We are a productive city. The planning of Greater Concepción has undoubtedly been focused on prioritizing this vocation, from building neighborhoods near industrial belts or highways that take us by car more quickly to our workplaces.
If we talk about only work, work, and more work in urban planning, then we inevitably have to position ourselves in a patriarchal vision of the city. Vision as an abstract image of Greater Concepción? According to our second interviewee on our podcast “15 minutes for the city,” Concepción is a paradigm of what we now know as a patriarchal city. This productivity is inevitably associated with “the sexual division of labor, where men went to work outside, and women worked inside the house.”
In that discussion, there is a lot to talk about. Dolores Hayden, a renowned American historian, pointed out that housing, and specifically the idea that women’s space is the home, is a central idea in modern urban planning.
Or in Leslie Kern’s field guide, who dreams that, based on the thesis that cities have been designed considering men’s urban experience as something universal, a feminist city in which clearly coexist a myriad of other vital circumstances for the different people who inhabit them.
At this intersection, Dr. Mabel Alarcón is adamant and demonstrates it by stating that even the experience of crossing the Biobío River by bicycle is impossible due to fear. “There is an outstanding issue. It often prevents us, especially women, from using public space as we could, as we should, as we have the right to do. Because there are things in the city that segregate you.”
