Course Proposal: Gender and Built Environments
Draft #2, Winter, 1996
Proposed by: Ellen Balka, Women's Studies
Rationale
This course is being proposed for two reasons. First, it offers an interdisciplinary view of women and the built environment that draws on scholarship in geography, environmental studies, architecture, urban planning, ergonomics and women's studies. Although similar courses exist in a range of departments (e.g. environmental studies, geography, women's studies) at other universities, students at Memorial University do not have access to any courses in this area. The proposed course provides a unique learning opportunity. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the course and its focus on women, it would be well situated within the women's studies programme.
Overview
Between the 1860s and 1930s utopian socialist feminists (including the well known Charlotte Perkins Gillman) turned their attention to altering the built environment in order to improve women's lives. Among the design principles advocated by these feminists were housing developments with kitchenless houses, and numerous communal facilities, including kitchens, laundry facilities and daycares, all of which would be staffed by paid workers. Utopian socialist feminists designed built environments that would accommodate more egalitarian social roles than those available to women during that time period. Their analysis of the built environment suggested that it had a role in organizing social roles and interactions (including gender relations), but could also be designed with the intention of altering those same interactions. More recently, women have turned their attention to women's roles in the urban landscape (e.g., SIGNS special issue Women and the American City, 1980), how housing orders women's social roles (Wiseman, 1992), designing work environments that suit women (see Balka, 1995), and special environmental needs of older women and disabled women. The study of gender and the built environment provides insights into both how women were viewed through the lens of the dominant culture at any given time, as well as how women attempted to alter the built environments they existed within, as they attempted to improve opportunities, health and general well being.
Course Type: Seminar and discussion
Assignments
Exercises (1 per section): 15% each
Class Participation: 15%
Final Paper: 40%
Week by Week Outline
Week 1: Introduction to the course, an overview of gender and
environment studies, the public sphere and private sphere.
Part 1: The Private Sphere: Women and Architecture
Week 2: Housing and Gender Roles in a Cross Cultural Context
Week 3: Private meets public: The Material Feminist Movement
Week 4: Contemporary Feminist Housing
Housing and Disability
Week 5: Technology as Built Environment
Gender and Household Technology
Part 2: The Public Sphere
Week 6: Gender and Settlements Across Cultures
Week 7: Gender, Industrialization and the Evolution of the Built
Environment
Week 8: Gender and Transportation (Cars and Public Transportation)
Week 9: Gender, Space and Place in the Built Environment
Men's Space and Women's Space
The Built Environment and Personal Safety
Part 3: Gender, Space and Place at Work
Week 10: The Workplace as Built Environment
Social Location and the Gender Division of Labour
The Geography of Women's Workplace (work location, workplace
layout)
Week 11: Technology as Built Environment at Work
Occupational Health, Gender and the Built Environment at Work
Week 12: Gender and Workplace Ergonomics
Disability, Gender and the Built Environment at Work
Week 13: Wrap-up & Directions for the Future
The Creation of Place in the Built Environment
Representative Texts
Avery, H. (1994). Feminist issues in built environment education. Journal Of Art & Design Education 94 v.13 is.1 pp.65-71
Balka, E. (1995). Technology as a factor in women's occupational stress: The case of telephone operators. In K.
Messing, L. Dumais & B. Neis, (Eds.). Invisible: Issues in Women's Occupational Health. (pp. 75-103). Gynergy Press: P.E.I.
Benhabib, S. (1993). Feminist theory and Hannah Arendt's concept of public space. History of the human sciences MAY 93 v.6 is.2 pp.97-114
Blimlinger, E. (1995). Feminist perspectives on technology, work and ecology. European journal of women's studies FEB 95 v.2 is.1
Bondi, L. (1993). Gender and geography - crossing boundaries . Progress In Human Geography JUN 93 v.17 is.2 pp.241-246
England, K.V.L (1993). Suburban pink collar ghettos - the spatial entrapment of women. Annals of the association of American geographers JUN 93. v.83 is.2 pp.225-242
Fernandez, R.M. (1994). Race, space, and job accessibility - evidence. Economic Geography Oct 94 v.70 is.4 pp.390-416.
Laws, G. (1994). Oppression, knowledge and the built environment. Political Geography Jan 94 v.13 is.1 pp.7-32
Leyshon, A. and Bondi, L. (1994). Feminist theory and economic-geography. Area JUN 94 v.26 is.2 pp.190-192
Marston , S. A. (1994) Full circles - geographies of women over the life-course. Professional geographer. May 94 v.46 is.2 pp.261-262
Mcdowell, L. Doing gender - feminism, feminists and research methods in human-geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 92 v.17 is.4 pp.399-416
Monk, J. and Wilson, E.B. (1993). The sphinx in the city - urban life, the control of disorder, and women. Professional Geographer MAY 93 v.45 is.2 pp.247-248.
Monk, J. (1994). Place matters - comparative international perspectives on feminist geography. Professional Geographer. Aug 94 v.46 is.3 pp.277-288
Roberts, Marion, (1991). Living in a man made world. London ; New York : Routledge.
Schroeder, R.A. (1993). Shady practice - gender and the political. Economic Geography OCT 93 v.69 is.4 pp.349-365.
Veness, A. anf Golden, S. (1993). The women outside - meanings and myths of homelessness. Professional Geographer MAY 93 v.45 is.2 pp.233-234.
Weisman, L. (1992). Discrimination by design : a feminist critique of the man-made environment. Urbana : University of Illinois Press.