Gender and space: theoretical perspectives and applications

Gender and Space in the Burlington Arcade

The scholar Jane Rendell asserts in her essay entitled "Industrious Females' and 'Professional Beauties'" that when discussing the ways that physical space is 'gendered,' it is common to assume that patriarchy constructs domestic space as entirely 'female' and the public, commercial space of commerce as entirely 'male.' However, one challenge to this set of assumptions can be found in the form of shopping areas, where most employees and customers are female. Rendell examines one relatively affluent district in 19th century London, known as the Burlington Arcade. This area, rather than simply constructed as male, was depicted in the literature of the time as a safe place for females to move freely about, and do their shopping. To deal with the possible social anxiety of blurring the notion patriarchy may have had about the domestic woman entering public space to engage in financial transactions, one popular depiction of the arcade showed "each shop" as "reminiscent of a miniature home, representing gendered images of domesticity and feminine purity," where respectable women presumably went to buy goods from other respectable women to beautify their homes.

However, the association of women offering goods for 'sale' also had a shadier side -- arcades were also known as common sites of prostitution. Before it became a shopping area, the Burlington Arcade of the West End was famed as a district where popular brothels were located, because of its proximity to many bachelors' homes. Women as mediums of exchange in financial, sexual transactions, furthermore, Rendell suggests, are not limited to images of shop girls and prostitutes, but even wives and daughters who function as commodities in exchanges between men. To understand the 19th century's cultural associations of maleness and femaleness, Rendell underlines, one must understand London's urban architecture as well as literary or artistic documents of the period.

It is interesting to reflect upon Rendell's observations in light of contemporary culture, where shopping areas are also traditionally configured as female. In malls, grocery stores, and other major commercial establishments, women are often the primary sellers and buyers. Male incompetence at shopping, or male exasperation with shopping as a woman tries on many dresses while the male waits are other common, cultural stereotypes that reinforce the idea that shopping is a female pursuit. Within these transactions, however, the relationship of women towards males in their lives is often reinforced in advertising, either by the woman's desire to buy products to beautify herself or her home, or to cook and clean the home.

In contemporary life, it seems more difficult to trace the architectural genealogy of suburban and urban malls and shopping locations in as clear and in as sexually defined a fashion as the Burlington Arcade. Like the arcade, however, malls and other stores are public places where everyone is free to come in, but must behave according to the rules of the store, or else the shoppers are forced to leave by security guards. The exchanges are impersonal, like in any store, or in prostitution, and are governed by financial transactions, even though the employee may be forced to tell the customer to have a nice day, or behave according to a predetermined script. Although it is not explicitly sexual, friendliness is reinforced to create the sense of a voluntary emotional exchange, to make the customer feel more 'at home' and to conceal the fact that he or she is engaged in a monetary exchange -- much like a prostitute might use a certain 'patter' that is flattering to a man to hide her real interests in sexual congress.