Oppression, knowledge and the built environment

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY, Vol. 13, No. l,January 1994,7-32

Oppression, knowledge and the built environment

GLENDA LAws

Dqa?-tment of Geography, II&e Pennsylvania State University, 302 Walker Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA

ABSTRACT. Urban places are not neutral in their impacts on people’s lives. Some environments are oppressive and in certain cases this oppression is contested as people struggle to improve their day-to-day lives. These contests are implicated in the changing forms of our cities. The multiple forms that oppression might take are examined and then the potential responses we see to oppressive situations are outlined. In doing so, the question is asked: whose visions, or knowledges, are being used to map urban form? How do urban landscapes reflect the responses of the oppressed to the hegemonic power structures in which they are socialized? How is the welfare state involved in the production, reproduction and transformation of oppressive and/or just urban landscapes? The example of women’s struggles to make cities less threatening illustrates the ways in which the efforts of the oppressed might transform cityscapes

Introduction

Twenty years after the publication of David Harvey’s (1973) Social Justice and the City the need to explore the concept of, and possibilities for, justice remains with us. The slogan ‘No Justice, No Peace’, chanted in marches, spray painted across gutted buildings and broadcast into millions of homes during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, made the issue of social justice and injustice a little more visible, and possibly more threatening. But injustice is not only contested in mass violence of the sort witnessed during urban riots. Women, for example, who argue against the injustice of an urban system which prevents them from walking city streets at night for fear of violent attack, demand better street lighting and escort services. Similarly, gay men who risk attack in a society that promotes compulsory heterosexism work to promote a tolerance of diverse sexual orientations. These women and men may never be attacked but they live in fear of attack. This in itself is unjust; fear reflects an oppressive social structure to which people respond in a variety of ways. Public struggles around justice and oppression are more often than not resolved, satisfactorily or otherwise, within the state and its institutional forms which vary over space.

In this essay I use the notion of oppression as a means to advance discussions of geographies of the welfare state along several fronts. I have three specific objectives. First, studies of the geographies of the welfare state have tended to focus on particular, empirically defined client groups such as the elderly, the disabled, the homeless and the

0962-6298/13/01 0007-26 0 1994 Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd

8 Oppression, knowledge and the built envivonment

mentally ill. These studies often assume some essential characteristic of the population which separates them from the popu~sion at large. Similarly, Marxian analyses which use theoretically derived categories assume that people’s class positions are the primary determinants of their relationship with the state. They thus present a universal vision of the oppressive processes which cause people to become clients of the welfare state. In this paper, I propose that we move beyond the shortcomings of such essentialist arguments by considering the possibility of multiple and cumulative causes of oppression and the consequences this has for the form of the welfare state. I draw upon the recent work of Iris Marion Young (1990) who has articulated a theory of social justice which centralizes dz@mnce while decentering the importance of the hegemonic notion of distributive justice (see yawls, 1971; Harvey, 1973). Unlike some earlier attempts to define justice, she lays out a clear analysis of the multiple forms that oppression, the antithesis of social justice, can take. My second objective is to explore the ways in which people respond to these many oppressive situations. Marxian analysis argues that class struggle is a primary determinant of social change. But, if we accept that class position is not the essential cause of oppression and that oppression can take on many forms, we might expect that there are many different types of struggles which can reshape our lives. Women and people of color, for example, struggle to change patriarchal and racist structures. Not surprisingly, privileged groups will fight to maintain their positions. Dy discussing oppression, its multiple forms and the possible responses to these, I hope to suggest that the forces shaping the geographical m~ifes~tions of the welfare state are much more complex than might be discerned from essentialist arguments. In working towards these two goals, my third objective will be achieved: to show that the lessons from feminist theory have implications far beyond the study of women. The latest wave of feminist theory building (and that of the so-called post-colonial writers) has answered criticisms of ethnocentrism by drawing attention to the notion of the Other, a category which describes people who live in subordination to the Self (see Grossberg et al., 1992 for a sampling of the debates; Pile and Rose, 1992 illustrate the application of these debates within geography). The recognition that feminism, along with other attempts to develop universal theories, denied the diversity of human experience has very real implications for how we proceed in our research, regardless of the particular population being studied (see for example, Katz, 1991: 490).

A central assumption of this essay is that confrontations between oppressed and oppressor parties are responsible for the ongoing restructuring of urban areas. Groups engaged in oppositional confrontations contest the concept of social justice, both politically and theoretically. My focus is on responses to these oppressions. People fight for justice, o&en with contradictory outcomes, and a consideration of the strategies used to oppose instances of oppression allows us to understand some of the struggles to transform unjust urban landscapes. To begin to understand the injustices which create oppressive situations it is first necessary to consider the knowledge bases on which decisions are made. In the section that follows, I argue that knowledge is organized hierarchically such that ‘scientific’ arguments are given more credibility than are those from the ‘grass roots’ or ‘the margins’. Within this hierarchy, a cacophony of voices argues over the form and function of, for example, urban places but the selective denial of certain (grass-roots) knowledges renders some voices inaudible. I then consider the range of possible responses to oppressive situations. There are several possible respondents (the oppressed themselves, their advocates and the oppressors), each of whom has numerous options from which to choose in their reaction to oppressive situations; most generaliy, these can be described as passive and active responses. Mapping out these responses creates a

GLENDALAWS 9

typology which helps us discuss not only the everyday experiences of oppression but also

its long-term reproduction or transformation. The interaction of these various respondents is implicated in the creation of welfare state institutions which are formally recognized as the (not always effective) arbiters of conflicts over public justice. It is within the context of the welfare state that I describe the spatial, or geographic, dimensions of oppression. Finally, I begin an exploration of the links between oppression and struggles to create built environments, and thus local geographies, which are less oppressive to women. The built environment is an important focus in discussions of social justice because of its dominance in our everyday lives, in both real and symbolic terms. It has become the target of outrage of oppressed peoples, as evident in the ‘urban unrest’ typical of riots around the world. The symbolic destruction and/or occupation of buildings has been used in struggles of many different types: student protests, opposition to despotic government regimes and race relations, to name but a few. Women’s movements, the focus of the discussion in the final section of this paper, have focused their attention on efforts at reconstructing cities as places that are more hospitable and less dangerous for women, children and ‘vulnerable’ (e.g., gay) men who have been the targets of public violence. While the example is specific to struggles around gendered spaces, the lesson from the discussion is more general: oppressed people can and do challenge built forms which they see as unjust and the form of the (oppressive) urban experience can subsequently change.

Oppression, social justice and knowledge

Who are the oppressed? We all have some common-sense notion of what we mean though we probably would not come up with the same lists if we were asked to give examples of oppressed peoples. Some would agree that the homeless are oppressed but others would say that this is not the case. Likewise, there is little consensus over whether or not women are oppressed in the workplace. Many people believe that if women work hard, they can do as well as men. For some, the notion of the ‘glass ceiling’ is a myth, not an indicator of oppression. The vagueness of the term ‘oppression’ is seemingly helpful neither in terms of research nor political agendas. But its attraction lies in the fact that it does not carry with it baggage that might elevate one cause of oppression above any other. Young (1990: ch. 2) has clarified the discussion immensely by arguing that there are five forms of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence (Table I). These may occur simultaneously or independently of one another. A social group might be expoited in the labor market but not necessarily subject to violence (e.g., the working class in most situations though violence might erupt during strikes). Other groups (e.g., old people) might be marginalized by being denied access to the labor market’s exploritative structures. Still other social groups (e.g., gay men and women) may not be marginalized (in the sense of material deprivation) but the cultural imperialism of a heterosexual society leaves them vulnerable to violent attacks (Grahn, 1970).

To Young’s five faces of oppression I would like to add knowledge demX1 Oppressed people have remained outside the mainstream of aaukmic discourse as subjects, agents or authors of knowledge even though they are frequently the object of academic analyses (Harding, 1987; also Collins, 1986; Hartsock, 1987; hooks, 1984; Smith, 1987). But, since they are interested in changing social relations and structures, oppressed people are also committed to producing knowledge useful in achieving such changes (Hartsock, 1987). Too often this knowledge is hidden by the sixth form of oppression which involves the tendency of modern science to deny the importance of the Other, a tendency which has come under close scrutiny in the shift toward postmodern and feminist approaches to the

10 Opprssion, knowledge and the built environment

TABLE 1. Young’s five faces of oppression

Definition Example

Exploitation

Powerlessness

Cultural imperialism

Violence

Benefits of the labor of one social group transferred to another in both waged and non-waged labor markets

Labor market excludes certain groups from employment; leads to involuntary unemployment and material deprivation

Inability to participate in decision making which affects one’s life

Dominant values are seen as the social norm and negate the perspective of the dominated thus creating the Other

Manual vs. mental labor: workers must abide by decisions of professionals; community norms of respectability privilege professionals

Homophobia, white supremacism, ageism

Unprovoked attack on the basis of Racial attacks, rape, emotional abuse, hostility towards the Other ‘gay bashing’

Workplace: entrepeneurs benefit from labor of workers Home: men benefit from the labor of women

Forced retirement: discrimination in the labor market on the basis of race or physical and mental abilities

Source: Young (1990: ch. 2).

study of social problems (see essays in Harding, 1987; also Lout-de, 1984; Nichoison, I990). Elizabeth Janeway (1980: 6) notes that:

Contemporary charts of the social world have been drawn up by the powerful without much regard for the ideas of the weak. They’re based on events as seen by the powerful and interpreted by way of associations and connections that match the experience of the powerful. Our new discoveries [i.e., those of ‘the weak’] are off the map.

She and other feminist theorists help us understand the consequences of denying certain social groups access to the academy. People of color, women and homosexuals have often been studied, usually in comparison with a ‘control’ group of white, straight men and, as a result, oppressed groups have usually been the analytical objects of research which reinforces their peripheral status since the research finds that the ‘objects’ deviate from the (white, straight, male) norm (see Tavris, 1992). Hartsock (1987: 159) makes the point that since the material life of the oppressor and the oppressed are fundamentally different then we should expect that not only will ‘the vision of each . . represent an inversion of the other’ but also that ‘the vision of the dominant will be partial and perverse’. Only partial knowledge can be created and reproduced in an academy that not only ignores, but actively denies, the importance of Other voices. This point is at the center of debates about political correctness in US universities (d’Souza, 1991).

Admitting oppressed voices into the academy leads to new knowledge since the interests of the oppressed are different. ‘Ours is a world’, Martha Minnow (1990: 375) writes, ‘that has made difference matter’ (emphasis added). Difference is created and reproduced by people engaged in modern scientific exercises aimed at uncovering essential characteristics that differentiate individuals and, ironically, which subsequently

GLENDA JAWS 11

let those individuals be regrouped on the basis of purportedly universal attributes (the Linnaean task of classification). Such homogenization of social groups on the basis of selected attributes denies difference within those groups. Thus, stereotypes associated with phenotype have been used to justify oppression of racially ‘distinct’ groups as though variations within the black, white and Asian populations, for exampie, have no meaning. Further, the differences purportedly identihed by modern science have been used to exclude certain groups from the scientific endeavor. It is therefore in the interest of the excluded groups to produce arguments which challenge the orthodoxy of those who exclude them, and to turn the argument on its head: instead of being a reason for denying their entry into academic, corporate and government positions, difference is in fact the very reason why other voices should be heard.2 ~owledge-producing exercises of oppressed groups are less likely to be partial and more likely to be characterized by what Sandra Harding (1991) has referred to as ‘strong objectivity’ since they produce an understanding of oppression that would be impossible from people who are not themsetves oppressed.

I have left myself open to the criticism that my discussion thus far has implied that knowledge is something which is produced in the academy. However, this is not the case. Feminist theory is concerned not only with the ‘formal’ production of knowledge within university settings but also with the knowledge that is created in day-to-day lives, Hierarchies of knowledge production and consumption have, however, tended to denigrate the significance of knowlege acquired through experience. But we know that the entry of women into the workforce, of racial minorities into professional positions, of the disabled into community settings have all produced new forms of knowledge. The shift away from institutional forms of care for people with disabilities has pointed to the problems of the form and function of our cities. Very simple ideas about the slopes of curb cuts are modified as the disabled are given greater voice in the planning process. Oppressive situations can be changed by listening to those on the bottom of the knowledge hierarchy. Their knowledge of oppression and the forms it takes can indeed lead to new and different ways of seeing.

Created, maintained and reproduced by power relations within society, oppression is anything but static. Individuals and social groups contest their status through various mechanisms which may be more or less successful against dominant power structures (see Katz, 1991 for a study of struggles over local knowledge). The most pervasive mechanisms for institutionalizing power relations in society are state institutions which control and regulate behavior. It can be argued that the state is involved in racist (Kondox,1992), gendered (Graham, 1984) ageist (Phillipson, 1982), and heterosexist (e.g., current struggles in the USA over fair-housing ordinances which would outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation), as well as class, struggles around dominant power relations; it is as multifaceted as oppression itself. If the state is seen as a site of struggle, then the possibility for transformation as well as reproduction of oppressive power relations within the state needs to be considered (LEWRG, 1979). Similarly, viewing oppression as a social relation, 3 instead of the result of some innate attribute of select groups, makes it possible to contemplate its challenge, reshaping or destruction. Educational institutions are indeed some of the most powerful state institutions and have been the sites of productive struggles against cultural imperialism and other forms of oppression.

The multiple faces of oppression described here are not reducible to any one essential cause. They are historically and cumulatively constituted and thus materially grounded in prevailing social structures (Harding, 1987; Hartsock, 1987; Young, 1990*). Social and

12 Oppression, knowledge and the built environment

individual identities are created in the face of struggles over relations of class, gender and race (the most common menage h trois Uoseph, 19811 called into causal explanations which claim to be non-essentialist). But there is no logical reason (although there may be historical ones) to stop at three ‘non-essential causes’, as has been demonstrated by those who have shown the importance of including sexuality in discussions of oppressive social relations (Aptheker, 1989: ch. 3). Age, physical and mental abilities, and language can also

be seen as mechanisms of social oppression. People under a certain age are rendered powerless by being denied the right to vote; courts remove the rights of individuals to control their affairs by virtue of their ‘unsound mind; depending on their language, Canadian citizens might be rendered relatively powerless in some locations within their home country. Historically framed social identities and locations, including oppressed as well as privileged ones, have an infinity of constitutive causes (Graham, 1990), the cumulative consequences of which are felt in situ. And it is in locally defined places that people organize to resist social relations which they find unacceptable.

Responses to oppression

What kinds of locally organized responses to oppressive situations can we observe? Viewing oppression as a social relation, with a material basis, begs the twin questions of first, who is involved in these relations and second, what are their roles? To simplify the discussion, I am assuming that oppression exists, independent of its relational causes, as something that can be responded to. But, as I have argued above, oppression is actually a process, always in a state of flux: of becoming, of being transformed, of being destroyed. My diagrammatic representation (Figure I) of responses to (a thing or a state called) oppression is useful only in that it will allow me to describe the contradictions and ambiguities surrounding the processes and practices of oppression. There are three classes of (not necessarily mutually exclusive) potential respondents: the oppressed themselves, their advocates and the oppressors. Each of these three respondents can potentially act in a passive or active fashion and within the active responses there are possibilities for both resistive and manipulative moves. Thus, there are nine ideal types of responses to oppression which simultaneously might result in the transformation or reproduction of that state.

Types I-III are responses which I describe as passive in that they may amount to non-responses because of a general acceptance of the oppresssed status. Such non-responses tend to reinforce, perpetuate and reproduce oppression, and are typically displayed by those who see oppression (in whatever form) as somehow ‘natural’ or inevitable and who therefore believe it is difficult to alter the status quo. Conservative commentators on poverty, for example, will often refer to the inevitability of a chronically poor segment of the population for whom little can be done. In contrast, response types IV through IX illustrate the struggles which develop around oppressive circumstances.

It is not unusual for the oppressed to resign themselves to their position and passively accept their oppression. Oscar Lewis (1968) captured this attitude when he described the ‘culture of poverty’ characterized by a sense of hopelessness and futility on the part of those who were poor. More recently, writing of sexism as one form of group oppression, bell hooks (1984: 43) describes the role of ‘the victims themselves who are socialized to behave in ways that make them act in complicity with the status quo’. Feelings of

GLENDA L4ws

Potential Respondents

13

FIGURE 1. Typology of responses to oppression.

despondency and pessimism make people respond to their oppression in a collaborative fashion rather than by mounting strong challenges.

There are at least two possible explanations for these seemingly collaborative actions. First, a consciousness of oppression, particularly a group consciousness, may not be present. Indeed many of us may not even recognize that we are oppressed because of the tendency in modern societies to ‘naturalize’ differences between people. We can probably all recall occasions when we ‘became aware’ of the fact that it was our race or gender that opened (or closed) opportunities which we had taken for granted as accessible (or inaccessible). Marxists have argued for some time that a collective class consciousness is necessary to challenge hegemonic class practices. Similarly, women must be willing to admit that male domination is a cause of their marginal status before they can fight against patriarchal structures and acts of discrimination. Oppressed groups need then to recognize the causes of their oppression before they can fight it. But, as bell hooks notes, we are all socialized by dominant cultural paradigms; if the hegemonic belief is that homosexuality is an indicator of individual deviance it will take some time before a social group consciousness emerges to challenge that belief.

A second explanation is that the oppressed consciously accept their status. Again, it is worth listening to Oscar Lewis when he defines the culture of poverty as ‘both an ahptation and a reaction of thepoor to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individualized, capitalistic society’ (1968: 188; emphasis added). Acknowledging the conscious acceptance of an oppressive situation takes on special significance in the light of

14 Oppresion, knowledge and the built envivonment

Young’s cataloging of different forms of oppression. It is often more expedient, and less threatening, to accept the cultural imperialism of a homophobic society than to risk violent attacks. After watching the US Senate interrogation of Anita Hill, many American women probably believe that it is better to put up with the emotional violence of sexual harassment than to face the possibilities of marginalization through job loss. Oppressed

people, especially when they are acting as individuals, develop tactics and coping strategies which may include what appears to be a passive endorsement of their circumstances. But I wish to stress here that passive does not necessarily mean unconscious; oppressed people are resourceful people.

Type II

Advocates for the oppressed may also pursue accepting responses. Again, this is due in part to the fact that advocates have similarly been socialized within a society which erects oppressive social relations and structures. Their actions often derive from the ‘naturalistic’ interpretations of individual and group status. Someone is seen to be poor because of some inherent attribute like laziness. Advocates who subscribe to such a view are most likely to be charitable in their responses: there is little that can be done for the long-term position of the poor, so well-intended short-term assistance in terms of cash or in-kind donations are deemed to be appropriate responses.

But advocates have been criticized for some of the more malevolent outcomes of their actions. It is actually in the best interests of social workers, psychiatrists and other ‘helping professions’ to maintain dependency and therefore to reproduce the populations which constitute their clients (Illich, 1977). Advocates are thus placed in a contradictory position which may see them simultaneously advocating for and oppressing their clients (at least in the sense that they are not doing anything to remove them from oppression). Dominant ideologies that venerate the nuclear family, for example, feed a counselling profession which ‘helps’ the ‘victims’ of family breakdown. Client and professional must accept the powerlessness that goes along with the victim role if the professional relationship is ‘to work. Indeed, much advocacy work reflects the view that the less privileged are impotent or unqualified when it comes to helping themselves. Undoubtedly, many of us take on this position as academics when we offer our ‘expertise’ to produce knowledge (and change?) that could not come from those living in the margins without our help.

Type III

One can imagine that the oppressors are most likely to foster the status quo by being conservative in their responses. Power holders promote social stability to maintain their positions of dominance. In classical Marxist terminology, capitalists must exploit workers if they are to remain capitalists. The exploiter is unlikely to stop exploitation even though s/he may not approve of violence or cultural imperialism as forms of oppression. And it is unlikely that ‘exploiters’ see themselves as such: they perceive themselves as people who are providing other people with jobs and thereby contributing to the collective good. In the same way that the oppressed must be conscious of their position if more than collusive actions are to transpire, so too must the oppressor. Without such a recognition it is unlikely that the oppressor will react with anything other than a passive response. At the same time, however, recognition will not necessarily lead to actions which stop oppression.

The respondents I have identified, however, are not necessarily, nor usually, passive; there are several aggressive responses (types IV through IX) to oppression and the

G~~VDA Lws 15

processes that cause it. Active responses mean that the various agents engage in actions which seek to alter social conditions, by either reducing or removing oppressive structures and relations or, in the case of the dominating groups, by expanding the class of oppressed. There are two types of active responses: those in which the oppression is resisted and those in which the labels used to oppress are seized and manipulated.

The oppressed themselves resist and contest their positions, evident, for example, in political coalitions of homeless people, racial groups and workers. Elizabeth Janeway (1980: 61) describes one of the major Powers of the Weak as ‘the refusal to accept the definition of oneself that is put forward by the powerful’. Black feminists have insisted that they not be peripheralized within ‘the feminist movement’ by pointing out that there are many feminisms. I argued in the previous section for me recognition of the power of knowledge denial, the process whereby the knowledge created by the Other is denied a legitimate position within the academy and elsewhere. Although this probably does not seem to be the most pressing form of oppression to someone without a home, I think it is worth our attention given that most readers of this article are likely to be academics and we need to remind oursefves of the role we play in oppression. For Patricia Hill Collins, it is important that those who have been oppressed through exclusion from academic discourses, those who have been outsiders, find their way to the ‘inside’ where they can play the role of the ‘outsider inside’ bringing the perspective from the margins into the center (Collins, 1986). As noted in the previous section, the marginalized must challenge their exclusion from certain roles within the academy, particularly those of the authors of knowledge. The entry of black women into the academy surely has made a difference to all types of research that are being conducted and discussed in academic circles. The entry of other oppressed groups can undoubtedly have similar consequences. Without doubt, there have always been gay men (and lesbians to a lesser degree because of the underrepresentation of women) within academic circles. But the governing attitudes of the heterosexual majority meant that homosexual voices were denied (Duberman, 1988; Padging and Weaver, 1988). Likewise, the inhospitable nature of many university campuses has denied the voice of the disabled, a situation being challenged by pressures to rebuild the physical structure of university campuses at the same time that there has been a powerful questioning of popular stereotypes of people with disabilities (Oliver, 1990).

Returning to Young’s schema (Table I), we would also expect to see struggles of resistance develop around exploitation (in both the workplace and the home), powerlessness (not just in electoral politics but in all levets of decision making), marginal~tion (struggles over the discriminatory nature of mandatory retirement poiicies), cultural imperialism (the gay rights movement), and violence (struggles around family violence, human rights movements). Resistance to dominant views about the right to work between certain ages and the appropriateness of particular household formations clearly indicate active struggles which constantly reshape our day-to-day lives and which have longer-term consequences. But, it is not only the oppressed who resist the labels and stereotypes heaped upon them.

D!! v In this case, advocares for oppressed social groups also develop strategies of resistance. There are white antiracists, heterosexuals who fight homophobia, and males who will


argue on behalf of feminist principles. As academics we can participate in this struggle through our teaching and research. As a white woman I cannot offer a first-hand account of the experiences of black women who have struggled to reach their particular viewpoint but I can ensure that their work is part of my curriculum. Outside the academy, I can attempt to argue the need for marginalized voices on committees that I as a white, economically privileged woman have access to. I can (try to) ensure that in meetings where I am ‘a minority’, an outsider, that I do not use the privilege of my education and the status accorded my profession to dominate the direction of discussions, That is, I have the option of resisting stereotypic power relations and by doing so I can try to resist the oppression of some people, even, if only in very local circumstances, Local experiences can be empowering and may lead to wider changes.

Type VI

The oppressors can also respond in a resistive manner. They may thwart the extension of certain entitlements to particular groups of individuals. Attempts to reduce welfare rolls, for example, are really efforts to resist ‘too many’ people ‘seizing’ the category that defines entitlement (see Type VII below). This is a strategy that creates many different envelopes of oppression. As Minnow (1990) pointed out, our society dwells on difference and so creating a pool of people entitled to a particular label will also create a pool of people not entitled to such a label. The ambiguities and contradictions of the oppression process are clearly illustrated in this type of response. Oppressors create marginal peoples in order to maintain their own position but they also resist the universal application of labels of oppression lest they be called upon to assist these populations. Universality, however, denies difference and thus fits the agendas of those who believe that everyone should be treated the same because everyone has the same opportunities for advancement. This is probably the primary reason for resisting labels: for the oppressors labels are a means by which special-interest groups can organize and recruit support.

Active resistive responses are indeed contradictory. Oppression can be resisted by any number of potential respondents but the outcomes are not always the same. At times, however, dominated groups are not so keen to shed the labels which have been used to keep them in an oppressed position. Some struggles, grouped together in the final class of my typology, are aimed at ‘seizing’ the oppressing label and using it to the benefit of oppressed groups. Here I find it useful to draw upon some of the ideas being proposed by those who see themselves working in the ‘social-problems-work paradigm. Central to this analysis is the role of ‘claims makers’, those agents who are able to translate an ‘objective social condition’ into a ‘social problem’ by drawing attention to particular conditions in such a way that others respond in a collective fashion (Miller and Holstein, 1989). Loseke’s (1992) analysis of the ‘social construction of wife abuse’ provides an excellent example of this approach to social problems. She opens her book with the statement that:

[i]n the mid-1970s, three new social categories appeared in America. One category labeled a new social problem-‘wife abuse’, one labeled a new type of person-‘battered woman’, and one labeled a new type of social service- ‘shelters for the battered woman’. (1992: 1)

She then proceeds to note that wife abuse was not new; it was just that, for a variety of reasons, during the 1970s the public was convinced that wife abuse was not only unacceptable but that it also ‘required and deserved public sympathy’ (1992: 2). This perspective is important for several reasons: first, it centralizes the socially constructed

GLENDA LAWS 17

nature of oppression; second, it points to the fact that for some people (e.g., abused

women) it is advantageous to accept the label in order to muster the support necessary for moving out of the oppressive (in this case, violent) situation.

Type VII

Because it becomes important in specific situations to be seen as ‘different’ in order to

have something done on your behalf, people consciously and deliberately choose to wear the label of difference as a means of having their oppression made visible and politicized. Jan Pettmen (1991: 190) captures this argument when she points out that dominated people:

resist, subvert, use and collude in their own interests. They may ‘seize the category’, claim it for their own and invert it, attaching positive value where before it was negative. They seek to use the common experiences of those so labelled to organize, mobilize and claim against dominant groups and the (their) state.

Similarly, bell hooks (1990: 149) points to the creative possibilities which emerge from oppression, a condition that is ‘more than a site of deprivation it is also the site of radical possibility, a space of resistance’. For hooks, oppression is not necessarily a status:

one wishes to lose-to give up or surrender as part of moving into the center-but rather [it can be] a site one stays in, clings to even, because it nourishes one’s capacity to resist. It offers to one the possibility of radical perspective from which to see and create, to imagine alternatives, new worlds,

(1990: 149-150)

Indeed this is the argument expounded by many feminists disappointed in those men and women who measure the success of the women’s movement by counting the number of women in executive positions. Such a ‘movement to the center’ has not necessarily been accompanied by more fundamental shifts in social relations. It may signify that women are more successfully adopting men’s identities rather than the creation of new social relations in which masculine and feminine identities are equally valued. Because of the different knowledges created by experience, women at the periphery, those who live on the margins, are more likely to be able to present critiques of marginalizing power structures than those who have found their way to the center.

Type VIII

Advocates, who often play the role of ‘claims makers’, may likewise promote the manipulation of the oppressive label. An example of this was recently brought to my attention by a senior bureaucrat in the Ontario government. A recently elected government was trying to reorganize the delivery of social services in the province. One strategy which was receiving support within the government was to amalgamate all service-delivery programs into one accounting envelope so that all populations with special needs would be accessing the same pool of money under the same regulations. One of the government’s intentions was clearly to save money by avoiding service and administrative duplication, an argument that is not unreasonable. However, advocates for certain client groups fiercely resisted being placed into the same category as other clients. This was particularly the case for the advocates of the developmentally handicapped since


there has been specific legislation covering that population for some time and they thus have separate and direct access to government resources. Strategically it would not be in their interest to be placed into a generic category. Purposeful, autonomy-insistent actions such as these may have little more than collusive consequences in certain situations and may in fact be responsible for the reproduction of peripheral identities. But, if one accepts that society is differentiated on many dimensions, ‘social justice requires explicitly

acknowledging and attending to these group differences in order to undermine oppression’ (Young, 1990: 3).

The oppressors’ responses here are less clear: would they actually seize the category? Would they acknowledge difference? The answer is yes to both questions, for political purposes. The divide-and-conquer strategy of military exercises has important advantages in the quest to maintain dominance. It is an important tactic in electoral politics. The seniors’ and women’s lobbies generate votes that other lobbies do not. So, it is likely that it is in the interests of the oppressor groups to promote fragmentation amongst dominated peoples. The oppressor is, after all, aImost by definition, usually the one who imposes the oppressed status to begin with. White racists, for example, created a view of the black population as a people who were ‘naturally’ unfit for anything other than slavery, a process that has resulted in all six faces of oppression being experienced by black populations in many parts of the world. And the view of the black population as being peripheral to the interests of the dominant mainstream is only too clear in electoral politics where (white) politicians do relatively little to court the vote of African-Americans. The ‘discovery’ of a high incidence of AIDS amongst homosexual men has been used expeditiously by those who wish to oppress these men; the disease was initially seen as a homosexual disease, a view that fed into the hostility aimed towards the gay, supposedly ‘deviant’ lifestyle (Albert, 1989). So, when the gay communi~ lobbies for money for AIDS research it feeds the wrath of those who believe this is good enough reason to ignore the problem. AIDS is appropriated by both the oppressor and the oppressed. The appropriation of terms by oppressor social groups is an example of the ways in which they too can ‘seize’ the category.

It is not always clear that the acts of the oppressors are distinct from those of the advocates, or even the oppressed themselves who, as has been noted, may in fact collude to reproduce their own oppression. At any particular conjuncture, there may be multiple processes of oppression intersecting and, although the task of empirical research is to identify these processes, there are a range of possibilities which must be considered in studies around oppression. One important question raised by the typological presentation is the degree to which we can ‘predict’ that one type of response is more likely to occur than another. The focus on human agency in this typology is not to be confused with a pluralist ‘everyone-has-equal-access’ approach. These categories of human agents are defined within a social context which they constantly work to reshape. The primary relationship used to distinguish between the three ideal-type respondents is one of oppression which, in turn, is a form of power relations. Paraphrasing Chris Weedon (1987:

3), I would argue that:

. . . [oppressive] relations are structural . , . they exist in ~sti~tio~s and social practices of our society and cannot be explained by the intentions, good or bad, of individual women or men.

GLENDA Lows 19

Accordingly, some respondents are more powerful than others and are thus more, though not necessarily, likely to succeed in having their voices heeded. Importantly, then, we must note that the outcomes of these responses may be empowering or not, and these results may not neatly align themselves with those we might predict by simply identifying the respondent. I have argued here that the oppressed, For example, might be implicated in their own oppression, albeit for complex reasons. How are these responses formalized into the political process?

The welfare state and spaces of oppression

Oppression is about power and most often studies of power relations within political geography have focused upon the role of ‘the state’. Yet missing from my typology, as a distinct respondent, is the welfare state, partly as a deliberate attempt to keep human agents separate from institutional responses. More importantly, however, I want to argue that welfare state actions will depend upon the interplay of these ideal-type responses. Following the general line of argument presented in the typology, responses by the state are historically and geographically contingent upon social conditions which both determine and are determined by the form of the state in any one place and time (see Driver, 1991). The welfare state is overdetermined by the agents and actions identified in this typology. It may define the legislative and political parameters in which the responses can occur (e.g., announcements asking for time-limited public response to a change in a community’s official plan). But, at the same time, those parameters might be changed by contests over oppressive situations (e.g., the passage of the Ameriazns with ~~i~i~s Act which opens up opportunities for disabled people in the workplace and communi~). Offe (1984: 95) describes, for example, the ways in which the state is implicated in the creation of a core and marginal pool of labor power, pools which I would argue are constantly in a state of flux as people resist being allocated to the ‘marginal’ category:

When, and for how Iong, individuals remain outside the labor market, the decision whether someone is too old, sick, young, disabled, or has a valid claim to be part of the education system or social provision must be left neither to individual needs nor to the monetary chances of subsistence outside the market. These choices must be positively regulated through politically defined criteria, for otherwise there would be incalculable tendencies for wage-laborers to evade their function by slipping into the flanking subsystems. This is why a precondition of the constitution of a class of wage-laborers is the political instihltio~lization-notjust the de facto maintenance-of various categon’es of non-wage laborers. (emphasis added)

The functionalism of this statement aside, Offe makes the useful point that political institutionalization of certain practices of oppression, illustrated here through the formalization of difference between workers and non-workers, is of fundamental importance in the reproduction of oppressed people. While Offe’s clitic-economy perspective restricts his analysis to a dichotomy between those employed in the labor market and those outside that market, the state is also implicated in the regulation of relations which exist independently of the waged labor market: gender, race and intergenerational relations, and those between gay men and lesbians and the ‘straight’ society are all in some way a cause and an effect of state policy. Historical inertia means that a state apparatus (i.e., institutional forms of the state) exists independent of the interactions between the different agents I have identified and is simultaneously a cause

20 Oppresrion, knowledge and the built environment

and an effect of the process of oppression. For example, state legislation around the world formalized the process of retirement, a process that not only constituted a social group called ‘retirees’ but which also became commonly used to define ‘the elderly’ (Markides and Cooper, 1987). Retirement marginalized members of these groups by excluding them from the workforce. In this case, the form of state institution (retirement and pension policies) was oppressive because it effectively mandated the marginalization of a certain segment of the adult population. Pensions for the elderly illustrate the contradictions of oppression: the oppressor groups (business interests who sought younger, more efficient workers) argued for ‘retirement’, thus jettisoning a whole class of workers into a marginal existence. Labor representatives and advocates for the elderly resisted this process and argued for some minimum pension to ensure that the elderly could live in some comfort (Denby, 1933; Pennsylvania Commission on Old Age Pensions, 1919). First at local levels (company pensions for workers in particular industries) and gradually at the national level,

pensions were introduced by the state, evidence that the elderly and their advocates were not entirely powerless (see essays in Markides and Cooper, 1987). A new form of the state was thus created out of the interactions of oppressed (i.e., marginalized) peoples and their advocates, and their oppressors. The introduction of pensions anticipated the establishment of an array of programmes that punctured once and for all the laissez-faire stance of the 19thcentury state. It also implicated the state in the institutionalization of oppressive social relations. For while income maintenance programmes like pensions ostensibly helped people, they also acted as a public sanctioning of the marginal existence that some people are subjected to when they become recipients of government assistance. Welfare payments at or below officially defined poverty levels, for example, force people into marginal positions. Without doubt, the welfare state has acted as a contradictory institution and its evolution has witnessed the development of an infrastructure suitable for both proactive and reactive responses to oppression (e.g., welfare departments, appeals tribunals). Importantly, as noted, it is this infrastructure that helps designate people to categories that can result in more or less oppression.

Once definitions used to differentiate and oppress have been established (the mentally ill suffer from certain conditions, the disabled are those so defined by procedures that decide whether or not someone is entitled to be absent from the workforce, the elderly are defined by legislation which determines at what age one can leave the workforce), the state is then able to make (legal) decisions in light of these definitions. For example, someone may or may not receive a disability pension on the basis of a comparison of their personal situation with some guidelines established in law. Until relatively recently, an older worker could be forced to leave the labor force on the basis of age, and for no other reason. It is the legal apparatus of the state which more often than not identifies and institutionalizes boundaries between people and these boundaries are then used to treat people differentially (Minnow, 1990). The creation of categories which suggest that people are worthy, or not, of public aid from the welfare state is to be expected from a modernist state. While it appears that oppressed people are being fragmented on the basis of age, familial status or (dis)ability, these categories are still universalizing in that they hide the multiple faces of oppression that have been described in this essay. ‘The elderly’ are represented as though they constitute a homogeneous collection. The fact that some may suffer exploitation and marginalization while others may be more susceptible to violence is hidden by such a representation. Just as feminists have drawn attention to the fact that women suffer from multiple oppressions (not just those found within patriarchy) (Johnson, 1987), so too we must question the institutionalized representations of other oppressed groups.

GLENDALAWS 21

Boundaries between oppressed groups, and between oppressor and oppressed, are created by comparisons which are generally made within a specific social context which is

spatially circumscribed. For bell hooks (1984: ix), these boundaries are part and parcel of the geographies of oppression in which dominated groups are situated:

To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body. As black Americans living in a small Kentucky town, the railroad tracks were a daily reminder of our oppression. Across those tracks were paved streets, stores we could not enter, restaurants we could not eat in, and people we could not look directly in the face. Across those tracks was a world we could work in as maids, as janitors, as prostitutes, as long as it was in a service capacity. We could enter that world but we could not live there. We had always to return to the margin, to cross the tracks, to shacks and abandoned houses on the edge of town.

There were laws to ensure our return. To not return was to risk being punished [under state-mandated laws].

Society is constituted in space and, more importantly perhaps, space acts as both a ‘container’ and a ‘shaper’ of social processes. Accordingly, social relations, oppressive and otherwise,5 are constituted in and by space (Dear and Welch, 1989; Gregory and Urry, 1985; Jones and Kodras, 1990). Consideration of the ways in which geographies of

oppression are created (and destroyed) in space can be illustrated by thinking about how

those geographies are, at least partially, determined by the actions of the state. It is

generally state legislation which oversees the creation and maintenance of the built

environments which are used to house the aged, the mentally ill, the physically challenged and those in conflict with the justice system. Actions of the state may at the same time be oppressive in that they limit the spatial mobility of some people. For example, keeping welfare payments at or below poverty level limits the housing possibilities available to the poor. But, we must also acknowledge the possibility of liberatory results from the struggles around oppression, The decriminalization of homosexuality in someplaces, for example, has made it easier for gay men and lesbians to fight the cultural imperialism of heterosexual societies. Clearly ‘coming out’ makes some gay men and women vulnerable to violent attack but, at least formally, they can be protected under the law.

While there is relatively little controversy over the idea that social relations are created, recreated and destroyed in space, what does it mean to say that oppression is constituted @ space? Spatial structures undoubtedly contribute to the oppression of many groups and individuals. Think of the marginalization (i.e., exclusion from the workforce) of the disabled population; it is largely the difficulties these people have in negotiating the built environment that renders the workplace inaccessible to them. Their afflictions themselves are not marginalizing. Rather, an inhospitable built environment creates their marginalization. Similarly, a built environment which encourages violence through the insistence on ‘private’ spaces which defy public surveillance can be oppressive to women and children. At a larger scale, transformations in the unevenly developed space economy and the spatial structures of job opportunities mean that a person’s location can make a difference to whether or not s/he experiences marginalization. And the possibility of women being involved in political decision-making processes can vary by culture, a phenomenon that has clear spatial manifestations. Spatial divisions of labor, culture, the state, and other social relations, encourage the development of spatial structures which themselves might be oppressive. Oppressed people have indeed often been ‘allocated’ particular spaces, perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the city-suburb split in North American cities and the assignment of indigenous peoples to reservations. We need to be careful, of course, of


implying that there is a one-way causal relation between oppression and location. It is true that those who suffer most from material deprivation are likely to be forced, for example, into particular housing submarkets. But, it is equally as true that people who live in certain places are subjected to material deprivation because of the withdrawal of capital and state investment in a region’s infrastructure. Oppression and spatial structures are reciprocally

related. And as oppressed people in local places organize to resist or seize oppressive situations, they will make demands upon local state resources and thus contribute to the

uneven development of the local state (Duncan and Goodwin, 1988). In summary, the argument thus far has proceeded in three steps. The discussion in the

second section of this paper suggested that there were different sources of knowledge, some of which had been denied and/or ignored in dominant discourses. Drawing from recent arguments advanced by feminist theorists I presented the idea that the admission of the oppressed into knowledge-producing arenas would provide us with fresh insights into

oppressive relations and the social problems which ensued. In the following section I outlined different potential responses to oppression, arguing that some of the responses are more likely to reproduce oppressive situations than others. It is important to note, however, that some of those strategies which imply an acceptance of oppression are consciously pursued for very good and pragmatic reasons, a point that is best understood in the light of Young’s schema of multiple faces of oppression (Table 1) (i.e., it is more expedient to remain oppressed than to speak out and be subject to marginalization or violence). Section four described the role of welfare state institutions in providing a channel for both the reinforcement of, and challenges to, oppression. In addition to the practical matters of organization there are reasons, related to the spatially uneven development of social relations, for responses to oppression to be instituted in spatially limited areas. Consequent lobbying to the state and its subsequent actions creates a geographically variable set of state institutions. To bring the discussions of knowledge, responses to oppression and the welfare state together it is useful to consider the contested nature of the built environment. As I suggested at the outset of this essay, the lessons from feminist and postmodernist writings have application to many oppressed groups: people who are discriminated on the basis of age, race, sexual orientation and ability have all contested the institutionalization of their oppressed status in the built environment. And these struggles cannot be simply reduced to class struggles. Indeed, any particular struggle we might wish to examine will be complicated by the fact that people have multiple identities which might act cumulatively to strengthen or weaken their oppressed status. The example I use here focuses on contests over urban forms which are oppressive to women, but we must keep in mind that it is not only their gender which causes women to be placed in oppressive situations.

Women’s struggles around oppressive built environments

The sexist nature of urban form and policy have now been noted by many authors (Andrew and Milroy, 1988; Freeman, 1981; Hayden, 1981; Markusen, 1981; MATRIX, 1984; Wekerle, et al., 1980). Although not always explicit in these studies, the fact that women’s knowledge has been denied under the tyranny of enlightenment-style investigations of cities is an important underlying theme. This is especially important in light of the incredible amount of research conducted by women within the Chicago School and its offspring social work departments around the country, work which became the dominant paradigm for urban studies until the early 1970s. Despite the central position of women researchers in this early urban sociology, women’s knowledge was rendered invisible as

GLENDALAWS 23

urban studies became increasingly ‘scientific’ (Sibley, 1990) and this continued in the immediate postwar period as the field of urban and regional planning was professionalized, largely by men (Leavitt, 1981). Further, through formal planning, the city

has been separated into productive and reproductive spaces which are gendered according to social values concerning the respective roles of women and men (Mackenzie, 1988; Saegert, 1981). This gendering of urban space has meant that some parts of the city have historically been, and continue to be, ‘off limits’ to women. Early this century, for example, ‘the world of the urban saloon was a man’s world, and whatever socialization occurred there did not affect relations among immigrant working-class women in any direct way’ (Barrett, 1990: 85). Work spaces in industrial regions came to be dominated by men as women were excluded from heavy manufacturing. And certain neighborhoods have been, or are, reputedly unsafe and thus women, perceived as particularly vulnerable, have been discouraged from frequenting such areas, especially if unescorted.

Of course, it not only their sex that causes women to find city environments oppressive. Their race, age and sexual orientation can also contribute to their enjoyment or disappointment with city living. Table 2 takes the six faces of oppression described earlier in this paper and asks how they are manifested in urban space when we start from the vantage point of women’s experience of city life.6 Some limitations to this preliminary discussion should be noted. First, the notion of ‘women’s experiences’ is indeed problematic in the postmodern feminist writing from which I have drawn. It implies a

TABLE 2. Urban women and the multiple faces of oppression

PPe Manifestation Response

Exploitation

Marginalization

Powerlessness

Cultural imperialism

Violence

Knowledge denial

Women in the waged labor market; but also women’s unpaid labor in the home making it possible for men to commute longer distances to better- paid jobs

Exclusion of women from particular job opportunities. Hours of work conflicting with their domestic duties and thus making the labor market inaccessible

Underrepresentation of women on decision-making bodies

City form and function reflect dominant male values through the separation of home and workplace, city and suburbs. Creation of gendered spaces

Rape and non-sexual attacks on women which limit their ability to participate fully in the life of the city

Assumptions of genderless spaces. Women’s voices not heard within planning infrastructure

Women accepting role of ‘housewife’ and worker consciously or otherwise; establishment of cooperatives

Payment of unemployment benefits; affirmative action programs to get women into the labor market; skills (re)training

Affirmative action programs to get women into decision-making programs; women running for electoral office; women’s lobby groups

Women’s lobby groups; self-help networks; women’s housing cooperatives

Safe-city movements; take-back-the- night marches; self-defense courses

Women entering planning professions; safe city audits by women


conceptualization of a universal experience, something that postmodernism seeks to displace. For the purposes of exposition, however, in this paper I choose to focus on the commonalities of women’s experience. Without doubt, women will experience urban life differently according to the intersection of their race, class, ethnic@ and age. However, I do believe that a sexist, patriarchal society helps to explain some of the experiences that different women share. Second, it is difficult to come up with discrete responses that neatly illustrate one form of oppression independent of the others but this only serves to reinforce the complexity of oppression and provides support for Young’s (1990: 64) contention that it is ‘possible to compare oppressions without reducing them to a common essence or claiming that one is more fundamental than another’. Also, I should acknowledge that these multiple faces of oppression are experienced by men as well as women but here I want to focus on women’s experiences, at least partly because women’s groups have organized to respond collectively to some oppressive situations (see, for example, Diao, 1989; also Bookman and Morgen, 1988). Finally, I make no claims that this is a rigorously worked-through case study. I am more interested in inviting consideration of this non-essentialist view of oppression and, by extension, social justice. Despite these limitations, the following discussion illustrates why it is important for geographers to examine first, the multiple forms that oppression might take and second, the variety of possible responses to those oppressions if we are to understand the struggles which are constantly reshaping the urban built environment.

Let us first consider how women may experience the multiple faces of oppression. Women are exploited in the waged labor force and they are additionally exploited in the home where men gain from women’s unpaid labor (see Young, 1990: ch. 2; also Fox, 1980). Gender discrimination means that women have effectively been excluded from certain occupations, thus subjecting them to the material deprivation that follows from marginalization. In regions, for example, that are dependent on heavy manufacturing or in resource towns, women have been denied access to the most lucrative positions and must compete for the limited number of service occupations found in such regions (Marchak, 1983: ch. 8). The dominance of a male culture has closed doors to women who may be interested in decision-making offices. A culture which reveres masculine forms of knowledge seeking and belittles the feminine (Harding, 1991) has also ensured that women’s knowledge of certain urban problems has been trivialized. And, of course, the most dangerous face of oppression is the violence that is perpetrated against women (Gordon et al., 1981). Women from different racial, ethnic and class backgrounds (among other attributes) may experience these different forms of oppression to varying degrees.

Table 2 also lists some of the responses we have seen to these types of oppression: women and their (male and female) advocates have worked to overcome some of the more oppressive gender relations which dominate contemporary social arrangements at the same time that they may participate in actions which perpetuate oppressive social relations. While some women choose to accept the role of homemaker, others have resisted. Homemaking, of course, need not be oppressive if a woman makes a conscious choice to do that rather than something else (e.g., waged labor) and if the division of labor within the household is such that her labor is not exploited. In fact, choosing ‘housework may be a tactic for avoiding the exploitative relations of the waged labor market. It was urbanization and industrialization which removed responsibility for the production of necessary items of food, clothing and shelter from the household and placed it in the realm of exploitative commodity-production relations. State policies, such as mothers’ allowances, which encouraged women to ‘stay at home’ and fulfil the nurturing role of mother (Lubove, 1986) were created to compensate for the marginalization felt by social

GLENDALAWS 25

groups (including women) denied access to the labor market. Since the close of the Second World War, women’s increased labor-force participation rates have been paralleled by their increasingly audible voice in political affairs. Government-sponsored

affirmative action plans should not be seen as either the benevolent actions of a paternal welfare state or the strategies of some conspiratorial elite. These plans are in response to the pressures placed upon the state to admit oppressed peoples to the workplace and government office. Whether or not they are successful is beyond the scope of this discussion, but I would stress that they are not simply ‘top-down’ decrees. They are the outcomes of struggles between the oppressed, their advocates and oppressors.

Illustrative of the struggles around oppressive social relations are those mounted by women who are contesting public violence. This example shows the ways in which these struggles can be directed to creating built environments which are less oppressive of women. Recall that oppressive social relations are constituted both in and by space. Without doubt, violence against women occurs within urban spaces, but many women are arguing that it is the spatial structure of the ciry which encourages public violence: poorly lit streets and private, limited-use thoroughfares and precincts within a city are the outcome of planning decisions that are not sensitive to the needs of women. Such spatial structures are oppressive in that they deny women’s right to use urban space as they wish. Public violence against women is a double-edged sword: not only are women amcked but they also suffer from being unable to participate freely in many activities because of the

fear of being attacked (Pain, 1991; Valentine, 1992). In fact, some women are less likely to be the victims of violent crime than men but they are more fearful of that happening and thus are more likely to adjust their behaviors accordingly (MacLeod, 1989-90).

There are many kinds of responses to public violence against women (Table 3). Largely, these efforts are designed to make cities more hospitable to women and in doing so they address several forms of oppression. First, and most obviously, there are responses to the violence that is perpetrated against women simply because of their sex. A passive response would be the decision by a woman to avoid violent attack by staying at home while a more

TABLE 3. Responses to violence against women

Type of response Oppressed Advocates oppressor

Passive 0 l

Active Resistive l

. 0

Seizure 0

Women should stay away from dangerous places especially if unescorted Acceptance of image of women as naturally vulnerable and in need of protection Stay-at-home avoidance l Escort services l Assume difference strategies (Valentine, between men’s and 1992) women’s experiences of

urban space

Self-defense classes (e.g., ‘Model Mugging’ see Kuster, 1989) Take-back-the-night marches Safe-city movements (see Safe City Committee, 1988)

l Promote ‘objective’ genderless view of city planning

l Deny ‘difference’ between men’s and women’s experiences of urban life

Lobbying for greater protective services for l Encourage image of ‘vulnerable’ groups women as vulnerable


aggressive response would be the decision to take a self-defense class. Second, while passive responses might accept the image of women as vulnerable, other strategies challenge the dominance of a male culture that sees it as ‘natural’ that women are weaker and more at risk. The self-defense class example illustrates this point: women can defend themselves and men should not assume otherwise (McDaniel, 1993; also Kuster, 1991). Third, marginalization due to the fear of violence is contested. Some women adopt stay-at-home avoidance strategies (e.g., restricting their job search to daytime-work positions only). More collective moves to make the city safer through urban design decisions are helpful in making evening work opportunities equally available to men and

women. Fourth, some actions also challenge the hegemony of male knowledge in the field of urban planning. Claims about some genderless and ubiquitous urban experience are ruptured as women assert the sexist nature of urban space and its consequences for activity patterns. Finally, these challenges to hegemonic urban theories which hide the violent consequences of economically ‘efficient’ cities also attempt to empower women by validating and using the knowledge gained from their insights.

Now, as might be expected from the typology of possible responses, passive and collusive responses to public violence against women are not unusual:

All too often, the public response to crime has been to require the vulnerable to

curtail their right to participate. Women are warned not to go out at night or to

have their husbands, fathers or boyfriend accompany them. Clearly, public safety

is an equality issue. (Safe City Committee, 1988: 1)

For many women, and their male friends, it is ‘better’ (i.e., more expedient) for women to accept their powerlessness than to attempt to challenge oppressive relations and thus risk violent attacks. Further, many men and women accept the dominant ideology that a woman who was in a certain place, or dressed a particular way, was ‘asking for it’, a point that becomes all too clear in media reports around rape trials that are of particular interest to the public because of their especially horrific nature or because of the involvement of some ‘celebrity’. Again, Valentine captures the collective public response to the fear of attack against women:

When a woman is attacked or raped in a quiet public place away from the protection of others, both the police and the media often imply that she was to a certain degree responsible for her own fate by putting herself at risk, and warn

other women to avoid similar places where they are vulnerable. Similarly, many

women also attribute responsibility for attacks to the victim in order fo convince

themselves they will not be victimised, because they would not put themselves in the same place. (1992: 26)

Men and women, it seems, collude in oppressive relations by accepting such views. Female readers of this essay can no doubt recall their parents’ warnings about ‘hanging around’ in certain places. Such ‘passive’ responses of acceptance should not be surprising if we recall the earlier suggestion that we are socialized into accepting gendered divisions of space, and this socialization begins at an early age when, as children, we learn the rules of negotiating cities. Girls and boys are encouraged to participate in different types of activities which vary in their use of public spaces. ‘Girl children are socialised off the street through an implanted fear of men, by restrictions on street games and activities and by an emphasis on activities that concern grace rather than speed’ while young boys ‘can prove their “boyness” by taking up lots of room, particularly on the street’ (Boys, 1984: 41; see also Valentine, 1992).

CLEN~A L.4ws 27

Gendered attitudes to the use of public space have been contested in recent years by more aggressive strategies, perhaps the most visible of which is the annual, symbolic, ‘Take-Back-the-Night’ marches held in many communities, designed to demonstrate that women have the right to be on the streets whenever they want; the streets are not the exclusive property of a violent male culture. But, there are other grass-roots movements in many urban centers which are arguing for permanent changes to the form of the city in order to make it safer for women and children. The people involved in these movements do not claim that simple design changes will necessarily sto$ rape, or other forms of oppression of women (e.g., assault, harassment), since male attitudes toward women, and the power relationships between men and women, must change to overcome the prejudices which result in oppression. However, creating environments which encourage women to participate in the daily activities of cities is empowering in itself. Since environments which are ‘anonymous and out of public view’ (Safe City Committee, 1988: 4) make it easier for an assault to be committed than do more public spaces, women can be empowered by the provision of less-threatening environments which promote their participation in urban life.

Significant in the growing body of literature on women’s safety is the finding of diurnal variation in the perceptions of what parts of town are appropriate for vulnerable groups. Usually nightfall marks a temporal watershed, after which women are perceived, and perceive themselves, to be more at risk of assault (Gordon et al., 1981: 141). In part, I would argue, this is due to a simple planning decision: not to light streets and other thoroughfares to the point that an assailant is visible. It is understandable that male planners may overlook such an obvious problem. But recognition of the gendered nature of this oversight underscores the need for women’s perceptions of city life to be included in planning decisions. To formulate plans for a ‘non-sexist’ city (Hayden, 1981) it is important that the knowledge base be non-sexist. The Metro Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children (METBAC) in Toronto notes that:

when it comes to women’s safety, women have the knowledge and expertise

that the ‘professionals’ lack. It does not require a degree in planning or design to

recognize what makes a place unsafe and threatening. It requires relevant

experience, and women have a lifetime’s worth of that. (METRAC, 1989-90a: 5)

METRAC produced a Women’s Safety Audit Kit aimed at ‘empowering women to make their own assessments’ of the safety of Toronto’s streets since professional, male architects and planners ‘simply don’t understand what it’s like to be a woman, alone, at night, waiting for a bus or walking past a dark alley. Women have experience and expertise in urban survival that planners need to hear about’ (METRAC, 1989~90b: 8). That is, only by admitting women’s knowledge to the planning process will the oppressive, patriarchal structures of city design become visible.

My previous discussion suggests that the oppressor, too, responds to public violence: images of women-as-fragile continue to permeate popular culture and there is a collective acceptance of the vulnerability of women. There is, of course, good reason for this: women do get attacked and the figures of the occurrence of rape are startling. But ‘objective’ figures show that men are more likely to be the victims of violent crime and yet we do not carry with us stereotypes of ‘vulnerable’ men who need protection. So, while there is a basis for women’s fears, it is represented in a fashion that ‘blames the victim’ for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, promotes women as passive agents who are unable to defend themselves, dichotomizes us into aggressive males as opposed to gentle women, and thus discourages women from using certain spaces at particular times. These images


are pervasive. Television sitcoms and movies, especially those aimed at teenagers, which broach the subject of violence against women often have the perpetrator’s attempts foiled by the arrival of another male, typically the ‘teen idol’. Public representations are oppressive of women in that they deny them the freedom to move around a city; these images take power away from women.

In combination, then, the threat of physical violence, the stereotypes of women and a hostile built environment make for very different experiences of urban life depending on one’s gender. Major periods of urban transformation are also periods of significant transformations in gender roles (Mackenzie, 1988). If, as I argued in section four of this paper, welfare state institutions are the outcome of struggles between the oppressed and their advocates and oppressor groups, we might expect to see corresponding transformations in the welfare state. This is, after all, one of the goals of urban social movements (Castells, 1983). Fincher and MacQuillan (1989) lament the lack of attention given to the role of women in urban social movements. Without a doubt women are active in moves to redefine city spaces. The safe-city movement in Toronto is an example of efforts to make the built environment more hospitable for women by women who lobby the local state to introduce new policies and regulations within the city. Requiring landscaping that is less threatening or improved internal security systems in residential and commercial buildings are means of giving women the chance to be more active in city life. Only state institutions have the authority to enforce such requirements (although individuals and corporations can clearly voluntarily make spaces safer) and thus women must work through these institutions for publicly recognized and enforceable change. The state represents one field on which women can openly challenge their oppressors who, in this case, might include the municipal governments which refuse to light streets, the developers who design ‘public spaces’ which are not visible to the many people who occupy a city at any time, or the perpetrators of violent crime. Urban planning, itself a welfare state institution, must therefore be made gender sensitive in order to reduce sexist planning decisions which encourage one or more of the six faces of oppression.’ Struggles over oppressive local environments need not, and perhaps politically should not, remain at the local level. In the USA, concerted lobbying and activism over violence against women has reached the federal government which is currently debating a ‘Violence Against Women Act’, Title I of which focuses on ‘safe streets for women’ (United States

Congress, 1991).

Conclusions

Struggles by women and their advocates to make cities safer are but one example of the ways in which oppressed groups can impact upon the form and function of urban landscapes. Ethnic minorities, groups of aged residents, gay communities and class-organized groups may all have an impact on the urban built and social environments. This essay suggests that it is the confrontations between these groups’ bids to overcome oppression and the actions of dominant social powers which are responsible for the ongoing evolution of urban areas. And the forms and causes of oppression are without a doubt multifaceted. But it is not enough for privileged academics to acknowledge the multitude of causes of any one social group’s disadvantaged position. Knowledge of oppression is most obviously situated with the oppressed. Oppressive city forms can therefore only be challenged when the current structure of city planning itself is reorganized so as to admit the voices of the Other. My discussion has suggested that there are times when the oppressed prefer to stay that way: the short-term advantages of ‘not rocking the boat’ far outweigh the longer-term possibilities of assisting the next generation

GLENDALAWS 29

of oppressed, especially in the case of violent forms of oppression. And, at times, fighting against powerlessness does not seem important to people who are so disenfranchised from the political process that they feel their protests will go unheard. We need to be sensitive to the conscious decisions of some oppressed people to stay in that position. The decision not to challenge oppression is indeed strategic and commendable in many circumstances. And we should acknowledge that there are reasons for doing so rather than falling into the trap of being outsiders trying to advise ‘the Other’ on how they should behave. But we also need to be sensitive to the creative possibilities for challenging oppression in a variety of ways. Struggles over the built form of the city indicate that there are mechanisms for lessening oppression and much of the impetus for such change comes from the oppressed themselves.

What are the political implications of this dicussion? First, the recognition of the potential power of the oppressed themselves must not be used as an excuse for more privileged people not to become involved in political struggles. Rather, feminist and post-colonial writers are asking the privileged to listen to their needs before planning responses which are supposedly universally acceptable to all concerned. Second, does this discussion suggest that the politics of the left, with its traditional concerns in workplace politics, should be abandoned? It is a common criticism of some strands of feminism and postmodernism to point to the fragmented (and therefore impotent) politics that are left in the wake of deconstruction (Handler, 1992; Harvey, 1992). My attraction to Young’s recognition of the multiple faces of oppression is that it allows the left to develop strategies which may improve the lives of the oppressed in a number of places. Women struggling to make cities safer are not just attacking violence; they are also attacking relations which exploit and remove power from a range of social groups including children, older people and some men. There is no suggestion that women should turn their backs on the plight of poor men or that black women must ignore the struggles of abused white or Asian women. It may be possible, however, to create new alliances, especially among those who have had little experience with workplace political organization. These new alliances can be used to promote struggles against injustices, the roots of which may not be found in the workplace.

Acknowledgements

A version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers in San Diego, 1992. Thanks to those who made comments after that session, the referees, and to Mike Dorn, Laura Geller, Mariia Zimmerman and Deryck Holdsworth for discussing the ideas.

Notes

1. Young briefly discusses the problems of the dominance of particular forms of knowledge in her discussion of cultural imperialism and in her discussion of the supposed impartiality and universality of moral theory (1990: ch. 4). However, I would argue that the practice of knowledge denial is worthy of the status of a sixth face of oppression since what we know influences to such a great extent the ways in which we treat people.

2. The celebration of diversity and difference is the hallmark of both postmodernism and recent feminist writings which have sought to answer the criticisms of the ethnocentricism which appears to be inherent in modernist academic writings. This literature has taken on the proportions of a growth industry. The collection of essays edited by Linda Nicholson (1990) provides an introduction to the comparable and contrasting points within feminist and postmodernist writings.

30 Oppression, knowledge ana’ the built environment

It may not be entirely accurate to describe one school of thought that sees oppression as a social relation with the implication that another group sees oppression as ‘natural’. I should acknowledge that those people who see poverty, for example, as innate would not necessarily even use the term oppressed. ‘Oppressed’ as an active verb suggests that someone is doing the opressing. Clearly, those individuals who see certain characteristics as the ‘natural differences’ between men and women, between black and white people, or between young and old, would not argue that any of these differences are oppressive in the sense that I use the term. However, I think that it is fair to make comparisons since social conditions that I see as constructed and oppressive are also of interest to those who see them as natural. That is, both the ‘constructionist’ and the ‘naturalist’ school might be interested in poverty or housework. Young (1990: 257-260) makes this point particularly well in her epilogue where she discusses the problems of transferring theories of justice from western nations to other countries. Theories of justice, like justice itself, are the product of particular social and historical contexts. Indeed, it is important to note the possibilities of emancipatory spaces. Although this appears to be an implicit goal of the recent paper by Pile and Rose (1992), they at one point conclude that ‘The spaces in which struggle may or should occur are being defined for the oppressed not by them’ (p.133). Such a view suggests that the oppressed are all too passive in their reactions to their situation. bell hooks (1990: 44) describes homeplace as a site of resistance and argues that black women took the ‘conventional’ meaning of homeplace ‘and expanded it to include caring for one another, for children, for black men, in ways that elevated our spirits, that kept us from despair, that taught some of us to be revolutionaries able to struggle for freedom’. So, regardless of how a space is defined by the oppressor, the oppressed can, and do, redefine spaces. Starting from woman’s (or any Other’s) position is the stance advocated by standpoint epistemology. Sandra Harding (1991) provides an accessible introduction to this literature. Since I chose to focus on public violence in this discussion, I have been relatively silent on the ways in which urban planning might be implicated in exploitation. Planning by-laws prohibit business activity in many residential neighborhoods. Thus, men and women are forced to leave their homes to work, usually in exploitative positions. For women, the possibilities for exploitation are greater. As noted, they suffer exploitation within the household, whether they work outside or not. Further, the fact that women who do unwaged domestic labor in the household cannot legally establish a business in their home means that many of them engage in informal activities (child care, piece work) which provide only minimal income and benefits. Relaxed zoning ordinances might give women more opportunities for creating their own possibilities for earning an income.

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