Appropriation of Space – Perpetuation of Patriarchy: A Feminist Critique on Public Space Design in Iran

This research uses a feminist lens to examine Iranian urban public parks designed for use by women only. The purpose of this paper is to reveal translations of patriarchal cultural values from an architectural micro scale to an urban macro scale and question the (over) contextualization of these parks’ design. Although this is a multifaceted topic that also merits ethnographic analysis, this particular paper primarily examines the physicality of the space. I draw on Henri Lefebvre’s theory of production of space, Stephen Graham’s urban militarization, and Jürgen Habermas’s and Nancy Fraser’s views of public spheres to theorize women-only parks’ existence as a hegemonic production of space. I argue that despite the Iranian government’s claim that the purpose of these women- only parks is to provide women a safe and free public space, this type of urban public space actually appropriates the design logic of courtyard houses, materializes patriarchal culture, and perpetuates patriarchal values in an urban configuration. In other words, women-only parks in Iranian cities are an embodiment of patriarchal culture in which gender segregation is used as a strategy to fulfill Islamic values and disguise patriarchal dispositions into a false sense of spatial and gender justice. This qualitative and interdisciplinary research uses a mixed method approach (alternating between formal and discursive analyses as needed) and multiple sources of data. Data collected on-site from women-only parks in Tehran (including photos and videos) serves as the primary source for this analysis. I also use reports from online news agencies and social media, as well as previously published interviews conducted by sociology scholars.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.108.149

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ISBN
978-1-944214-26-5