Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World

Product Information

This suggests that forging alliances across communities, activism, and collective action represent the drivers to realize the aspiration of feminist cities. Otherwise, there is just very little in this at all for anyone who actually knows what it's like to be a woman in a city. An indicator that speaks volumes about urban space and dynamics of power is the possibility to walk alone in the street. In The Feminist City, through history, personal experience and popular culture Leslie Kern exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities are built into our cities, homes, and neighbourhoods. Not that I'm against the discourse of feminist geography – actually, I think it's a topic worth exploring.

In addition to this methodological strength, the theoretical framework paves the way for a broader understanding of uneven power relations and interlocking systems of oppression. For instance, increasing police control to improve women’s safety in the streets would probably fail in making a black woman or a homeless person feel safe.And I choose to do so because of the lived example of Jesus, dignifying and empowering women despite the cultural norms of the time.

But feminist perspective has always offered some kinds of alternative scenarios, whereas Kern becomes extremely vague when she tackles possible solutions. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out an intersectional feminist approach to urban histories and proposes that the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping a new urban future.

We've all had similar (or different) experiences, and I liked approaching the work that's being done in this area through lived experience. This book is really just what it promises: a feminist look at the city, how it is now and what can change and what history can push us forward to better alternatives. Parker’s Masculinities and Markets (2017), in which Parker suggests the concept of amplification that refers to the ‘intensity of racialized women’s work, life, and bodily experiences’ (119). However, there is little attempt to think through the implications of the few avenues to change that Kern identifies. One might think that white men are a homogenous group of rich and privileged, moreover, no woman ever has got a degree in architecture and if she, by a miraculous chance, did, then she always resisted the pressure from the system.

Because, while the city is a place of opportunity and liberation - offering a range of employment types, exposure to diverse cultural experiences and education - it is unequally accessible depending on categories of gender, race, class and physical ability.

You wouldn't necessarily suspect that complexity exists from the text presented, nor are readers given quantitative data alongside the qualitative observations and anecdotes concerning the issues discussed. I don't mind a personal perspective in this kind of writing, but you'll need more than assertions like "every woman feels the same! With Feminist City Kern suggests a two-word manifesto: looking at cities from a feminist perspective helps to recognize who is being marginalized and to understand how space structures systems of oppression due to gender but also ethnicity, class, ability, and sexuality. In cinque capitoli, supportati da una vastissima bibliografia, Leslie Kern analizza cosa significhi essere una donna all'interno della città, laddove essere donna significa soprattutto essere socialmente incasellata nelle categorie di moglie e madre e doversi muovere in uno spazio ostile che non fa altro che ricordarci di non valicare mai il fazzoletto di terra ritagliato per noi da altri. I did not enjoy this as much as I'd hoped to, because of US/Canada-centric nature of the analysis (understandable, given the author's own location, and a reflection not on the book, but on my subjective preferences as a reader).

Moje wydanie było tym najnowszym z analizą sytuacji pandemicznej na świecie i tego, jak wpływa/wpłynęła ona na kobiety/transpłciowekobiety/queerkobiety itp. Nonetheless, as Kern points out, there are concerns about the real effectiveness of these strategies in eliminating inequalities. We use cookies on this site to understand how you use our content, and to give you the best browsing experience.Concise, scholarly, and personal survey of feminist geography of the city, looking at how cities are designed to perpetuate comfort and power for certain members of society (mass transit systems more often than not are set up for funneling white collar workers to and from urban cores and not for making it easy to do inter- or inner-city trips to school, errands, work, and back again) and how cities can be used as hotbeds of activism and social change. They "ask us to think about new ways to organize paid work, care work, and social relations…They invite solidarity from everyone who wants to feel safe in their homes, on the streets, in the bathroom, at work, and at school. Feminist visions of the city have been here all along…there are examples of both practices and ideals that are being lived right now, all along. Aku sih inginnya semua membaca Feminist City agar menyadari kalau representasi itu begitu penting dalam semua aspek kehidupan manusia termasuk dalam tata kota.