As we explore the different forms taken on by authority, we realize that, while organizing itself, the city has absorbed and acknowledged the different roles played by its women.
These ways of acknowledging women have not changed since the Industrial Revolution.
Discrimination between the sexes has taken on a spatial-related dimension. The city barely takes into account women’s changing place in society, while its definition of space as public or private has reproduced gender stereotypes. Private space lends itself to the study of the link existing between woman and space. The evolution of the nuclear family beginning with the birth of capitalism in the 17th and 18th century, grew during the 19th and 20th century. The notion of a “Total House” gives way to the rise of the notion of the “Total Housewife” and simultaneously to the rise in demand for such apartments.
Studies mention that the organization and form of the city reinforces women’s inferior position, condones unfavourable contrasts and excludes them from appropriating space, thus creating a series of “Signals of Prohibition”. Arguments made from a feministic point of view need to be linked to the discussions made by architects concerning the crisis in the architecture of today.
