Vincent Lim
Professor Lloyd
HISA 125E
5 June 2013

Final Part 2
Marge Piercy’s novel, Woman on the Edge of Time came to be described as a feminist utopia, where it doubts the society’s inability in achieving such utopia. In such utopia, Piercy alludes that gender roles have been eliminated, along with the racial and social tensions that plagued the 70’s in America. In Piercy’s novel, Connie Ramos serves a woman in her thirties, who has been declared clinically insane and turns to the utopia future as an escape. As she spends more time in the future, she is able to conceptualize a society of: equal inequalities, elimination of corruption within a societal state and the fear of homophobia of the time that existed in the United States.
As a feminist activist during the 70s, Betty Friedan served as a strong leading figure for the women’s movement in the United States and is recognition for sparking the second wave of American feminism during the 20th century. Friedan would be content of what Piercy conveys in the novel about the equal inequalities that exist within the utopia society. Because of this she is able to explore the ideas of a women in finding a realization beyond the traditional role. As a writer for the feminist and women’s rights, Friedan took part in advancing women’s rights that recognized the women’s inequality as being a typical housewife that has a husband. This led her to the develop the National Organization for Women that aspired to bring the women into a conventional American society that offered equal partnership with men. This is most seen in Piercy’s novel in which the utopian society does not discriminate against any female role and exercises the practice of delegating responsibilities. As a strong supporter of equal rights, it is seen that Betty Friedan and Marge Piercy both believed in having equal equality to exist in a society. Doing so Friedan was able to polarize the extreme factions of feminism that targeted groups such as the men and homemakers, allowing many of the political liberal feminist to be played out during the era.
Leading to development of the utopian society that Piercy convey in the novel, Paco Ingnacio Taibo is more than contempt with such society because such society would eliminate the corruption in a societal state of governing. Growing up Taibo and his family fled from Spain to escape the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. Being a leftist intellectual, Taibo believed in exercising the personal rights and freedom in society. Taking part as a social activist and union organizer Taibo is widely considered to be the founder of the neo-political genre in Latin America. Such neo-political ideas led to a political movement that began in the 60s, in which it blends the traditional liberal concerns for the social justice. As a social and political writer, Taibo would discuss about the social pressures that he had experienced as a young man that allowed him to argue about the social upheaval that occurred during his time. The idea of a utopian society such as Mattapoisett, Taibo would agree in that such a society, everyone should be viewed upon as having equal rights in a societal state and that the notion of racism does not exist. Paco Taibo grew up where none of this had existed during the time, Taibo had to face the corruption and the political repression of the political system within Mexico. With such ideas led Taibo to serve as part of a militant and veteran of the 70s. Such views could be found in his novel 68 that portrayed the cruelty of the Mexican government that tells of the Tlatelolco massacre of the student protestors in Mexico City. Having such experience, Paco Ingnacio Taibo would have agreed along with Marge Piercy that such a utopian society would have profound affect on the society that Taibo had distinguished in his novel.
James Baldwin served as an American novelist and playwright during the 60s and 70s when racial and class distinctions were most seen in the Western societies. Baldwin writes about the social and psychological pressure in the 20th century that was aimed towards the integration of not only blacks, but also male homosexuals. Baldwin would be content of what Piercy conveys in the novel about homosexuals co-existing within the utopia society because he himself was part of the homosexual movement. It is seen in Baldwin’s novel that class tensions and the yearning of uncertainties served as a quest for acceptance during the time of racial upheaval. In Baldwin’s novel, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave a passionate voice to the rising civil rights movement. Serving as a personal and confrontational document, Baldwin’s early life in suburbs of Harlem examines the consequence of the racial and sexist injustice of the time. Because of such class tensions, Baldwin is forced to encapsulate much of his anger of the time in his book, believing in advocating universal love and brotherhood much that could be found in the utopian society that Piercy depicts.
With the features of a utopian society that Piercy creates, many authors during the period of social inequality and racial violence would agree that such a society would coexist to the development of creating a better world free of social unjust of racism and sexist views that swept throughout America.