ABSTRACT
This chapter repeats the format adopted previously, this time exploring the significance of gender in recent trends of urban transformation. In the first part we look at recent trends in economic restructuring and structural adjustment alongside a widespread (but contradictory) ‘feminisation’ of economic activity, noting the implications of these multiple trends for gender roles and relations in a variety of urban social contexts. In the second part we identify some of the key historical transitions in the development of gender studies and feminist scholarship. The principal learning aims are to gain familiarity with the scope of cities and gender from a feminist perspective, to provoke critical reflection, and to critically evaluate the limitations of narrow disciplinary perspectives and course curricula (refer back to the learning activity for Chapter 1, pp. 29-30).
