Georgina Hickey, "Breaking the Gender Code: Women and Urban Public Space in the Twentieth-Century United States" (U Texas Press, 2023)
From the closing years of the nineteenth century, women received subtle--and not so subtle--messages that they shouldn't be in public. Or, if they were, that they were not safe.\xa0Breaking the Gender Code: Women and Urban Public Space in the Twentieth-Century United States\xa0(U Texas Press, 2023) tells the story of both this danger narrative and the resistance to it.\nHistorian Georgina Hickey investigates challenges to the code of urban gender segregation in the twentieth century, focusing on organized advocacy to make the public spaces of American cities accessible to women. She traces waves of activism from the Progressive Era, with its calls for public restrooms, safe and accessible transportation, and public accommodations, through and beyond second-wave feminism, and its focus on the creation of alternative, women-only spaces and extensive anti-violence efforts. In doing so, Hickey explores how gender segregation intertwined with other systems of social control, as well as how class, race, and sexuality shaped activists' agendas and women's experiences of urban space.\xa0\nDrawing connections between the vulnerability of women in public spaces, real and presumed, and contemporary debates surrounding rape culture, bathroom bills, and domestic violence, Hickey unveils both the strikingly successful and the incomplete initiatives of activists who worked to open up public space to women.\nThis interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose\xa0forthcoming book\xa0focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies