FEMININE ECONOMICS DEPT.
AKA THE SISTERHOOD
A CO-LEARNING COMMUNITY FOR RADICAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
WE BELIEVE BUSINESS IS A SITE TO EMBODY OUR VALUES,
CREATE NEW ECONOMIES, AND EXPERIMENT WITH NEW DISTRIBUTIONS
OF POWER AND RESOURCES.
When we wrote Proposals for The Feminine Economy back in 2015, our goal was to create a new vision for entrepreneurship, making it a site of feminist praxis. We followed with the launch of Feminist Business School in 2016, offering introductory courses for entrepreneurs who want to embody feminine and feminist principles in their business practices. In 2019, we are excited to dive deep into these ideas with the formation of an online community focused on the study and application of the principles of the Feminine Economy. We are calling this: The Feminine Economics Department aka The Sisterhood.
The Feminine Economics Department is a home for learning, inquiry, active engagement, and applied practice. Unlike Feminist Business School, FED does not offer a structured step-by-step curriculum. Instead, we are creating a collaborative community for established entrepreneurs to come together, ask questions, experiment with new practices, and share resources as we grow our critical consciousness in the areas of economic theory, business finance, feminine-ism, and money.
Together, we will increase our economic literacy and expand our critical consciousness as we develop financially healthy businesses and make the Feminine Economy real. Our inquiry will be integrated and cross-disciplinary, including: the academic, material, theoretical, practical, imagined, mystical, applied, historic, artistic, embodied, experimental, and communal.
We are all teachers, we are all learners, we are all needed. Everyone contributes something valuable and unique. As we gather our shared wisdom, celebrate our combined talents, and generate momentum together, we transform our individual efforts into a collective movement.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The community is housed in a private website. Sister will guide the conversation, set the monthly themes, and keep the community connected with our purpose. We will respond to the real-world concerns of our members, host live video events, and facilitate critical thinking through our own writings, reading suggestions, provocative questions, and resource shares. Your role, as a member of The Sisterhood, is to likewise be contributing your experience, solutions, thinking, readings, writings, experiments, analysis, and insights in posts and discussions. Members have the ability to create posts, ask questions, comment, chat, and share resources. Together, we will create a framework for the Feminine Economy as we innovate new practices.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
This community is for entrepreneurs who have been in business at least three years, are supporting themselves (and possibly others), and are already doing the work of cultivating business practices in alignment with their values.
You are ready to be in-community with other conscious, curious, questioning, creative, business owners. You are passionate about learning and new ideas: you read books and articles, watch online talks, attend lectures, have at least a basic grasp of feminist theory, and care about politics. You are ready to dive in and contribute your ideas and insights.
This is not the place for passive consumers who want to be spoon-fed answers on "how-to" business. It is also not for those just getting started and needing help with business basics. (If you are new to business or not yet supporting yourself on your business income, please join us in Concepts & Conception.)
WHAT THEMES WILL WE EXPLORE?
In our cohort, we will explore 3 of the following monthly topics, connecting them with the principles outlined in our diagram of the Feminine Economy (above).
● Economic Theory: What is Capitalism? What is Socialism? Why does it matter?
● Feminine-ism: What is fourth wave feminism and how can a deeper understanding of the feminine archetype support us in making new business models?
● Ecosystems & Business Structures: What systems support stable growth? What conventional business wisdom needs feminine-ist critique?
● Antiracist Business Practices: How does systemic racism get replicated in business? What can we do to transmute this?
● Embodiment, & Ease: Dismantling the meritocracy & creating sustaining practices that support the fulfillment of needs.
● Feminist Literacy: What can we learn from feminist scholarship about economics, money, power, embodiment, structural systems, strategies for social change, and revolutionary movements?
● Profit: What is it, how to get it, what to do with it, do we even want it?
● Money & Business Finance: What is money? What is abundance? What is our relationship to it? How can we find more freedom, facility, and integrity with our business finances?
● Wealth Distribution: What unique responsibilities and opportunities do we have as entrepreneurs?
