ABSTRACT

The phrase “A woman’s place is in the home” has defined much housing policy and urban design in American society. The query “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” has reflected the prevailing attitude toward women in public, urban space. Both phrases have their roots in a Victorian model of private and public life. The first involves

the patriarchal home as haven; the second defines the Victorian male double standard of sexual morality. Both are implicit rather than explicit principles of urban planning; neither will be found stated in large type in textbooks on land use. Both attitudes are linked to a set of nineteenth-century beliefs about female passivity and propriety in the

domestic setting (“woman’s sphere”) versus male combativeness and aggression in the public setting (“man’s world”).