HER CITY - Spatializing gender relations in a Cypriot city

The thesis aims to investigate women’s everyday experiences of navigating the relationships between home and work in order to understand spatial and perceptual boundaries and opportunities that are inherent, constructed and implied within the city’s urban form. Boundaries refer to restrictions imposed on women by social structures through constructed space, and opportunities refer to ways in which the built environment either does or could improve women’s urban experience. These issues are explored through study of urban development and form, and evolving cultural and gender relations in the Cypriot city of Limassol, a coastal city of approximately three hundred thousand that grew substantially towards the end of the twentieth century. The research considers women’s entry into the workforce over the past fifty years as a pivotal moment of transition and seeks to unpack its significance for the relationship between women and the city today. Investigations delved into women’s understanding of the relative efficiency of urban space, women’s awareness of how gender relations are affected by the built environment and women’s willingness to embrace spatial and social alternatives. Thus, women’s experiences become a lens through which to read and understand the urban landscape, as well as an opportunity to consider how the production and consumption of space might further conditions for greater equality and inclusion. Interdisciplinary methods applied involve grounded theory analysis and mappings of qualitative data extracted from interviews, and visualizations of onsite observations. Ultimately, the research uncovers a complex relationship between women and various iterations of privacy within constructed space, and explores its implications in perpetuating women’s uneven urban experiences. Since fostering gender equality is a fundamental aspect of good urbanism, the research aims to contribute to the discourses of spatial democracy and social sustainability, in which the need for socio-political considerations to play more decisive roles in urban development processes is emphasized