Metropolitics

A Place for Women

2025-01-21T06:00:00Z

For over 40 years, a feminist association called Apiaf, based in Toulouse in southwestern France, has been working with female victims of domestic violence. In this interview, members of the association talk about the central role of non-mixity in accommodating and assisting these women, thus guaranteeing a space of protection and emancipation.
Interview conducted by Pauline Delage.
Apiaf (Association pour l'Initiative Autonome des Femmes; "Association for Women's Autonomous Initiative") is

- Interviews / violence, women, non-mixity, associations, gender, feminism, activism

Female Factory Strikes: Emancipatory Non-Mixity?

Ève Meuret-Campfort & translated by Oliver Waine — 2024-01-26T08:14:00Z

The division of industrial labor often places women workers in all-female factories and low-skilled jobs. Ève Meuret-Campfort examines how periods of strike action lead—or do not lead—these workers to politicize and claim this de facto segregation as an instrument of emancipation.
In the industrial working world, women workers often find themselves in de facto non-mixed situations, concentrated in highly feminized employment sectors such as clothing (Maruani and Meron 2012). As a result of

- From the Field / workers, non-mixity, factories, mobilization, women, manual workers, feminism, politicization

Feminist Non-Mixity: For Women or Against Men?

Alban Jacquemart & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-10-10T05:00:00Z

For women, the choice to gather together serves a variety of objectives within feminist mobilizations. Looking back at the history and significance of these militant practices helps to counteract preconceptions associated with non-mixity.
“It is wrong to claim that non-mixity does not fundamentally impregnate the vision of the world and society of those who turn to this notion, and that it cannot encourage the temptation of withdrawal into a given community. How can we believe that there is

- Essays / feminism, women, history, activism, non-mixity

Where are the Women Architects?

Collectif Architoo & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-03-31T05:00:00Z

At the 2020 edition of the Albums des jeunes architectes et paysagistes (AJAP) competition, organized by the French ministry of culture, only two women were among the architects nominated. The Architoo collective underlines the persistent inequalities that still mark the careers of female architects.
The Albums des Jeunes Architectes et Paysagistes (“Young Architects' and Landscape Architects' Albums”)—or AJAP—is a biennial competition that was relaunched by the French ministry of culture in

- Debates / architecture, gender, feminism, sexism, architect, women, teaching, education, inequalities

Women Farmers Doing It for Themselves? The Ambiguous Consequences of Non-Mixed Engagement

Clémentine Comer & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-11-01T06:00:00Z

In the farming world, many women's groups defend the cause of women farmers. Clémentine Comer analyzes the ambivalences of these single-gender spaces, from the perpetuation of traditional visions of male and female roles to the questioning of social inequalities.
In France, organizations devoted to the specific mobilization of women in agriculture – established in the wake of the Catholic young farmers' movement and the widespread teaching of domestic science – took on a new form in the

- From the Field / agriculture, feminism, farming, non-mixity, women

Cleaning and Care Worker Cooperatives in NYC: Empowerment Through Collectivization of Labor

Nora Komposch — 2020-12-08T06:00:00Z

Worker cooperatives have been shown to reduce precariousness and economic exclusion of marginalized groups. However, while much is known about the worker cooperatives' economic impact on workers' lives, other social effects, such as the empowerment of individuals in their everyday lives, remain less explored. This article contributes to filling this gap by examining the empowerment process of migrant women in their everyday lives after joining a cleaning or care worker cooperative in New York

- From the Field / community organizing, women, migrant workers, work, worker cooperatives, United States, New York, empowerment, precarity

Fixing the Accessibility Gap in Municipal Procurement

Emily Holloway & Nicholas Shatan — 2019-03-05T06:00:00Z

How can minority- and women-owned businesses overcome structural disadvantages to building wealth through entrepreneurship? Emily Holloway and Nicholas Shatan assess minority- and women-owned business enterprise (M/WBE) procurement policies in New York City and show that while these programs are designed to generate equitable access to business growth, M/WBE participants are not receiving enough contracts—however, if implemented more strategically and equitably, such policies have the potential

- Debates / New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, United States, accessibility, procurement, women, gender, ethnicity, race, businesses, minorities, entrepreneurship

Solidarity Economics and Rights to the Contested City in Belfast

Brendan Murtagh — 2018-12-19T06:00:00Z

Is Lefebvre's right to the city capable of extending the abstract meaning of formal “rights” to practical applications? With this question in mind, Brendan Murtagh scrutinizes a self-organization project in a neighborhood on the periphery of post-conflict Belfast in Northern Ireland.
---- Series: 50 ans après : actualités du droit à la ville d'Henri Lefebvre The wave of Occupy protests that followed the financial crisis in 2008 reinvigorated populist claims to the city, specific campaigns

- Essays / United Kingdom, autogestion, Lefebvre, solidarity, right to the city, Belfast, women, periphery, Ireland, Northern Ireland, self-organization, contested city, social economy, surplus, peace

Invisible Lines in the Sand: Bather Arrests in Early 20th-Century Los Angeles

Elsa Devienne & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-07-13T05:00:00Z

Can beaches reveal the tensions that run through society at a given moment in time? Here, Elsa Devienne shows how Californian beaches in the early 20th century crystallized tensions resulting from the gradual rejection of Victorian values and exposed, via the way people presented their bodies, the changes under way with regard to moral order and American society.
In the late 1910s, Los Angeles was the scene of a series of arrests of bathers and beachgoers. The individuals arrested, caught

- From the Field / gender, United States, Los Angeles, public order, tourism, order in public, women, beach, California, leisure, social order, moral order, clothing, bathing suit, seaside resort, resort town, Santa Monica

How Anti-Trans Bathroom Bills Hurt Girls and Women

C. Ray Borck — 2017-05-16T20:02:21Z

Do recent “bathroom bills” protect girls and women from sexual predators? Sociologist C. Ray Borck shows how—contrary to popular belief—gender-segregated public restrooms do not keep girls and women safe from violence. Public restrooms play an important role in public health, especially in urban contexts, and should be available and safe for all people regardless of gender identity or expression.
The national conversation in the US about whether or not transgender and gender-nonconforming

- Debates / gender, LGBTQ+, transgender, trans*, gender-nonconforming, gender violence, gender segregation, cisgender, girls, women, sexual violence, bathroom bill, HB2, sexual assault, hegemonic masculinity, masculinity