To start this reflection, it is worth mentioning that perhaps the brief excerpt from Woolf's book that best captures the main idea of the book, "[...] She told you how she had come to the prosaic conclusion that one must have 500 pounds a year and a room with a lock on the door in order to write novels or poems [...]", (Woolf, p. 99) and which she repeats a few more times, comes to remind us that women have not had it easy neither in the private space nor in the public space, nor in the world of literature, nor in any other shore or field of life, much less in a broader territory such as the city, just because they are women. As long as there is no equality between men and women, and we do not have the same economic possibilities as well as realization-in-the-world, there will not only be a single struggle to give and we will not have access to a room of our own, to a city of our own.
The metaphor of the own room motivates me to expand it and to think about those spaces that are also for women, for women. Inevitably, because of my work on city issues related to transportation planning, and because of my life experience, as a passenger, urban cyclist, cycle-traveller, and flâneuse [1], I compare the city, on a larger scale, to the own room, but smaller in relation to the dimension of the world. But I also see it as a space that is forbidden to us at certain times, especially at night; that violates us, especially when we experience street sexual harassment and other types of gender-based violence, of which we are also subject-objects by virtue of being women; that limits us because it puts us in dispute over the marking of our bodies in a territory dominated by one gender, the male, and which deepens from intersectionality. On this, Anzaldúa (p. 288) mentions that gender is also an important issue and highlights the dispute over how white culture, for example, emphasizes that we are all equal, men and women, and it is an idea that has also been central in city planning, assuming that it is planned under a "neutral" idea of city experiences for all people.
Anzaldúa, in "Borderlands, La Frontera", develops the concept of "mestiza consciousness", which can have significant implications for urban planning studies, especially regarding the conception and design of inclusive and culturally sensitive urban spaces. Recognizing diversity, understood as the diversity of gender identities and expressions, can inspire urban planners to consider the needs of people of diverse gender identities when designing urban spaces, ensuring they are inclusive and accessible.
From the awareness of borders and limits, those who plan a city can adopt a perspective that recognizes and celebrates cultural and social diversity in cities, fostering integration instead of segregation. Additionally, through the promotion of authenticity and identity, Anzaldúa emphasizes the importance of living authentically according to one's own identity. This can be translated into urban planning by creating spaces that allow people to express themselves and connect with their cultural and gender identities, whether through public art, the preservation of historic neighbourhoods, or the design of inclusive community spaces. And, in relation to challenging heteronormative norms, Anzaldúa questions heteronormative gender norms and promotes the freedom to define one's own gender. In the urban context, this could involve creating policies and programs that support LGBTQ+ people and including their needs in housing, transportation, and public service planning.
Furthermore, gender oppression, Anzaldúa adds "[...] (that is, male exploitation and control of women's productive and reproductive energies on the deceptive basis of a biological difference) originated in the first division of labour, namely. between women and men" (p. 173), in relation to urban planning, focuses attention on trips whose origins and destinations are for work or study and residence and ignores other movements that are associated, for example, with care and which are attributed, to a large extent, to women.
Women's bodies are often the first territory in dispute, and bodily integrity and the right to the city are jeopardized by violence. The "space of power" contaminates, especially because it distorts our own "space", as we see in Virginia Woolf's book. The power dynamics within a space can have a contaminating or distorting effect on our personal space. It can shape social interactions, hierarchies, and the distribution of resources within a given space.
The right to the city for women, according to the manifesto stated on the last 8M for a global mobilization, points out that "speaking of the Right of Women to the City is a matter of social justice, a change in cultural paradigm, to understand not only the complexity of cities but also of identities, the people for whom we are advocating the Right to the City" (Global Platform for the Right to the city).
Woolf, through the metaphor of a room of one's own, also portrays the limitations or restrictions that women have in relation to controlling space and a certain privatization of women to social life, to the right to the city:
"I dallied a moment, couldn't help myself, with the idea of what would have happened if Charlotte Brontë had had, let's say, three hundred pounds a year [...], if she had had more knowledge of the active world, and of cities, and of regions full of life, more practical experience, if she had had contact with people of her kind and dealt with a variety of characters. [...] She knew better than anyone how much her genius would have benefited if it had not been wasted on solitary contemplations of distant fields; if she had been given the experience, the contact with the world and the travels. But they were not given to her, they were denied to her [...]" (Woolf, p. 68 and 69).
What the British author does is to examine how women's access to the public space, to the world, has historically been limited for them. So, she criticizes the exclusion of women from these spaces and highlights how it has affected women's ability to participate in the intellectual and creative culture of society. The city, for Woolf, is the space of opportunities and diversity, the space of experiences and also of perspectives, but it can also be hostile to women who struggle to find a place in it. It could also be said that, for the main character of the book, any contact with the outside.
[1] Neologism coined by Lauren Elkin in her book 'Flâneuse' to refer to the feminine form of 'flâneur' (stroller, in English), a noun from French, whose feminine form refers to a woman who is observant, urban, idle, and adrift.
References:
Anzaldúa, Gloria (2012). Borderlands La Frontera. The new mestiza. Claremont School of Theology.
Anzaldúa, Gloria (2015). This bridge called my black. Suny Press.
Bassam, Nourhan (2023). The Gendered City. How cities keep failing Women. (self-published)
Elkin, Lauren (2017). Flâneuse. Malpaso.
Kern, Leslie (2019). Feminist city. A field guide. Oh! Books Literary agency
¡Por el Derecho a la Ciudad de las mujeres! Global Plathform for the Right to the city (2023). Recuperado el 17 de marzo de https://www.right2city.org/es/news/por-el-derecho-a-la-ciudad-de-las-mujeres/
Woolf, Virginia. (2008). Una habitación propia. Seix Barral (cap. 1, 2).
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