The Gendered City

Written: February 2019

What we think of as a city in modern day can be traced back to the boom in industry which started in the mid-eighteenth century. These cities were characterised by division: work and home. They were created predominantly for the purposes of men to access the places they sold their labour, the factories, workshops and offices all produced by the Industrial Revolution. Today we see traces of this history weaving through our buildings and pavements, but more intensely through social attitudes regarding who has the right to take up public space. 

Society during the Industrial Revolution used the concept of “separate spheres” for men and women in order to create set gender roles and reinforce male supremacy. Men inhabited the public sphere: work, pubs and politics. The associated of men with the public sphere encouraged them to be part of the cities in which they lived. Industrial towns were often loud and dirty, and men were considered tough enough to deal with their horrors. Home created a place to leave behind the frenzy of the city and attend to their duties as a husband and father. The burden of creating a peaceful and homely environment was left to women. Women therefore were expected to occupy the private sphere of home. Their role was to raise well-adjusted children, keep an orderly house and wash their front step to ensure the dirt of the city did not enter this sanctuary. The private sphere which they occupied was considered appropriate for the delicacy, passivity and weakness of the female sex. The lack of infrastructure in these cities was another barrier to women's admittance to city life. Street lighting and transport only began to be common and usable in the later half of the nineteenth century which helped make public spaces more accessible. Naturally it would be reductive to suggest the city was truly a binary place. Many families ran businesses from their homes, blurring this concept of public and private. Many working class women left their homes to earn money in the city, although often in sex segregated roles. Female sex workers saw the city streets as their place of work. Even middle and upper class women held their own in public spaces as many ran charities and sat on education boards. Nonetheless the predominant way of thinking about gender roles helped forge a city which had distinct divisions around who had the right to occupy its different spaces. Areas like the self Kelham Island would have been a masculine space, and Sheffield suburbs would largely have been a feminine space. 

The gender divide in cities increasingly blurred as women entered the factories in the First World War and had greater access to education over the course of the twentieth century. The concept of “separate spheres” also became less prominent but continued to influence ideas of gender roles. Public spaces like the pub remained segregated until the 1970s and during the 1980s while the Yorkshire Ripper was active women were told by police to not be outside on their own. Our cities continue to be sexist in 2019. Many public spaces continue to be seen as dominions of men: football stadiums, gyms, music concerts and even government buildings. Toilets have also become a new battleground over ideas of who has the right to access which toilet. Cities remain attached to our ingrained and stereotyped ideas of gender.