“Send a message when you arrive”: stiff bodies and naked caryatids in the city

Abstract

The reflections proposed in this essay are crossed by historical studies on the urban and by the experience in cities, whose spaces, mostly molded by a universalizing male gaze, seem to constantly stress the movement of female bodies. From enquiries guided by Agnés Varda's cinewriting, Lauren Elkin's literary wandering and Leslie Kern's feminist geography, we explore
dimensions of urban life in which the tension and silence associated with the female presence appear as if they were natural. A propositional counterpoint is made explicit: a commitment to cities that are welcoming and accessible, able to open possibilities for sustaining relationships that sustain respect and solidarity. In the essay, public spaces and attitudes that apparently benefit male camaraderie and/or the invisibility of women are counterposed to female tactics that forge a certain perception of invulnerability in mutual support ("send a message when you arrive"). Finally, we propose to disentangle paradigms that both construct our cities and feed sexism, racism, prejudice, disrespect, and violence naturalized in the urban experience so that we can imagine and open spaces for other urban futures.