Abstract
Landlord–tenant relations are one of the core social relations of daily life yet are surprisingly under-theorized by housing scholars and geographers. This article begins to address this gap by applying for feminist scholarship on hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity to the case of the expansion and subsequent retrenchment of rent-control policy in Ontario, Canada in 2017–2018. Through a discourse analysis of government policy documents and news media coverage, I demonstrate that portrayals of landlords and tenants broadly conformed to characteristics of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity, respectively, with landlords most commonly portrayed as ‘rational’ and tenants most commonly portrayed as ‘vulnerable’. Landlords benefit from traits associated with hegemonic masculinity even if they themselves do not embody them. Similarly, landlords benefit from the portrayal of tenants as passive victims, in need of paternalistic government protection, as opposed to potentially powerful collective actors.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.