Making Space: The Man-Made City

In her book, Feminist City, urban geographer Leslie Kern exposes the social inequalities built into our cities, homes, and neighborhoods, all hidden in plain sight. In this three-part series join Kern as she offers an alternative vision of city planning, particularly focusing on what it’s like living in public spaces not designed for female bodies and how artists can help us reconsider our urban environments.

Featuring special guest Jodi Throckmorton and part of exhibition programming inspired by Taking Space: Women Artists and the Politics of Scale.

This week will explore how cities have been designed to meet the needs of a “typical” man, while positioning women and others as afterthoughts in planning, architecture, design, and policy-making. We’ll look at examples including transportation systems; the suburbs; gendered safety issues; gendered symbolism;  the division of public and private space; and the gendered division of labor.  

Important Note: To help accommodate diverse schedules, individual class sessions will be recorded and made available to class participants for a week after each class takes place.