Feminist City is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world

We live in the city of men. Our public spaces are not designed for female bodies. There is little consideration for women as mothers, workers or carers. The urban streets often are a place of threats rather than community. Gentrification has made the everyday lives of women even more difficult. What would a metropolis for working women look like? A city of friendships beyond Sex and the City. A transit system that accommodates mothers with strollers on the school run. A public space with enough toilets. A place where women can walk without harassment.

In Feminist City, through history, personal experience and popular culture Leslie Kern exposes what is hidden in plain sight: the social inequalities built into our cities, homes, and neighborhoods. Kern offers an alternative vision of the feminist city. Taking on fear, motherhood, friendship, activism, and the joys and perils of being alone, Kern maps the city from new vantage points, laying out an intersectional feminist approach to urban histories and proposes that the city is perhaps also our best hope for shaping a new urban future. It is time to dismantle what we take for granted about cities and to ask how we can build more just, sustainable, and women-friendly cities together.

Feminist City: A Field Guide

“Feminist City” by Leslie Kern was some kind of revelation to me. Although I’ve always praised myself for being super feminist, this book managed to surprise me by introducing the whole new world of feminist geography and cartography. There were several aspects that called my attention and questioned me deeply: anonymity and solidarity. Leslie Kern highlights the power and the privilege of anonymity throughout her book. It seems as if women are protected in the city as long as they can be invisible. In fact, being invisible seems to be a good thing to wish for when being a woman in a big city. Invisibility and anonymity gives you the possibility of not being catcalled and maybe of even sitting alone in a Starbucks without being approached by a man that believes that your aloneness is a synonym of availability. 

When thinking of my own experience, I can’t help but relate with many experiences brought up by the author. For instance, living in Bogotá has always been some sort of nightmare to me. I remember being catcalled since a very early age and feeling absolutely vulnerable, scared and furious but just accelerating a bit my pace to arrive as fast as possible to where I was going. When the normalized “piropos” had gone too far, I remember shouting to the guy and praying he didn’t chase me or say anything worse. Reading these experiences on the book and thinking about the female fear, which sometimes is thought to be innate to women and girls, I can only think that a feminist city is more urgent than ever.  

Coming back to the privilege of anonymity, one experience that surprised me was the example of pregnant women. I haven’t been pregnant so I can’t relate with the experience, but I was surprised by the author’s explanation on how pregnancy seems to be a public issue. Somehow, a pregnant woman is automatically considered a public “good”, and people assume that they have some right to touch her belly and talk about her pregnant body. Even women breastfeeding in public have to be brave to do so. Pregnancy thus has a lot to do with stepping out into the public eye and leaving treasured anonymity behind.

Finally, Leslie Kern remarks the importance of friendship and how other women help us to be brave. This final thought filled my heart with hope. When I think back on my own experience I can see how my female friends are a complete blessing to me. Thanks to them I have tried out new things, I have ventured into my darkest fears and have had the courage to face many challenges. In my time at DPA, I have also been surrounded by powerful, caring and inspiring women, to whom I am forever grateful.

I’m leaving a series of topics we can talk about in our discussion: 
- City of mothers: anonymity; motherhood as a public issue; intersectionality taking away our invisibility; transportation not being designed for mothers; cities as places of freedom.
- City of friends: the power of messages such as “text me when you’re home”.
- City of one: catcalling; women alone perceived as available (tell a man you have a husband or a boyfriend and they will leave you alone); sanitation rights and access to toilets.
- City of protests: sexual harassment to women in protests (e.g. Colombian case).
- City of fear: being taught to be afraid throughout our childhood; fear as a public phenomenon, what about domestic violence?