Feminist geography examines how gender relations and identities are shaped by and shape the spaces and places in which we live. It considers how assumptions about gender have influenced the discipline of geography itself and how spaces like the home, workplace, and streets are gendered. Early feminist geography sought to include women's experiences in geographical research, while later approaches examined how spaces construct and reinforce gender norms. Theorists discuss how dualisms between mind/body and nature/culture have been used to portray women's bodies and roles as inferior. Studies also show how gender influences the use of spaces like greater restrictions on women's comportment in public and expectations of domesticity.

1. Gender Geography

2. Geography (from Wikipedia)
• Study of the
earth and its
features,
inhabitants and
phenomena
• “To describe or
write about the
Earth"

3. Geography (from Wikipedia)
• seeks to understand the world and all of
its human and natural complexities
– not merely where objects are, but how they
have changed and come to be
• “The bridge between the human and
physical sciences“
– Human Geography
– Physical Geography

4. Feminist Geography (from Wikipedia)
• An approach in
human geography
• Applies the theories,
methods and critiques
of feminism to the
study of the human
environment, society
and geographical
space

5. Feminist Geography (from Wikipedia)
STRANDS TO FEMINIST GEOGRAPHY
• Geographic differences in gender relations
and gender equality
• The geography of women
– spatial constraints, welfare geography
• The construction of gender identity
through the use & nature of spaces &
places
• Geographies of sexuality

6. Feminist Geography (EXAMPLES)
urban planning has a gender dimension with the expectation that men travel to
a distant location for employment while women are involved with child care,
basic shopping, and domestic functions in a suburban location.

7. Feminist Geography (EXAMPLES)
gender differences in terms of personal access, mobility and safety,
especially in respect to the design and use of urban space
and open places such as public parks and footpaths

8. Feminist Geography (EXAMPLES)
worldwide
migration of
women from the
Third World to
the First World to
perform domestic
labor and sex
work

9. KEY ISSUES
• Gender relations and geographies are
mutually constructed and transformed
– Spaces affect gender and gender affects
spaces
• Assumptions about gender have
influenced the study of geography and
the position of women in the discipline
• Conceptions of the body are central to
understanding gender and space
relations

10. KEY ISSUES
• Gender influences the ways in which
people understand, experience and use
spaces like the home, the workplace
and the street
• Although geographic research on
gender has “traditionally” focused on the
experiences and needs of women,
geographers are increasingly interested
in gaining a greater understanding of
men and masculinities

11. History of
Gender
1st
Phase – 1970s
2nd
Phase – 1980s
3rd
Phase – Current
Gender and Geography

12. 1st
Phase – 1970s
• Sexist bias in the content, methods and
purpose of geographical research meant
that only “half of the human” were being
included in geography
– Geographical research
reflected white,
able-bodied, male,
middle class values
and issues as the norm

13. 1st
Phase – 1970s
• Drawn from the Liberal Feminist Movement
– There should be equality between men and women
in both public and private spaces
– Include women in geography and geographical
research
• Resulted in a growth in
research into women’s
lives particularly in the
spaces of the home,
the workplace and
the street

14. 2nd
Phase – 1980s
• Move from simply placing women in
geography to examining the
mechanisms that created the wide
range of socio-material inequalities
between men and women
– particularly in the context of the
workplace and the home

15. 2nd
Phase – 1980s
• Recognition that spaces were
gendered
– Space was previously viewed as
“neutral”
– Space can be seen to reflect
gendered and heterosexual values
and norms
– Many spaces can be argued as
hetero-patriarchal spaces

16. 2nd
Phase – 1980s
• Influenced by radical Socialist/Marxist
trends
– Links are made between the home as a site
of reproduction and the workplace as a
space of production
Thereby linking patriarchy and capitalism

17. 3rd
and Current Phase
• Recognition that even when increasing
numbers of women are achieving
economic equality with men
»broader social and
cultural beliefs and
practices still influence
the opportunities and
expectations of
women

18. 3rd
and Current Phase
• Geographers in the contemporary era have
begun to unsettle the binary construction
“male”/“female”
– They have become increasingly
interested in the differences that exist
amongst and between men & women
• Influenced by Post-Structural Feminists who
seek to disrupt what is taken for granted

19. Theoretical
Approaches
The Natural and the Social
The Mind/Body Dualism
Bodily Compartment
Gender and Geography

20. The Natural and the Social
Notions that women’s bodies are both
different and inferior to men’s:
• Women’s
menstruation was
read as a sign of their
inherent lack of
control over their
bodies
• Women leaked, while
men were self-
contained

21. The Natural and the Social
Notions that women’s bodies are both
different and inferior to men’s:
• Women’s role in
reproduction was
understood to mean that
they were “naturally”
more nurturing and more
closely linked to “Mother
Earth” than men

22. The Natural and the Social
Association between women and nature:
• Just as nature is wild and potentially
uncontrollable, women were less able to
control their emotions and passions than men
• Women’s unstable bodies were considered to
be a threat to their minds
Women’s bodies were used to justify
what was regarded as “natural inequality”
between the sexes

23. The Natural and the Social
ESSENTIALISTS
• Sexual differences are
determined by biology
• Bodies have particular
stable, fixed properties
or “essences”
SOCIAL
CONSTRUCTIONISTS
• There is no “natural”
body
• The body is always
“culturally mapped”
• “Essence” is actually
socially constructed
difference

24. The Natural and the Social
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTINISTS
• What is understood by “man” and
“woman” varies historically and in
different cultural contexts
• The social meanings ascribed to men
and women (or gender) is socially
constructed in a hierarchical way

25. The Mind/Body Dualism
MIND
• Only the mind had the
power of intelligence,
spirituality and
therefore selfhood
• Associated with
positive terms such
as rationality,
consciousness,
reason and
masculinity
BODY
• The corporeal body
was nothing but a
machine
• Associated with
negative terms such
as emotionality,
nature, irrationality
and femininity

26. The Mind/Body Dualism
MAN
• Transcend their
embodiment by
regarding the body as
merely the container
of their consciousness
• Able to separate
himself from his
emotions and
experiences
WOMAN
• More closely tied to,
and ruled by, their
bodies due to natural cycles
of menstruation, pregnancy &
childbirth
• Presumed to be a
“victim of the vagaries
of her emotions, a
creature who cannot
think straight as a
consequence”

27. The Mind/Body Dualism
Applied to Geography:
• Men have tended to marginalize women
as producers of geographical knowledge
and what are considered women’s issues
as topic of study
• Until the mid-late 1990’s topics such as
embodiment, emotion & sexuality were
regarded as inappropriate

28. Bodily Comportment
“Throwing Like a Girl”
• BOYS use their whole bodies to throw,
leaning back, twisting and reaching
forward
• GIRLS tend to be relatively stiff and
immobile, only using their arms to produce
a throwing action

29. Bodily Comportment
• Women are alienated from their bodies
and as a result, occupy and use space in
an inhibited way compared with men
• Women demonstrate restricted body
movements and inhibited comportment
in some physical activities

30. Bodily Comportment
• Women are inhibited and do not put their
bodies into the task with the same ease
as men

31. Bodily Comportment
• Women also fear getting hurt
• Their bodies tend to become
the object of the male gaze
• It has become acceptable for
men to look at, comment on
or touch women’s bodies in
public space
• As a result women are fearful
that their body space may be
invaded

32. Bodily Comportment
• “To be an adult
male is distinctly to
occupy space, to
have a physical
presence in the
world”

33. Gender and Space
Relations in Context
Domestic Space
Workplace
Streets
Gender and Geography

34. Domestic Spaces
• Women were attributed with the sort of
emotional qualities necessary to nurture
families and run the house
– Whereas men were seen as fiery, active,
aggressive, and so more suited the public
world of work.

35. Domestic Spaces
• Early 19th
C – residential areas developed
along road and railway lines allowing
men to travel into the city to the
workplace, leaving women and children
in residential suburbs

36. Domestic Spaces
• Early 19th
C – residential areas developed
along road and railway lines allowing
men to travel into the city to the
workplace, leaving women and children
in residential suburbs
• After WW II – Planners used the pro-
natalist approach in housing design
– To address falling birth rates and improve
family housing
– To persuade more women to have children
and remove temptations for them to work
outside the home

37. Domestic Spaces
• With the rising standards of housing
came the rising standards of housework
– Washing machines and vacuum cleaners
became commonplace
– Women’s magazines became preoccupied
with cleaning products (e.g., VIM)
• Domestic ideology: housework is not just
a set of chores but a moral undertaking
– A dirty home was equated with slovenliness,
cleanliness was equated with goodness

38. Domestic Spaces
• Late 20th
C – Women in paid employment
continue to do the lion’s share of
domestic work & childcare
– Women juggled these dual roles and
confronted spatial constraints

39. Gender and the Workplace
• Are women unsuited to the
skilled and relatively well-
paid work?
– Women had weaker spines
– Women were too soft and
afraid of getting hurt
– Women were too irrational for
an occupation that requires
logical & problem solving
– Women had an innate
aversion to machinery

40. Gender and the Workplace
• These justifications rested on
assumptions that it was logical and
proper for the male head of the family to
be the breadwinner and so well-paid
jobs should be the preserve of men
– That women would be coarsened by
working alongside men because they would
be subject to swearing and the general
sexist abuse and so would lose their
femininity

41. Gender and the Workplace
• In a male-dominated and aggressive
work environment, women need to
appropriate masculine styles of behavior
to be accepted in this space
– Yet they are constantly reminded of their
sex by negative comments from male
colleagues

42. Streets of Fear
• Street violence: women are at most risk
– Women are most fearful of sexual violence
or assault by strangers
– Most women
encounter more
minor forms of
harassment
(verbal abuse,
wolf whistling,
flashing)

43. Streets of fear
In cases where women
have been attacked in
public space at night, the
police and media have
sometimes implied that
they are to a certain degree
responsible for their own
fate and have warned other
women to avoid putting
themselves in similar
situations of vulnerability