1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910798145203321

Autore

Spain Daphne

Titolo

Constructive feminism : women's spaces and women's rights in the American city / / Daphne Spain

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, New York ; ; London, [England] : , : Cornell University Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

1-5017-0412-5

1-5017-0413-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (280 p.)

Disciplina

305.4209730904

Soggetti

Feminism - United States - History - 20th century

Women's rights - United States - History - 20th century

Public spaces - United States - History - 20th century

Urban women - United States - History - 20th century

Women and city planning - United States - History - 20th century

Feminism and architecture - United States

Feminist geography - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Spatial Consequences of the Second Wave -- 1. Feminist Practice: Social Movements and Urban Space -- 2. Women's Centers: Nurturing Autonomy -- 3. Feminist Bookstores: Building Identity -- 4. Feminist Health Clinics: Promoting Reproductive Rights -- 5. Domestic Violence Shelters: Protecting Bodily Integrity -- 6. After the Second Wave: Necessary Spaces -- Appendix A: Data Sources for Figure 3 -- Appendix B: Women's Centers, 1973 -- Appendix C: Feminist Bookstores, ca. 1980 -- Appendix D: Feminist Health Clinics, 1975 -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In Constructive Feminism, Daphne Spain examines the deliberate and unintended spatial consequences of feminism's second wave, a social movement dedicated to reconfiguring power relations between women and men. Placing the women's movement of the 1970s in the context



of other social movements that have changed the use of urban space, Spain argues that reform feminists used the legal system to end the mandatory segregation of women and men in public institutions, while radical activists created small-scale places that gave women the confidence to claim their rights to the public sphere.Women's centers, bookstores, health clinics, and domestic violence shelters established feminist places for women's liberation in Boston, Los Angeles, and many other cities. Unable to afford their own buildings, radicals adapted existing structures to serve as women's centers that fostered autonomy, health clinics that promoted reproductive rights, bookstores that connected women to feminist thought, and domestic violence shelters that protected their bodily integrity. Legal equal opportunity reforms and daily practices of liberation enhanced women's choices in education and occupations. Once the majority of wives and mothers had joined the labor force, by the mid-1980s, new buildings began to emerge that substituted for the unpaid domestic tasks once performed in the home. Fast food franchises, childcare facilities, adult day centers, and hospices were among the inadvertent spatial consequences of the second wave.