PORTALS TO FEMINIST ECONOMIES

Digital platform for new narratives and demonstrators of Feminist Economies exhibited at Parsons School of Design.

We have all heard the endless chorus: the capitalist economy is the best, right, and only system that works. Margaret Thatcher famously said, “there is no alternative.” This fatalism of capitalism is ironically one of the driving forces behind its perpetuation. We collectively resign ourselves to being trapped in its clutches despite its devastating effect on people and the environment. Refusal seems pointless. After all, how many of us are privileged enough to say ‘no’ to the economic and social pressures of the system. The modern market economy started with the enclosure of common lands, but by now, it has enclosed an even more precious resource: our imagination. 

PORTALS TO FEMINIST ECONOMIES dreams up feminist alternatives to capitalism. It takes you on an exploration of feminist economic thought and features speculative designs — concrete manifestations of what our futures could look like. The platform nurtures and supports new, radical ways to think about the economy and economic policy, and challenges the rule of money, individualism, obedience, and patriarchy over our individual and collective bodies.

The entry point into this imagination is J.K. Gibson-Graham’s postmodernist critique that capitalism has always co-existed with a plurality of alternative, decentralized economies operating in the household and community; they have merely been pushed to the margins by hegemonic economic discourses that benefit the interests of the most powerful economic actors.