Rating: WARTY!
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Feminist City isn't an interesting sci-fi novel, but a non-fiction book about how cities are not designed with women in mind. I agree with that thesis as it happens, having read material on this subject before. This is why I requested this book. It never hurts to learn more, especially if you're interested in female issues and especially if you're a novelist who's always open to ideas for plots or at least ideas for how to make characters who are a different gender than your own seem more lifelike, realistic, motivated, and perhaps having issues to pursue!
This take on cities is a very personal view, and I have to say that the author went off on tangents that for me, didn't serve her main argument well. For example, at one point she devolved into discussing how movies don't tend to represent female relationships. I'm like what? The thing is that after rambling about this and even mentioning a couple of movies that do represent them, the author then got into a prolonged ramble about some TV shows I've never heard of that represent female relationships pretty well. I'm like: are you not undermining your own claim with this?
And what does it have to do with your thesis about cities not being female-friendly? I don't mind it when authors mention stuff tangential to their main thrust, but a digression like this seemed to be an extended reminiscence about her own favorite TV shows rather than anything that materially contributed to her argument. And lest it be forgotten, TV and movies are not reality, even when they're called 'reality shows'. In fact reality shows are the precise opposite of reality. They're as artificial as it gets.
The author lives in Canada so maybe these are Canadian TV shows or maybe they're just shows I never had an interest in. She seems to be forgetting that unless the movie topic is specifically about female friendships, the writer and director had no reason to go out of their way to tell a story about such things because the movie's story is about something else.
Despite her claim, there are in fact many movies that do have female friendship represented in them not as the main plot, but as an included element. Also there are many movies about female friendships. The author, despite writing a book herself, seems to be unaware that there's a whole genre of novels precisely about female friendships! I guess she doesn't read much fiction, but Netflix has a bunch of movies about female relationships and friendships, so I don't get this fruitless digression into fiction when she's supposed to be making a case for a real world issue.
Another thing that struck me as odd in a feminist book was her digression into the topic of the 'Flâneuse'. I'd never encountered this name before, but it's a French word that describes the kind of person who has sufficient idle time on their hands that they can perambulate the city, exploring it and people-watching. I've never been a fan of pretentious French words being introduced into the lingo, but this one is quiet ancient. The original term was Flâneur, and I while I understand that in the ancient past, a term specific to a woman was routinely coined, particularly in a language that absurdly insists that inanimate objects have gender, I don't get why this was perpetuated by a writer of a book like the one under review here. Nor do I see why a woman can't be a Flâneur and leave it at that.
To me it was disturbing to find a female author of a book, and especially a book decidedly aligning with feminism, seeking to employ a female version of the word. If we're about equality, shouldn't one word serve all genders? It's the same case in Hollywood: why actress and not actor for all? We don't call a female doctor a doctrix! We no longer use aviatrix! Why perpetuate the erroneous idea that a female needs to be singled out a special case? Now I'm digressing! I freely admit that this is a pet beef of mine, and fortunately the whole book was not like this.
For me the author was at her best when relating, anecdotal as they were, stories of contending with urban environments while also contending first with a pregnancy and then with a baby on board - that is, onboard a carrier or a stroller. This was in London where the deeply subterranean underground railway, aka 'The Tube' was effectively inaccessible to anyone with a perambulator and pretty much the same even with a stroller. The fact is that the London Underground is a resistance movement: it's antique for the most part, and resists change for a variety of reasons.
Women were largely unseen and herded, back when most of it was built, and while that's no excuse to persist with that idiocy today, it has to be said - given how old the system is - that perhaps it's harder than it might seem to upgrade it appropriately, which is why the inaccessibility problem persists. Not that I'm trying to justify it; it needs to be fixed, not just for moms, but for people who have disabilities. And fear of heights in some London stations (just kidding)! To me it seems that the real problem is that these things cost money, and the will to make those expenditures is lacking among authorities that are largely male, white, and not sporting any differently-abled status. Once that complexion is changed, the rest ought to follow. I hope.
One thing in this discussion of the London tube was when I read (of the author's experience while pregnant): "This was most obvious to me on the Tube, where I was rarely offered a seat during my rush hour commute." While I understand that pregnancy involves carrying around extra weight and fatigue along with a young life, at times the author seems like she's equating being pregnant with being an invalid! This seems as unkind as it is inaccurate. Not every woman feels disabled by her pregnancy. Some do, and clearly there's an issue here, but the wording might have been less ambiguous.
Clearly there ought to be an offer of a seat, leaving it up to the individual to accept or decline as she sees fit. But I didn't see how this was so much an issue with cities not being designed for women. I mean it's always possible to await the next train since they run so frequently during rush hour, and get in there ahead of the crowd to find a seat. To me this seemed much more of a societal issue, with people in general largely being selfish despite attempts by the news media to show how kind we are. If we were truly that kind, it would hardly be a news item now, would it?!
I went into this book thinking it would answer a question that's asked in the book description. I know authors typically don't write these descriptions any more than they design the covers, but it was a question I would have liked to have had answered. The question was "What would a metropolis for working women look like?" and the problem seemed to be that this book isn't an organized journey through the issues, laying out the problems and supplying answers, or at least offering suggestions toward answers. This book is more like a collection of essays and it's a bit repetitive and lacking in substance. It's more like an impressionist painting where I'd have preferred - on this occasion - a photograph, and for me it really didn't get where it ought to have been trying to go - where it suggested it would go.
The problems with cities were highlighted here and there such as for example, the aforesaid lack of elevators on London's underground system, and the sparsity in the design of public toilets (where these can be found and even if they are in good condition). Some of the issues were less about the design of cities and more about societal issues, such as the idea of "A place where women can walk without harassment." No design of any city is going to prevent this as long as men think women are property, possessions, playthings, or people who are to be treated like juveniles. Even the most perfectly designed city will be nightmarish if it's populated by a significant assortment of jerks and dicks.
One of the ongoing problems with cities and one which was not addressed here is that cities are not communities no matter how well they are designed. No matter how much, say, New Yorkers (or alternatively the media) like to pretend their city is a community, it's in actual fact a large, impersonal city and most people are out for themselves, attending to their own plans and business, and with little time to consider others. This is normal in cities.
That's not to say it's right or that it can't be better, but it is the status quo. Something that would improve the situation would be to design cities not as cities but as conglomerations of small communities, wherein the community is more like a village while still being part go the whole, but even Cuomo's fine words about looking toward an improved future, post-covid 19 (assuming there ever is a post-covid 19) are going to lead nowhere without serious infrastructure changes and attitude modifications. Some systems can be improved, but unless you knock down the whole city and redesign it from the ground up, it will never be ideal.
That doesn't mean there's no room for improvements or that we cannot make cities better even as they stand, but the problem is that there are many interests in the city, and cities have grown the way they have because of those interests, most of which are about making money, not about making sense. None of this was addressed in this book, which in the end was much more a collection of personal anecdotes and ideas about problems than it was about how to get there from here.
It was a bit rambling and a bit repetitive, and overall, I was disappointed in it. Thus I'm unable to commend this as a worthy read because it doesn't really deliver on what it promises. It takes one or two interesting steps in that direction, but it's a long journey and this doesn't cover anywhere near enough of the distance there to make for a satisfying read.
