THE FEMINIST CITY

resources on spatial feminism, the feminist city, and feminist counter-logistics

[spatialfeminism]

Free Download of Leslie Kerns’ Feminist City

Verso has made Leslie Kern's Feminist City ebook available for download for free, but there's just one day left, so you will want to jump on it now if you're interested: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3227-feminist-city

[spatialfeminism]

Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods and Cities

The #1 must-read feminist city text. 

READ IT HERE

“Long before Betty Friedan wrote about "the problem that had no name” in The Feminine Mystique, a group of American feminists whose leaders included Melusina Fay Peirce, Mary Livermore, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman campaigned against women’s isolation in the home and confinement to domestic life as the basic cause of their unequal position in society.

The Grand Domestic Revolution reveals the innovative plans and visionary strategies of these persistent women, who developed the theory and practice of what Hayden calls “material feminism” in pursuit of economic independence and social equality. The material feminists’ ambitious goals of socialized housework and child care meant revolutionizing the American home and creating community services. They raised fundamental questions about the relationship of men, women, and children in industrial society. Hayden analyzes the utopian and pragmatic sources of the feminists’ programs for domestic reorganization and the conflicts over class, race, and gender they encountered.

This history of a little-known intellectual tradition challenging patriarchal notions of “women’s place” and “women’s work” offers a new interpretation of the history of American feminism and a new interpretation of the history of American housing and urban design. Hayden shows how the material feminists’ political ideology led them to design physical space to create housewives’ cooperatives, kitchenless houses, day-care centers, public kitchens, and community dining halls. In their insistence that women be paid for domestic labor, the material feminists won the support of many suffragists and of novelists such as Edward Bellamy and William Dean Howells, who helped popularize their cause. Ebenezer Howard, Rudolph Schindler, and Lewis Mumford were among the many progressive architects and planners who promoted the reorganization of housing and neighborhoods around the needs of employed women.

In reevaluating these early feminist plans for the environmental and economic transformation of American society and in recording the vigorous and many-sided arguments that evolved around the issues they raised, Hayden brings to light basic economic and spacial contradictions which outdated forms of housing and inadequate community services still create for American women and for their families.“

[spatialfeminism]

Sometimes we have to repost the classics

[spatialfeminism]

Feminist Theory and Planning Theory: Lessons from Feminist Epistemologies -- Mary Gail Snyder

READ IT HERE

At the root of any theory of social practice like planning is an epistemology, a concept of what knowledge is, how it is attained, and who may claim to have it. In planning, where the press of work and current issues in the profession leave little time for philosophical examinations, basic epistemological theory gets understandably short shrift. Nonetheless, it is wise on occasion to step back and examine the theories and ideas underlying our practice, for they are important, whether examined or not. This paper is one contribution to that project. It will examine feminist theoreticians' work on epistemology, and the lessons this work has for planning theory and especially planning practice. The aim is not to examine the impact on specific areas such as land use planning, but on the conception of planning and the ways it is carried out.

The challenges and contributions of this work have many implications for planning theory, going well beyond issues of gender and dealing with power, process, professionalism, and ethics. These issues reach to the foundation of many issues of current importance in planning: defining the public interest, citizen participation, equity, justice, and the legitimation of planning itself.

[spatialfeminism]

Gender and Public Space in Divided Cities: Dynamics of Everyday Urban Life -- Lisa Smyth

READ IT HERE

This paper seeks to explore some of the nuances Sophie Watson points to, in thinking about the ways in which gender operates as an organising mechanism shaping the perceived, conceived and lived dimensions of everyday urban space (Lefebvre 1991: 39). The paper addresses two connected questions: firstly, in what ways might “public” and “private” spaces in cities be gendered; and secondly, what might this mean for the possibilities for complex forms of civility in a divided city such as Belfast?

What follows is a discussion of the how everyday life in cities is organised through gendered practices of work and leisure, in ways which are linked with, and in turn reproduce, other social divisions, not least those of ethno-nationality and social class. The specific focus on gendered dynamics of entitlement to inhabit urban space in this paper begins with some consideration of debates about the quality and experience of everyday life in cities, and the emergence of commonsense notions of “public” and “private” behaviour. Following this, key research concerned with the gendered dynamics of claimed collective, and particularly national, identities are outlined, in order to consider the significance of this literature for any study of the gender dynamics of life in a contested political context such as Belfast.

[spatialfeminism]

We need to have a conversation about sexism and the city because gender affects all other “vulnerable group” considerations in the cities, where most of the world's population now lives.

Read the full article in The Conversation.

[spatialfeminism]

"Flâneuse addresses the troubled political history of women in public spaces. In what ways do you think women walking in public is a politicised act?

It’s never a neutral act, to navigate public space, not for anyone. I’d like to hope that Flâneuse troubles the act of walking in the city for those who would consider themselves flâneurs as well.

To walk in public is always going to be an encounter with alterity. How we navigate those encounters is the basis of an ethics, or a politics, not only of intervening in public space, but of the way we think our society should be structured, and how we accord value and respect. I’m thinking of Martha Gellhorn, for instance, who was in Spain with Hemingway and Robert Capa to report on the civil war, and Hemingway and Capa are out on the front lines, or meeting with generals or whatever mucky-muck was making a statement that day, and she didn’t have access to these higher-ups. So she went out walking in the streets to talk to everyday people about what they were living through, turning flânerie into a form of testimony. That act of reporting on daily life – life “from the ground up” as she would say – is a political statement, an act of valuing the everyday in the face of extraordinary events, and the man or woman or child in the street instead of the elected (or unelected) official."

[spatialfeminism]

A fascinating experiment in "gender mainstreaming."

"In 1999, officials in Vienna, Austria, asked residents of the city's ninth district how often and why they used public transportation. "Most of the men filled out the questionnaire in less than five minutes," says Ursula Bauer, one of the city administrators tasked with carrying out the survey. "But the women couldn't stop writing."

The majority of men reported using either a car or public transit twice a day -- to go to work in the morning and come home at night. Women, on the other hand, used the city’s network of sidewalks, bus routes, subway lines and streetcars more frequently and for a myriad reasons.

"The women had a much more varied pattern of movement," Bauer recalls. "They were writing things like, 'I take my kids to the doctor some mornings, then bring them to school before I go to work. Later, I help my mother buy groceries and bring my kids home on the metro.'"

Women used public transit more often and made more trips on foot than men. They were also more likely to split their time between work and family commitments like taking care of children and elderly parents. Recognizing this, city planners drafted a plan to improve pedestrian mobility and access to public transit." (+)

[spatialfeminism]

Almost every city is full of men’s names, names that indicate who made history. What if New York’s streets instead celebrated the city’s great women?

"t’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is a song James Brown recorded in a New York City stu­dio in 1966, and, whether you like it or not, you can make the case that he’s right. Walking down the city streets, young women get harassed in ways that tell them that this is not their world, their city, their street; that their freedom of movement and association is liable to be undermined at any time; and that a lot of strangers expect obedience and attention from them. “Smile,” a man orders you, and that’s a concise way to say that he owns you; he’s the boss; you do as you’re told; your face is there to serve his life, not express your own. He’s someone; you’re no one." (+)

[spatialfeminism]

Women instinctively read the danger written upon the city.

"It is after midnight. I am walking alone. A car full of men drive past and shout something incoherent at me. But I understand. The content is in the rhythm of their voices: booming, violent. I look up. The car is waiting for me at the corner. I’m torn between a desire to refuse to be intimidated and the instinct to turn around and find another way home. I notice a man on the other side of the street. He is dressed in black, the glare from his phone lighting up his face in the dark. For a moment I feel safer knowing he is there, but the feeling disintegrates. I continue walking. The car follows me around the corner; one of the men leans out of the window, says slowly and with a grin, “Can I get out and come and talk to you?”(+)

[spatialfeminism]

tenure-track job in Philosophy re Smart and Sustainable Cities

https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/about/jobs/tenure-track-appointments/philosophy-smart-cities.html

[spatialfeminism]

[cassandragillig-deactivated2015]

june jordan’s 1965 esquire article on restructuring harlem (her collab w/ buckminster fuller) download pdf here

[anniekoh]

educational paint

FHA Gingerbread.

Forget-Me-Not Mortgage.

Rambling Rose Resettlement.

Greenbelt Arborvitae.

Catherine Bauer Modern.

These are the names of paint colors developed by artists Mel Ziegler and Kate Ericson in collaboration with the tenants of a public housing complex in Chicago for the 1992/3 project Eminent Domain 

The project consisted of a paint chart based on the history of public housing and housing legislation in the United States. The chart serves as an alternative to conventional “clean” histories, and points out many ironies and contradictions in the perceptions of public housing and suburban housing issues. The chart includes such color names as “Eminent Domain,” as well as colors, which have been specifically matched to significant historic public housing structures like “Robert Taylor Homes Brick.” Each color name corresponds to a paragraph on the chart explaining its meaning and significance. Ziegler published 150,000 charts which were distributed free of charge. The paint colors are mixable, making it possible for anyone to paint his or her bedroom the color “Eminent Domain.” (source)

I read about the project in the book Culture in Action. As I wrote in an earlier post, “part of my research is on the impact of ephemeral projects. I’m especially interested in how public art and community art practice (which is rarely discussed in urban planning) can have lasting effects.”

While it’s not at all clear what the longterm impact was on the tenants or dialogue on public housing, the artists were clearly changed by the project. They hadn’t wanted it to be a “charity project” and in fact proposed that the tenants council be “paid a design fee by Sculpture Chicago for their work.” Yet, they also had to learn about the level of commitment a community art practice would entail.

[Ericson and Ziegler] had planned to conduct bimonthly meetings, perhaps in the format of a reading-discussion group, for the next six months in order to arrive at a design solution, but Council President Arrie Martin made it clear that such a schedule would dissipate efforts. If they were serious, the artists had better come and stay. The next month Ericson and Ziegler came for an extended period and worked intensively with the group on issues of economics, law, race, the history and philosophies behind public housing and housing in the United States.

…

For the residents, the main theme of the paint chart was “choice.” Paint charts are not part of their lives; they have few opportunities for choice in their lives. In their housing, they always encounter CHA paint color #9 (see “Authority White”); in their eduction and jobs, they find few options. Thus, the paint chart, as a device for choice, came to evoke the lack of options available to many who live in public housing.

The project sought to raise questions and consciousness. What do we know about those in America who live in public housing? Are their homes any less their own? Or is public housing at its very core a reflection of American ambivalence, whereby charity and capitalist enterprise clash?

The paint chart included short descriptions of the histories and people referenced by the names.

Blue Ribbon Panel. In 1908 the “Blue Ribbon Panel” of President THeodore Roosevelt’s Housing Commission was organized to study slums in the United States and make recommendations as to what to do about them. Their findings outlined a need for housing reform, but no government action was taken. E123

Yorkship Village Slate. It took a war for the United States government to enact the first legislation that dealt with housing people. In 1918 the Emergency Fleet and U.S. Housing Corporation were formed to help provide the first publicly subsidized housing built in conjunction with the United States government. THe housing was for shipbuilding and defense industry workers. In 1918 Yorkship Village was built in Camden, New Jersey, to help house shipbuilders. It was subsidized by the Emergency Fleet Corporation. Today the development is called Fairview and the homes are privately owned. THey were sold soon after the war ended, with preference given to veterans. The color matches the slate roofs of the buildings at Yorkship Village. C132

Edith Elmer Wood Reform. Edith Elmer Wood became one of the most important advocates of housing reform in the 1920s and 1930s. Her countless studies and articles exposed many of the hidden deplorable conditions of tenement life and addressed the possibility for changing these conditions through the help of government legislation. B216

Knickerbocker Village. In 1932 Congress passed the Emergency Relief and Construction Act, which in turn created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). RFC loaned money at low interest to local governments for the purpose of creating jobs through investment. Though most of the money was borrowed by banks and railroads, Knickerbocker Village, a housing development in New York City, was built with RFC money. This color matches the brick at Knickerbocker Village. C307

[spatialfeminism]

feminist architecture reading list

[spatialfeminism]

Matrix Feminist Design Collective

'We believe that, precisely because women are brought up differently in our society we have different experiences and needs in relation to the built environment which are rarely expressed.' 

reading:

Matrix, Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment. (London: Pluto Press, 1984).

Matrix, A Job Designing Buildings: For Women Interested in Architecture and Buildings. (London: Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative, 1986).

Dwyer, Julia and Anne Thorne, "Evaluating Matrix: Notes from Inside the Collective," in Altering practices: Feminist Politics and Poetics of Space, ed. Doina Petrescu (London: Routledge, 2007).

Grote, Janie, "Matrix: A Radical Approach to Architecture." Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 9(2)(1992).

Swenarton, Mark, "Guiding Lights." Building Design, (940)(1989).

[spatialfeminism]

“Building a real alternative: Women’s Design Service” 

[spatialfeminism]

“a systems aesthetic, not an object aesthetic; it is about the relationship between things, not the things alone”

“While the deconstruction of the discourses that relegate landscape to a silent female or irrational feminine role in modernism is necessary, it is not enough. We need to reconstruct the unheard languages of the modern landscape as a means to reinvigorate contemporary design practice. The work of a feminist design critic is reconstructive, not destructive. This reconstruction assumes a multilayered fabric that weaves together threads from primary sources and documents written by landscape architects and about landscape architecture with the concurrent history of ecological ideas, cultural and historical geography, design and planning criticism, and site interpretation. “ 

Elizabeth Meyer: The Expanded Field of Landscape Architecture