Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Made Sense on the World

Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Made Sense on the World (2001)

By Mona Domosh and Joni Seager

Synopsis: Place and gender are inextricably linked. This book explores issues of power, and brings feminism and gender to geography by pointing out the importance of examining the link between gender and place. Shows that ideals of gender do inform our use of space and affect out sense of mobility. Discusses home space and the gendering of public and private space within Victorian homes; female design tastes and the way male-dominated “modernist” movement (1890s-1930s) sought to streamlines and usurp home decoration which had previously been a female domain; discussion of middle-class women as “Americanizers” to “foreign”-types; Charlotte Perkins Gillman and other feminist efforts to collectivize female labor; fact that much female labor is not counted in GDP/work averages; idea that feminine implies natures and chaos, while masculine implies order/control/city [connects here with Terrible Honesty]; suburban space and the attempt to limit female mobility as cars are seen as “male;” rugged nature as male; women’s building at Columbia Expo; feminist environmentalism and scary male view of earth as a “mother” who will clean-up our mess.

Interesting Specifics:

Postwar females’ design tastes in home interiors were castigated by “taste” experts as middle-low brow kitsch, thus challenging and belittling female power (28).

Increased female presence in cities in the 1850s led such spaces to be increasingly “feminized” so as to be more appropriate for women. Example is the fancy arches of shopping arcades (93).

Suburban growth really increased in the 1920s

Gays and lesbians often lead gentrification efforts (102)

“Mobility is greatest at the extreme ends of the socioeconomic spectrum” (110).

Rise of masculine rugged farmer ideal in 1930s as way to counteract effeminate dependency of govt. aid during Depression (166).

Gender is the biggest determiner of attitudes towards animals (185)

Ecofeminism is concerned with control of resources, power relations, different way of viewing the environment, systems of oppression, etc.

Trivia:

First toilets were designed to look like parlor chairs, but were changed in the 1920s due to hygiene concerns (16)

Women, whether married with kids or not, tend to work closer to their homes than men [is this because women’s work tends to be more “low-level” and hence easier to find stuff anywhere/less justification for traveling far distances to work?].

Interacts With:

Terrible Honesty,