagine anything different, all you can ask

for is more of the same. The world needs a heavy dose of social

dreaming and the work of feminist utopian fiction offers a fertile

place to begin.

Unable to fully develop within the confines of patriarchal culture,

women authors have imagined new and highly intricate societies

within which their female protagonists are able to achieve their full

human potential. Women have tended to craft different types of uto-

pias than men. As Carol Farley Kessler (1995: xviii) has aptly ob-

served: “Women more than men imagine utopias where the intangible

features of human existence receive more prominent consideration.”

American Jour nal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 77 No. 5 (November, 2018).

DOI: 10 .1111/ajes.1225 5

© 2018 American Journ al of Economics and Sociology, Inc

*Holds a PhD in America n history from Br andeis University (2013). Currently,

assistant editor of the si x-volume series, The Annotated Works of He nry George

(Farleigh Dickinson Universit y Press). Previously, Director of the Henry George

Birthplace, Arch ive, and Historical Resear ch Center.