ancient cities

The genesis of this approach to space can be
traced to Henri Lefebvre, who argued in The
Production of Space that spatial patterns are not
absolute but are shaped by the social and economic
systems dominated by institutions and individuals
who wield political power. In Western society,
men traditionally have exerted the greatest social
and economic power and have influenced the
spaces around them to meet their needs. Some
locations benefit, and others are disadvantaged
as a result of these dominant forces. Similarly
those individuals without power are restricted
from using the favored spaces, causing spatial
inequality.
Gendered Nature of Public
and Private Spaces
In medieval Europe, women in rural villages
worked in the fields and in village markets; other
opportunities for women to live and work outside
the home were quite limited. Some women sought
the protection of the cloistered life in monastic
orders that accepted them as sisters. Others found
safety among the beguines, whose communities
enabled women to live apart from men under semimonastic
conditions without formal religious vows
and to be active in charitable works in the community.
The Industrial Revolution accentuated the
spatial separation of men and women. Linda
McDowell argues that, for many years, the field of
urban studies ignored gender in tracking social
changes associated with the rapid urbanization of
the Industrial Revolution. She suggests that the
spaces of rapidly industrializing cities were considered
unsafe for women, and this perception led to
the Victorian era division of space into public and
private arenas, which constrained women to the
private space of the home and allowed men free
rein to move through the public streets and seek
out employment and entertainment in the city.
This understanding persisted during the first
half of the twentieth century and established a
pervasive basis for discrimination against women,
which constrained them to private domestic spaces
while allowing men to dominate the public workplace
settings. Men were free to ramble through
the Victorian city, but women who ventured into
public spaces in cities were considered to be either
lower-class or “fallen” women.
Gendered Space
299
In some situations, women were permitted to
join the labor force, although the effects of this
varied considerably. Doreen Massey argues that
differences in employment regimes in mining areas,
cotton towns, and inner London resulted in different
spatial employment relations and differences in
women’s spatial empowerment. In mining regions,
men worked in the mines, and women kept the
home fires burning. In cotton mill towns, women
were allowed to do the weaving tasks, which created
new possibilities for them to organize and
improve their lives. In London, women worked in
various trades but mostly undertook home-based
piecework, which was less threatening to the
male patriarchy in the clothing industry. In the
United States, groups like the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union (WTCU) and the settlement
house movement worked to establish safe spaces
for women and immigrants within urban areas and
raised social awareness of issues like suffrage, temperance,
and the need to protect working women
from men’s advances.
The form of the newly developing cities was
also shaped by many of these long-standing gender
biases. Delores Hayden critiques influence of the
male-dominated field of architecture on the physical
form of cities. She argues that this control over
the built environment enabled the sexist nature of
urban spaces. Houses were built in suburban locations
that provided a tranquil home for men
returning from work in the city, but at the same
time, such spaces kept women isolated from each
other. One solution to this bias was to reconfigure
the urban fabric, especially in residential locations,
to alleviate the isolation of women and create a
more equitable society.
Daphne Spain provides a seminal treatment of
this topic in her book, Gendered Spaces, in which
she explicitly recognizes the status differential
between men and women creates specific urban
spatial configurations linked to the patriarchal
spatial institutions that reinforce the dominance of
men. In particular, she examines the spatial institutions
of the family, the educational system, and the
labor force, which operate through a variety of
physical locations including dwellings, schools,
and workplaces. In each of these settings, Spain
argues, the social systems in place provided advantages
to men that were denied to women. She also
extends her analysis with a useful description of