Summary
Contents
The SAGE Key Concepts series provides students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding.
Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension.
Key Concepts in Urban Studies:
Clearly and concisely explains the basic ideas in the interdisciplinary field of urban studies; Offers concise discussions of concepts ranging from community, neighbourhood, and the city to globalization, the New Urbanism, feminine space, and urban problems; Constitutes a re-examination of the key ideas in the field; Is illustrated throughout with international examples; Provides an essential reference guide for all students and teachers across the urban disciplines within sociology, political science, planning and geography.
Feminine Space
Feminine Space
Society is dominated by social relations of male power. The masculine and the feminine, as cultural qualities, are related to each other in the form of superordinate/subordinate relations. Men possess power in our society that is manifested as the ability to define situations and to control social outcomes. Men are situated in the positions of leadership and control in the powerful organizations of our economy and political structure. This hierarchically structured system of gendered dominance is manifested in masculine space as well, see entry on Masculine Space. In contrast, the subordinate social status of women also produces environments where females have power. These are examples of ‘feminine space’ (Spain, 1992).
Consider the following observations by Lara Zador (2001:1):
‘My notion of womanhood is tied to space, I have a fear of taking up too ...
