The Gendered City

Chapter Summary

The early definitions of the &t;Islamic city&t; have been challenged over the past three decades by a range of post-modern methodologies emerging from several disciplines, among them urban studies, art, Middle Eastern studies, geography and most recently, the history of gender. A challenge to the traditional view of genders as falling into two neat categories of male and female was taken up by scholars of women and gender studies who were grappling in the late 1980's with the constraints and limitations of this particular methodological framework. Sections of cities, specific monuments or sites were also gendered temporarily and acts of re-gendering a space occurred frequently in urban quarters. From the archival and material remains, it appears that all members of the Ottoman world - all genders, elites and non-elites, urban and rural dwellers pushed continually at the boundaries of the spaces that their society had established as appropriate for their gender.

Keywords: gendered; Islamic city; Ottoman; urban