Women in Futures Studies: Futurists Who Imagined Tomorrow Across Time

Futures Studies was born with a strong traction of female scholars and futurists such as Donella Meadows, Eleonora Barbieri Masini, Wendy Schulz, and Barbara Ward. But many other personalities have not enjoyed the same visibility as their male colleagues, in a field where the need to bring out women’s visions of the future, usually different from those of men, is essential.

Futurist women focus on studying the future in order to redefine the present and articulate alternative visions. The aim is often to unhinge dominant trends over the centuries in order to imagine preferable futures of cultural and social emancipation.

The Women in Futures Studies project aims to bring out the forgotten voices of the protagonists of futures studies and, at the same time, to give voice to the futurists of today, in order to promote gender balance in Foresight.

The futurists featured in the book are Eleonora Barbieri Masini, Sirkka Heinonen, Hazel Henderson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Elise M. Boulding, Dana Klisanin, Jayne Fleener, Zabrina Epp, Donella H. Meadows, Guillermina Baena Paz, Elisabeth Mann Borgese.