We live in the city of men. Our public spaces are not designed for female bodies. There is little consideration for women as mothers, workers or carers. The urban streets often are a place of threats rather than community. Gentrification has made the everyday lives of women even more difficult. What would a metropolis for working women look like?
— Leslie Kern, Feminist City. Claiming Space in a Man-Made World (2020, Verso)
Together with leading theorists and practitioners, we discuss the current 'male city' beyond the shortage of public toilets to answer the central question: what does a city for and by women look like, and how should we build it?
Speakers
Prof. Dr. Leslie Kern (Author of and professor at Mount Allison University, CA)
Prof. Kern is currently an associate professor in the department of geography & environment and in the women’s and gender studies program at Mount Allison University, Canada. She is also the director of women’s and gender studies and has a doctorate in gender, feminist, and women’s studies from York University. She does research on gender and cities, gentrification, and environmental justice and is the author of the recent book Feminist City (Verso, 2019).
Sabine Miedema (Kind & Samenleving)
Sabine Miedema is a sociologist and urban planner working on participation, child-friendly public space and mobility at Kind & Samenleving (Child & Society). She will be presenting insights from her upcoming publication on girls and public space.
Prof. Dr. Els De Vos (Senior lecturer Faculty of Design Sciences, UAntwerpen)
Dr. Els De Vos, engineering architect and spatial planner, is associate professor at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp, where she lectures in the field of architectural history, architectural theory and interior design. Her PhD dissertation on the architectural, social and gender-differentiated mediation of dwelling in 1960s–1970s Belgian Flanders has been published with the University Press Leuven in 2012. Els is also co-curator of the exposition 'Female Symbols and Urban Space' (2020) at the Amazonehuis in Brussels.
Allesandra Gola
Alessandra Gola’s research considers the relationship between society, built environment and citizenship, with a particular focus on the experience of displacement within contexts of conflict and social unrest. She is based in Palestine and has co-founded there ‘The Yalla Project’.
Moderator: Luce Beeckmans
Luce Beeckmans is parttime Assistant Professor in Architecture and Urbanism related to Migration and Diversity and a senior post-doctoral research fellow funded by the Flanders Research Foundation (FWO). As FWO-postdoc she is affiliated to Ghent University (Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, head institution), KU Leuven University (Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities Research Centre) and Antwerp University (Urban Studies Centre) in Belgium.
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Maak De Stad (EN: Make The City) is a series of events by Stadsform in collaboration with the Urban Studies Institute Antwerp.
Stadsform is the center for dialogue about the city of tomorrow at the Stadswaag in Antwerp. Want to discover other programmes? Set up an event together? Rent the space? Visit www.stadsform.be