Citizen Jane: Battle for the city
Since they exist, cities have been and are still nowadays intended for men, as since the Ancient times they were the ones who had legitimacy to participate in public affairs, confining women to home life and to the private sphere. Therefore, it is not surprising that cities be barely friendly for women, children or old people: accesses, mobility and public spaces are not fit for every kind of citizen. With the industrialization process, women have progressively joined the working life, but there are certain spaces of public and professional deliberation which are still closed to them, as for instance, urban design. The “feminist” urban planning, emerged after the second wave of American feminism, aims to adapt the spaces in the cities to the different needs of their inhabitants, according to their gender, their age and their condition. Although they appeared in the 70s, these ideas are still in mind when designing a city from a gender perspective. A possible utopia which just does not come true due to a lack of willingness.
► Film 'Citizen Jane: Battle for the City' Matt Tyrnauer, USA, 2016, VOSE, 92’
How did a woman, a journalist without a finished university degree and mother of three children, managed to stop some of the most outstanding urban projects in cities like New York or Toronto? In her work The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) Jane Jacobs- someone whose detractors tried to scorn by qualifying her as a “simple housewife” – warned about the irreversible effects of an urban planning exclusively based on economic factors, facing, among others, Robert Moses, a powerful builder with a great political influence. This documentary reconstructs this Herculean fight.
Free access until reaching auditorium full capacity.
The tickets will be handed out in the Information Point at the museum’s hall half an hour before the beginning of the film.
Eva Álvarez (València, 1963) is an architect and a professor in the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She is co-author of the book «Hàbitat i societats: la incorporació de la perspectiva de gènere en el Pla General Estructural de Castelló» (2018) (Environment and societies: the inclusion of a gender perspective in the General Structural Planning of Castelló).
Adriana Ciocoletto (Buenos Aires, 1971) is a member of the Col·lectiu Punt 6, which works on the implementation of a gender approach in urban planning and architecture, mainly in Catalonia, Spain and Latin America. Within this group she has provided consultancies and she has developed several research works and cooperative projects as well as a great number of participatory workshops.
