Cultures of Gender in Urban Life
- DOI
- 10.2991/978-2-38476-305-4_3How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Urban masculinity; Gender dynamics in cities; Cultures of gender; Gender and urban space; Migration and masculinity; Gender roles in public and private spheres; Masculinity and public spaces; Gender transformation in urban environments
- Abstract
This essay looks at the urban environment vs gender, mostly dealing with also masculinity, in cities as Delhi and in different places in China. Grounded in this literature, the dissertation moves on to qualitative methods to understand the ways in which cultures of gender affect and are affected by urban spaces. Studies from Delhi have reported that the public and private spaces in the city are masculine domains where masculinity is symbolically, as well as fiercely articulated (hereafter key study findings). The tribal migrant men in Delhi, on the other hand, deal with these normalised concepts of urban masculinity with some difficulty while also suggesting a negotiation and alteration to gender identities more generally as a consequence of their migration and exposure to urban India. The essay also shows that in China, the gendering of male migrant cab driving work as high hegemonic masculine roles does not just combat historical tendencies towards delegitimising jobs as female and therefore anti-normative; it is currently under threat from regulatory change eroding autonomy and economic stability. This story also fits the service sector of urban China where femininity is commodified and served, and being a woman means continuing discrimination in service roles governed by everyday gendered work politics. These findings indicate the continued importance of traditional gendered identities and masculinities in urban areas, even as they undergo major socio-economic shifts. This paper adds to the literature on gender and urbanisation as well as processes of socio-spatial change in large cities. The essay ends with the observation that though there may be seedlings of change, the work to create inclusive urban settings for all genders is still fraught.
- Copyright
- © 2024 The Author(s)
- Open Access
- Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Xinyu Fan PY - 2024 DA - 2024/11/18 TI - Cultures of Gender in Urban Life BT - Proceedings of the 2024 4th International Conference on Public Relations and Social Sciences (ICPRSS 2024) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 10 EP - 16 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-305-4_3 DO - 10.2991/978-2-38476-305-4_3 ID - Fan2024 ER -