This final chapter draws on the theoretical and empirical findings of earlier chapters to provide an overview of political alternatives and possibilities. It uses a self-consciously temporal framework to identify some long-term goals and more immediate policy proposals, while recognising that these must be grounded in a realistic appraisal of particular historical circumstances. Focusing on three key areas (underlying temporal perspectives, time cultures and the ways that time use is organised and rewarded), the chapter considers what a feminist temporal utopia or ‘uchronia’ might look like, before providing a comparative overview of temporal values and practices in contemporary Western societies and assessing how these might be developed in more positive ways.

Uchronia: the time(s) we’d like

Thinking about non-existent ways of understanding and using time opens up a range of radical alternatives outside the framework of patriarchal norms and the short-term logic of capital accumulation. The construction of a feminist uchronia can therefore represent a political challenge to existing practices and provide a set of criteria against which to assess them. Rather than encompassing absolute principles or final goals, however, a feminist uchronia is itself inevitably time-bound, reflecting the values and needs of existing societies as understood by particular groups or individuals. Its principles and goals are therefore provisional and open to negotiation; indeed discussion and dialogue are an integral part of the project. The rest of this section therefore represents a set of possibilities, a contribution to ongoing feminist debates, rather than an attempt at imposing a definitive ideal, and it is concerned with general principles rather than policy details.

Temporal perspectives

The arguments of earlier chapters indicate that a ‘good’ society should have a sense of temporality based on respect for the past, attention to the present and concern for the future. In such a society, policies would be developed in the awareness that ‘history matters’, and that the past can both constrain and open up possibilities for the future. This does not mean that we can learn from history in any straightforward way.