Feminist City

This book takes a unique aspect of gender equality, examining how the subtleties in our world can reflect the gender norms and sexism of our society. I really appreciated this take, since the macroscale subject matters of equal pay and domestic violence have been well documented, but the microcosm of these issues is still often misunderstood.

A much needed book in a world that is changed faster than ever. Reminds me very much of the book Invisible Women. A must-read for everyone

“Feminist City” investigates the impact of the white patriarchy on how women navigate urban spaces. Although it’s something that I hadn’t really thought about until now, it immediately made sense to me. I knew that when NASA began recruiting women astronauts, the biggest hurdle was that all the equipment was designed by men, for men, so either women had to adjust how they used it (a difficulty in addition to, you know, SPACE FLIGHT), or NASA had to spend the money to overhaul everything. So the idea that cities have been built by, overwhelmingly, straight white men, for straight white men, and exclude how literally everyone else uses cities, putting them in the most vulnerable positions? Yep, I’m there, tell me more.

It explores the breadth and depth of city life, how different people use public areas and how they’re clearly designed for men without children and periods. The book is enlightening and the problems it spotlights are endlessly frustrating. I wish there were clear, easy answers to how to make a city not only safe but also navigable and useable for marginalized people, and it’s not the book’s fault that the answers so far are few.

This year, my goal is to read all the books on Kate Harding’s syllabus for “A Master Class in Woman’s Rage,” and “Feminist City” should 100% be added to it. It’s comprehensive and well written, and it brought the receipts. It’s going to be the go-to book for anyone looking to overhaul the patriarchal leanings of traditional urban planning and redesign.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book about feminist geography. This is a topic that I often see being briefly mentioned in books about feminism, but I never read a book that focused on only covering this topic. I believe people don't give it enough attention.

There were many things I liked about this book. Some specific topics I was already aware of, but it was still very interesting to read more about them. Others surprised me because, even though they are fairly obvious once someone points it out, I have not given them enough of my attention in the past.
What I enjoyed the most was that the book felt inclusive from page 1. It was a very natural way of including everyone, which I prefer over the sort of "forced inclusivity" we see nowadays. And this book had a couple of moments when that was present too. It's like we need to mention the same speech every time, so people get that we are inclusive. And this book was doing that already in the natural way I mentioned, hence why this bothered me slightly.
The author and I disagree in a couple of topics and that's absolutely fine. My ideology doesn't have to be the same as every single feminist.

Overall, I highly recommend this book. It has very important information that people need to be aware of in order for the world to move forward.

3.5 stars. This upcoming non-fiction book, set to release in the U.S. on July 7 by Verso, provides a detailed exploration of the ways in which the key concepts of intersectional feminism interact and are exacerbated by urban spaces and urbanism more broadly. If this is a subject that interests you, and you are looking for an academic perspective on this topic (that is still fairly readable) I would recommend you check this out. Kern is a strong writer and this book has five clear chapters ("City of Moms," "City of Friends", "City of One", "City of Protest", and "City of Fear") that utilize a variety of sources, ranging from academic texts, trade publishing books, and media entertainment like t.v. shows and movies, to provide examples of different ways women (and other marginalized groups) use cities or struggle to use cities.

Personally, however, this book felt a bit too academically-focused for me. As someone who is looking to enter the urban planning profession, I was hoping this would be a bit more of a solution and case-study based approach to examining how cities can be created with a gendered lens and how intersectional feminism can be utilized in producing more equitable, usable cities. Instead, Kern relies heavily on what is typical in academic writing (something that I personally have grappled with regarding academia more broadly): a critique of existing systems without providing solutions. While I completely understand the use of critique in the greater academic canon, I still personally prefer more solution-based non-fiction with a subject matter such as this. This did lower my rating, but I believe that may be in part because of my expectations of what Feminist City would be, as I do find the content of this to be important and the work itself to be cohesive and well-written!

A very interesting academic book on women's views on the city (cities) they live in, with in-depth analysis of the gender-specific experiences of public spaces, and tons of sources to back up every argument made by the author.
To put in the hands of all your friends interested in feminism, social inequalities and the sociology of urban spaces.

Who does a city belong to? How is a city experienced by women and other marginalised groups? Leslie Kern says, "The imagined city is shaped by experience, media, art, rumour, and our own desires and fears." This is one of those books that deconstructs ideas about something that you may have never paid attention to in the past - urban spaces. "The feminist city is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world." Read it.

Very well researched and a timely release. This is a must buy book. Urban women and women who wish to move to urban spaces and take up positions in the urban society can easily relate. Keep up the good work.