Locating women in urban landscapes

Landscape and nature have a long-standing cultural association with women’s sex andgender, but urban landscapes are rarely examined as a gendered concept. Even feministurbanism critique has had little engagement with urban landscapes. In relation towomen, urban landscapes are often addressed through concerns of safety and accessinequality. This paper argues that the spatial equity discussion has been misguidedlyfocused on conventional spaces that were conceived when women’s socialsubordination was the norm. Instead, the paper proposes that interstitial urbanlandscapes are potential sites for investigating and promoting gender equity. The paperanalyses the contradictory gendered meanings of the concepts of urban, landscape,and nature, and how women’s grassroots actions in interstitial urban landscapes couldbegin to resolve some of these contradictions. Women’s participation in the productionof urban landscapes on interstitial sites in Glasgow is discussed, presenting itsopportunities and challenges to advance gender equity.