Do studies of the social ordering of space show that the exclusion from public spaces is always a problem for women?

Résumé du document

It has been unanimously agreed, since Foucault, that power is not an intermittent and isolated force. Rather, the concept manifests itself daily as a continuous network of power struggles exerting on any individual regardless of his status in society, "from the great strategy of geo-politics to the little tactics of the habitat"(1980). As a result, Foucault argues, spatial arrangements do provide an analytical framework for the study of inequalities as valuable as economic or sociological explanations.

In 1974, Michelle Rosaldo was the first to apply such a paradigm to gender stratification. With the publication of her essay, Women, culture and society, she depicts a domestic-public dichotomy accounting for the variability of conditions throughout societies: empirically, it appears that the finest the boundary between the domestic and the extra-domestic is, the highest women's status might be (she mentions the Mbuti pygmies as a shining example of that link).

Extraits

[...] Domesticity, undeniably, lacks the economic, political and social power men enjoy and compete for in public space. Home is perceived as an area of requirements and responsibility, as side effects of the reproductive function, whereas the spread of knowledge and emulation throughout the public world make it a potentially emancipatory zone. Men are able to form associations, to develop and to highlight their capacities. Meanwhile, the familial sphere contains potential skills and abilities other than those related to household (Spain, 1992). [...]

[...] (Walker, 1998)Less striking, but more meaningful here to understand how shifting barriers are in daily life, is the case of Karen Sacks' study (1988). What she demonstrates is the importance of the collusion between public and private space, by describing the interference of family notions among female hospital workers: women bring home to work. (Lamphere, 1974). This integration of both spheres is obvious as well as regards non-workers, who may influence the public actions and opinions of their husband. In the context of a family dinner for instance, evening conversations contribute to the share of experiences and the complementarity of the couple. [...]

[...] Differentiated spaces might thus pave the way for the expression of moral judgements, and somehow legitimate the stigmatization of women entering the public arena. It seems, after this section, that spatial exclusion is a far-reaching blow to women's rank in society. Carried to an extreme, Rosaldo's 1974 intuitions would draw to the conclusion that they only have two options to enhance their status: either entering the masculine public sphere or creating an alternative publicity, but in any case they have to cross the sacred line. Similarly, men's involvement in household seems to be a crucial step on the path towards equality. [...]

[...] First of all, all empirical analysis shows the limits of theorizing public and private worlds as essentially autonomous and conflicting grounds. Boundaries are less firm than that. To say that women's spatiality is restricted does not necessarily entail a social exclusion as well. The confusion here is due to a mix between two components of the dichotomy: the “functional” and the as referred to by Sylvia Yanagisako (1987). On the one hand, space division opposes the “outside” and the whereas a functional approach would emphasize the gap between work and family. [...]

[...] Firstly, separation raises the issue of dependence, and by extension, vulnerability. Rosaldo's dichotomy describes the couple as a double-headed entity, each part being assigned a pre-established area where it can freely assert its power (1974, ibid.). Men participate in urban centres of production while women dominate the sphere of reproduction. Consequently they are excluded from the two most significant poles of public life: remunerated work and politics. One cannot turn a blind eye, indeed, on the fact that only 19 women sat in the British House of Commons in 2005, so that if not a unconditional truth, the model has a credibility. [...]