044: The Dawning of The Feminist City

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Physical places like cities matter when we want to think about social change,” writes Leslie Kern. So in this third episode in a trilogy on 21st century feminisms, Matt & Jesse move from celebrating feminist manifestoes to exploring feminist geographies with a discussion of Kern’s</span> <strong><em>Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World</em></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">. This richly observed mapping of man-made urban spaces expertly juxtaposes pop cultural reflections, academic scholarship and hauntingly personal accounts of a lifetime struggling to claim feminine space in cities, first as a child, then a teenager & college student and later as a mother & scholar. As the feminist geographer Jane Darke once said: “Our cities are patriarchy written in stone, brick, glass and concrete.” In all-too obvious displays of crude masculine power, the towering phallic monuments to capitalist expropriation that define city skylines cast long shadows reminding us all that this is a man’s world. From 12th century churches, to 20th century office towers, and from Beverly Hills mansions to billionaire's row penthouses—cities are monuments to myth-making, extraction, and exploitation—making concrete structures out of the poisoned logics of religion, capitalism, and celebrity. The world is built by and for patriarchy, and it’s the “cosmic background radiation” of white, male, cis-hetero, and able-bodied privileges that allows men to coast through life on cruise control, never burdened by the realities of other people’s lives. Free from the constant nagging fear of sexual violence lurking around every public and private corner, men not only enjoy the privilege of designing our global cities, but they’re also free to explore them with unrestrained liberty. The geography of the city demonstrates clearly that the maintenance of capitalism is contingent upon an ever-present threat of violence, and primarily on gender-based violence. The sustained anxieties perpetuated by patri