WRITING FEMINIST FUTURES Male Utopia, Female Dystopia: The Origins of Feminist

There is a long tradition of writing about imagined and ideal societies, going back at least to Plato’s Republic written in the fourth century B.C. Such literature is often called Utopian, after one such ideal alternative society named Utopia by its author Thomas More (Utopia, the Best of Republics Sited in the New Island of Utopia, 1516). Plato’s Republic was a rare instance among the texts of this genre to grant women equality.