Gender and Geography

Feminism, Gender, and Geography

It should be made clear that gender and geography, alongside feminist geographies, does not focus solely on women. Neither is the inclusion of men and other forms of gender/sex (e.g., transgendered/transsexual individuals) the segregating feature. For the purposes of this entry, the defining feature of feminist geographies is a political motivation/commitment to analyzing and addressing issues of gendered power. Consequently, one can do gender geography without addressing issues of politics, power, patriarchy, heteropatriarchy, or feminist methodologies. The differences drawn on here pertain to relations of gendered power, which in theory can separate gender and geography from feminist geographies. Although this[Page 176] distinction is employed for the purposes of this entry, gender analysis and gendered critiques of power rarely are separated within geographies.

Gender Geographies

Rather than offer a trajectory of development, this section illustrates some of the plethora of ways in which geography has worked with gender/sex and, in turn, the contribution that geographies can make to understandings of gender/sex. Until the late 1970s, geographic inquiry did not recognize gender, homogenizing human and representing only men's geography. In recognizing the absence of women's lives in mainstream (or malestream) geography, studies sought to add women to geographic inquiry as a discrete group with distinct geographies. These studies created the “geography of women.” Centralizing women arguably led to essentialist definitions of women and men (Table 1). Yet in emphasizing the absence of women in geography, the geography of women provided a place for women within malestream analysis of our world. This work contested the assumption that men's geography was universally applicable and that human geography should explore solely manmade geographies. Furthermore, it demonstrated some of the problematic assumptions on which geographers' categories depended such as work as paid employment. Atlases that map aspects of women's lives are good examples of women's geography. They can include information such as women's employment; incidences of domestic violence; availability of shelters; fertility, abortion, marriage, and divorce rates; and poverty and credit for women. These maps not only represent “women's worlds” but also simultaneously redraw what is seen as mappable.

...