Her Space: Women’s Collective Living as a Form of Emancipation

Abstract

Collective and cooperative living; a free, nonhierarchical space to express their individuality. These are some of the characters that emerged in feminist and women-centred utopias. La cité des dames by C. de Pizan (1405) and Herland by C. Perkins Gilman (1915) are two literary texts that, far in space and time, reflect on the modes of inhabiting spaces, in a fictional way, through the construction of an ideal milieu. Charged with a transformational power that allows them to go beyond a mere narration and become space, they constitute a tool for these women to critique the hierarchical living which reproduced (and still reproduces) gender roles. However, "What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?" through this question, Dolores Hayden condensed the lessons learnt from several built experiences of collective and collaborative housing that aimed at freeing women going from an androcentric to a gendered city. This contribution becomes part of the discussion about the spatialization – or translation – of gender equality into spaces and architectures by focusing specifically on women's collective living at different scales: the building, the block/complex, and the neighbourhood. These projects will be presented focusing on the role of architecture becoming a form of emancipation for women.