ABSTRACT
Patrick Geddes, one of Britain’s foremost prophets of modern town planning, believed that men and women had different roles to play in shaping the modern urban environment. In his most influential early monograph, The Evolution of Sex (1889), co-authored with his student J. Arthur Thomson, he outlined a series of biologically determined binary oppositions between the sexes that informed their social roles.1 At the time, he was under the influence of cell-theory and its explanations for the development of life. There were two main processes. The ‘katabolic’ was profligate of energy, dissipating resources; the ‘anabolic’ conserved energy, was constructive and nurtured resources. The first was identified with male characteristics, the latter, with female.2 When Geddes progressed to a career developing ideas about modern town planning, he translated these characteristics into different roles for men and women. Men were the creators, the actors, who engaged vigorously with the public sphere; women were their best help-mates who attended to the private sphere, the home and, in their communities, brought their nurturing skills to place and people, thus contributing much to bringing men’s plans to fruition.
