Women and Public Space in Late-1980s Athens, Greece: Reflections on Gender, Space and Future Cities

Abstract

Our present quest for sustainable cities requires a holistic understanding of city construction and people’s well-being. Feminist scholars have shown that urban space does not attend to women’s needs. This study focuses on women’s everyday life in Athens, Greece in late-1980s. This is a unique spatio-temporal point since it is located at the edge of several prevailing dichotomies – geopolitical, cultural and temporal. It examines how women use, experience and reconstitute public spaces in the city and aims to understand both how public spaces – with their material and social dimensions – restrict women’s lives, and how women reappropriate and (re)constitute urban space. It is based on in-depth interviews with women from three areas of Greater Athens, with different social class profiles. It focuses on neighborhood as a physical space, women’s social networks in the neighborhood and women’s mobility. The main findings include that the nexus of gender and class is inscribed in public spaces so that these restrict women and their right to the city; the organization of public spaces ignores women’s reproductive responsibilities; women participate in the public sphere, but gender hierarchies have not been eliminated; while local social networks are fundamental for women in their efforts to reappropriate public spaces. It concludes that the transition to sustainable – enjoyable – inclusive cities will benefit from incorporating women’s experiences and needs; adopting a socio-spatial perspective that focuses on everyday life; a focus on social reproduction too; and an explicit aim to eliminate gender hierarchies (rather than inclusion).

Citation

Marouli, C. (2024), "Women and Public Space in Late-1980s Athens, Greece: Reflections on Gender, Space and Future Cities", Demos, V.(V). and Segal, M.T. (Ed.) People, Spaces and Places in Gendered Environments (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 34), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620240000034002