Feminist Geography
Feminist Geography
Since its conception, geography has been involved in the development of races and genders, mapping the boundaries that separate and exclude the world of privilege from the other. The imposing eyes that facilitated this domination have recently been challenged to quash their perpetuation of racial difference, and although existing more obscurely, to challenge the sexist legacy remaining in geography.
“As part of geography, feminist approaches within our discipline take the same set of central concepts as their focus as other sub-areas of geography. Thus over the decade feminist geographers have addressed three of the central concepts of the discipline – space, place and nature – and the ways in which these are implicated in the structure of gender divisions in different societies” (McDowell, 1993).
The above quotation illustrates the fundamental point of feminist geography; it is no different from geography as a whole in terms of concepts, only in viewpoint.
Women have remained invisible throughout most of the history of the discipline, and where they have been represented, it has been in subordinate roles, highlighting the world of work as a world for men.
Thus geography has supported the notion of separate public and domestic spheres, based on the ideological divide that has limited the access of women to the public field, and obscured our understanding of gender relations as complex relations of power. The following definition is also important since it highlights the importance placed upon gender by feminist geography, instead of women, thus strengthening their arguments that feminism can also be argued from a masculine point of view.
“There is also a distinct definition of what feminist geography is, or rather should be: ‘a geography which explicitly takes into account the socially created gender structure of society” (Ford & Gregson, 1986)
Feminist geographies
Since its conception, geography has been involved in the development of races and genders, mapping the boundaries that separate and exclude the world of privilege from the other. The imposing eyes that facilitated this domination have recently been challenged to quash their perpetuation of racial difference, and although existing more obscurely, to challenge the sexist legacy remaining in geography.
“As part of geography, feminist approaches within our discipline take the same set of central concepts as their focus as other sub-areas of geography. Thus over the decade feminist geographers have addressed three of the central concepts of the discipline – space, place and nature – and the ways in which these are implicated in the structure of gender divisions in different societies” (McDowell, 1993).
The above quotation illustrates the fundamental point of feminist geography; it is no different from geography as a whole in terms of concepts, only in viewpoint.
Women have remained invisible throughout most of the history of the discipline, and where they have been represented, it has been in subordinate roles, highlighting the world of work as a world for men.
Thus geography has supported the notion of separate public and domestic spheres, based on the ideological divide that has limited the access of women to the public field, and obscured our understanding of gender relations as complex relations of power. The following definition is also important since it highlights the importance placed upon gender by feminist geography, instead of women, thus strengthening their arguments that feminism can also be argued from a masculine point of view.
“There is also a distinct definition of what feminist geography is, or rather should be: ‘a geography which explicitly takes into account the socially created gender structure of society” (Ford & Gregson, 1986)
Feminist geographies