Masculine Cities and Feminine Suburbs: Polarized Ideas, Contradictory Realities

Abstract

"Cities" and "suburbs," "men" and "women," are names of categories that encompass individual entities which are, in many ways, as different from each other as they are similar. Yet, because the commonalities that do exist are, for various reasons, important to us, we find the labels meaningful. In this paper, I will try to deal with three related uses of the words "women," "men," "suburbs," and "cities." First, they are symbols that our culture has construed as polar opposites: the city against the suburb, men against women. We have gone on to link the city with men, the suburbs with women. Next, they are both symbols and actual events in the lives of contemporary Americans who talk about themselves. Finally, they are the subjects of statistical descriptions of the distribution of people of various racial and socioeconomic groups in different residential locations, household types, and jobs. The pictures that emerge from each type of data-the cultural, the introspective self-report, and the demographic-have a certain apparent consistency. Yet, taken together, contradictions between symbols, lived experience, and demographic description become obvious.