“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 Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. 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 patriarchy and white supremacy are manifest not only in the violence enacted through policing and policy making, but also in the shape of our urban environments. So to transform the city, we must look beyond simply “gender-mainstreaming” city planning and vacuous liberal pleas for symbolic reforms. As Kern writes, “once we begin to see how the city is set up to sustain a particular way of organizing society—across gender, race, sexuality, and more—we can start to look for new possibilities.” So we must start to look for those possibilities to decommodify life and democratize society. Because the reality is, without challenging the notion of private property, we aren't challenging the patriarchy. Private property and the enclosure of land is the conscription of patriarchy on the planet. To demolish this structural domination and transform our cities into environments that are open, safe, and free for everyone, we must once and for all—abolish the motherfucking cost of living.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Previously on The Future Is A Mixtape:
Episode 042: “Strike Feminism”– Discussion of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto by Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser. Published in 2019 by Verso Books.
Episode 043: “A New Feminism for Our Unfolding Future” – Discussion of Abolitionist Socialist Feminism: Radicalizing the Next Revolution by Zillah Eisenstein. Published in 2019 by Monthly Review Press.
Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World by Leslie Kern. Published in 2020 by Verso Books. First Published in Canada in 2019 by Between The Lines as: Feminist City: A Field Guide.
Leslie Kern on Verso Books: “The Non-Sexist City”
Select Book Reviews & Interviews with The Author:
Alexis Zanghi in Jacobin: “Every Single Person Has a Right to Housing”
Christopher Cheung in The Tyee: “Cities Were Built for Men. Here’s How To Fix That”
Leilah Stone Interviews Leslie Kern for Metropolis: “Can a City Be Feminist?”
Monica Heisey Interviews Leslie Kern for Hazzlit: “‘The Promises of Pleasure, Freedom, Excitement, Opportunity, and Encounter’”
Leslie Kern on the What She Said! podcast: “Cities are Sexist, Which is Why Women Should be Designing Them”
Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas. Published in 2016 by University of California Press.
“The Personal Is Political” - A Wikipedia Description
Rahila Gupta in Open Democracy: “The Personal Is Political: The Journey of a Feminist Slogan”
The idea, phrase and slogan “The Right to The City” was first coined by Henri Lefebvre in 1968 - A Wikipedia Definition
Henri Levebre’s Magnum Opus: Critique of Everyday Life: The Three-Volume Text. Originally published in 1977 & Translated into English and Published in 2014 by Verso Books.
David Harvey in New Left Review: “The Right to the City” & His Extended Meditation on the Subject, Entitled: Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. First Published in 2012 by Verso Books.
Shirasawa Mayumi in Nippon: “The Long Road to Disability Rights in Japan”
Amy McKeever in National Geographic: “How the Americans with Disabilities Act Transformed a Country”
Julia Carmel in The New York Times: “‘Nothing About Us Without Us’: 16 Moments in the Fight for Disability Rights”
Leslie Kern in The Guardian: “‘Upward-Thrusting Buildings Ejaculating into the Sky’ – Do Cities Have to Be So Sexist?”
“Skyscraper Seduction / Skyscraper Rape” by Dolores Hayden. Originally Published in Heresies, Issue 1, May 1977.
Tyisha Miller: A Wikipedia Biography
Don Terry in The New York Times: “Officers' Killing of Woman in Car Leads to Dispute Over Facts and Motives” (Dec. 30, 1998)
Tom Gorman in The Los Angeles Times: “A Tragic Death’s Power to Divide a City” (June 27, 1999)
Ryan Hagen in The Press-Enterprise: “20 Years After Tyisha Miller Was Killed by Riverside Police, What Is Her Legacy?”
Ryan Hagen in The Press-Enterprise: “Film Based on Shooting of Tyisha Miller in Riverside on Film Festival Circuit”
Rickerby Hinds’ Dreamscape (2013)--a play based on the life of Tyisha Miller--was later turned into an indie film called My Name Is Myeisha (2018).
Rebecca Solnit in The New Yorker: “City of Women”
bell hooks’ Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. First Published in 1984. Published in 2014 by Routledge.
David Graeber Speaking at the Chaos Communication Congress: “From Managerial Feudalism to the Revolt of the Caring Classes”
David Graeber in The Guardian: “Caring Too Much. That’s the Curse of the Working Classes”
Rhaina Cohen in The Atlantic: “What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life”
Eleonore Pourriat’s Short Film: The Oppressed Majority (Majorité Opprimée) (2014)
From Wikipedia: The 2012 Delhi Gang Rape and Murder
Human Rights Watch: Women’s Rights in Iran
Leslie Kern on Verso Books: “Women, Fear, and Cities”
Sarah H. Harvard in Mic: “Artist Marie-Shirine Yener Made a Comic for Bystanders Who Witness Anti-Muslim Harrassment.”
Dan Bilefsky in The New York Times: “A Plan to Limit Cars in Paris Collides With French Politics”
Gary Fuller and Sophie Moukhtar in The Guardian: “Paris Tries Something Different in the Fight Against Smog”
The Future Is A Mixtape: Episode 030: “A Green New Deal to Build The Golden Square”
Renegade Inc Interviews David Graeber: “Batshit Construction”
Dan Cancian in Newsweek: “Inglewood Residents Lash Out at Rams New Stadium: 'This Is Gentrification'”
Dodgers Stadium and the sordid history of displacing Mexican Americans: The Battle of Chavez Ravine
Chávez Ravine: A Record by Ry Cooder
The Los Angeles Chapter of Democratic Socialists of America and Their Continued Campaign for NOlympicsLA
Scott Davis in Business Insider: “What Abandoned Olympic Venues and Stadiums from Around the World Look Like Today”
The Guardian: “Rio's Olympic Venues, Six Months On – In Pictures”
Steven Bloor in The Guardian: “Abandoned Athens Olympic 2004 Venues, 10 Years on – In Pictures”
Michael Shapiro in Sports Illustrated: “Photos: What Beijing's Abandoned Olympic Venues Look Like Today”
Mark Perryman in Jacobin: “A Better Olympics Is Possible”
Carmen Reinicke in CNBC: “New $3,000 Child Tax Credit to Start Payments in July, IRS Says”
Rhaina Cohen in The Atlantic: “Who Took Care of Rosie the Riveter’s Kids?”
Neighbor Democracy: “The Communes of Rojava: A Model In Societal Self Direction”
Dor Shilton in Haaretz: “In the Heart of Syria's Darkness, a Democratic, Egalitarian and Feminist Society Emerges”