ABSTRACT
The word race is often written in scare-quotes in social science literature to indicate that it is a social construct. Scientifically there are no such things as discrete biological races. A key factor is the notion of inheritance of traits, which places women in a central position as the reproducers of races both biologically and culturally. Notions of race tend to homogenise class, gender and ethnic differences. In reality, where gender is not explicitly considered, masculine racial identities are privileged. In feminist geography, a realist approach was used by Foord and Gregson to attempt a reconceptualisation of patriarchy. Research within feminist geography has been particularly important in addressing the politics of representation and attempting to destabilise the unequal power relations between researchers and researched. The study of regional geography organizes the knowledge of all interrelated forms of areal differentiation in individual units of area.
