What Would A Non-Sexist City Be Like Analysis

In Dolores Hayden's article What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like? she points out how modern homes serve to uphold patriarchy and suppress women. Most of her critique is based on the American Dream of suburban living, with the male breadwinner leaving the home in his car and the wife staying at home to care for it and the children. As an alternative Hayden proposes cooperative living in which resources are held in common and men and women partake equally in work associated with the cooperative such as childcare and cooking. This would undermine the role of the traditional housewife and give women the opportunity to be in the workforce on more equal ground as well as providing easier access to many of the social and material needs of being a …show more content…
However, this seems like a difficult process in that it needs a fundamental review and commitment to a new lifestyle by those already living in suburbia as well as in many cases a political process of rezoning. If people live in these suburban homes they most likely do so because they want to live in that traditional way and may not want to change (However, there may be exceptions and I would encourage neighbors to try to change their living patterns). It appears that many of the benefits that Hayden sees in cooperative living can be found in larger cities, where people have greater access to public transportation (in traditional suburbia the man has the car and women and children are "landlocked" to the home) and social services, as well as laundromats etc. Perhaps in answering Hayden's questions from her title, a non-sexist city would be precisely that, a city. A city where single mothers (or fathers) are not at a disadvantage but have the possibilities to find easy access to the services they need. However, sexism, as we have seen, does not disappear in cities. While Hayden's work may make things better, sexism is so thoroughly ingrained in our culture that it will take a long time for there to be gender equality. So to answer the question posed by this journal entry, the answer is no; the city is not non-sexist, but it may be less so than the suburb due to its less traditional character and the opportunities and independence it