Metropolitics

Marielle Franco and the Fight for the City Statute in Rio de Janeiro

Ty Redden — 2025-02-14T06:00:00Z

Marielle Franco's 2018 assassination roiled social media and sent shockwaves through activist communities. The subsequent investigation revealed that her death was a part of a larger land-grabbing plot enacted by militias and enabled by local politicians. This case study explores the City Statute and its relationship to housing struggles—particularly, how the City Statute has forged a brutal partnership of oppression in Rio de Janeiro's most vulnerable neighborhoods.
---- Series: Horizons in

- Essays / Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, militias, favela, informal settlements, local politics, politics, race, gender, activism

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

Girls-Only Sport

Antoine Bréau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-05-26T05:00:00Z

Against a backdrop of gender inequalities at school, an experiment in the field of physical education shows that sports classes in single-sex groups allows students room to maneuver in relation to gender norms, albeit without completely eliminating them.
Internationally, in the face of continuing gender inequalities in schools, co-education in schools is once again being debated. In various countries (Canada, South Korea, Australia, United States), the return of single-sex schools is

- From the Field / Switzerland, sport, inequalities, gender segregation, gender, youth, non-mixity, school

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

Consent-Based Social Dancing Spaces and the Right to the City

Rebecca Krisel — 2020-06-30T05:00:00Z

Consent-based programs in social dancing venues in New York City are an initial step in supporting social dancing as the “right to the city.”
The #MeToo era has ushered in a global conversation about sexual harassment and explicit sexual consent that has spread to all facets of our society from college campuses to the film industry. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, some New York City nightlife establishments such as House of Yes in Brooklyn and Nowadays in Queens have taken the initiative

- Essays / right to the city, nightlife, New York, consent, gender, LGBTQ+, #MeToo

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Carine Guérandel & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-03-12T06:00:00Z

In a work rich in ethnographic material, Akim Oualhaci questions how socialization through sports contributes to the reconfiguration of masculinities in working-class neighborhoods in France and the United States.
Studies on the social construction of masculinities—a quite recent but very productive field of research—often focuses on the world of sports, considered an effective space for gender-based socialization. Akim Oualhaci's book is a continuation of this work and specifically analyzes

- Debates / sport, working classes, working-class identity, working-class neighborhoods, social class, ethnography, youth, masculinity, gender, socialization, suburbs, banlieue, ghetto, Paris region, New York, France, United States

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

Killing Them Softly: The Environmental Vulnerability of Black Women in Albany, New York

Tanesha A. Thomas — 2018-10-23T05:00:00Z

In Albany's South End, a predominantly low-income African-American neighborhood, tanks storing environmentally harmful toxins pose risks to the community's health. Tanesha Thomas combines sociological and geographical methods of analysis to show that Black women, as primary householders in communities hosting environmental hazards, bear a disproportionate environmental burden. This research incorporates gender into an intersectional analysis of environmental inequality.
A chain-link fence is

- From the Field / housing, gender, environment, United States, race, environmental justice, environmental classism, environmental racism, ecological disaster, toxic loading, Black women, Albany

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