Accommodating Inequality: Gender and Housing PDF
Preview Accommodating Inequality: Gender and Housing
ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: INEQUALITY Volume 9 ACCOMMODATING INEQUALITY ACCOMMODATING INEQUALITY Gender and Housing SOPHIE WATSON First published in 1988 by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd This edition first published in 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1988 Sophie Watson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-43329-5 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-032-43801-6 (Volume 9) (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-43808-5 (Volume 9) (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-36892-2 (Volume 9) (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003368922 Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. ACCOMMODATING INEQUALITY Gender and Housing SOPHIE WATSON Sydney ALLEN & UNWIN London Wellington Boston © Sophie Watson 1988 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. First published in 1988 Allen & Unwin Australia Pty Ltd An Unwin Hyman company 8 Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2059 Australia Allen & Unwin New Zealand Limited 60 Cambridge Terrace, Wellington, New Zealand Unwin Hyman Limited 15-17 Broadwick Street, London Wl V IFF England Allen & Unwin Inc. 8 Winchester Place, Winchester Mass 01890 USA National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Watson, Sophie* Accommodating inequality. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 004 320229 2. 1. Women — Housing — Australia. 2. Single women — Housing — Australia. 3. Homeless women — Housing — Australia. 4. Aged women — Housing — Australia. 5. Housing policy — Australia. I. Title. 363.5'9 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-81537 Set in 10.5/12 Bembo by Indah Photosetting Centre Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia Produced by SRM Production Services Sdn Bhd, Malaysia Contents Tables vi Preface vii 1 Housing women: an historical perspective 1 2 Women and housing, or feminist housing analysis? 21 3 Whose great Australian dream? Home ownership and the exclusion of women 39 4 On the margins: women in the private rental sector 56 5 Why be a wife? Housing after divorce 74 6 Sexual divisions in old age: a national profile 102 7 On the scrap heap: older women, housing issues and perspectives 111 8 Gender and urban theory 138 Bibliography 147 Index 153 Tables 1.1 Labour force participation 1911-1981 8 2.1 Tenure by household type and sex and age of household head (%) 1981 34-5 3.1 Nature of occupancy by family type 1981 (%) 43 3.2 Individual incomes of heads of households by family type 1981 (%) 44 6.1 Marital status of household heads in 1981 103 6.2 Income sources of retired widowed males and females and mean amounts of income 104 6.3 Individual income of women over 60 by marital status (%) 105 vi Preface This book sets out to explore housing from a gender perspective. Too often theory, debate, and policy operate amidst a web of preconceived notions and assumptions from which women are largely absent. In recent years in Australia, women's housing issues have been firmly placed on the agenda. The more specific concerns of women's refuges, single parents, homeless single women etc. have become integrated in a wider recognition of women's housing needs. The first National Women's Housing Conference held in Adelaide in early 1985 represents an historic moment. Feminists came together to challenge old concepts, to identify the problems and to formulate strategy. Inroads into policy in some areas have begun to be made, although there is still a long way to go. At a theoretical or research level the subject has been less explored. The project of this collection of essays is to fill the gap. There are at least two focuses to the housing discourse in Australia and these in turn are embodied in policy. One is the concept of individual free choice. The other is the ideal of the male-dominated nuclear family. The first implies that housing is primarily a matter of private consumption: We all want to own our own 'homes', of course, that is natural, even an instinct, and also we can all do it, albeit perhaps with a little assistance... It is just a question of choosing what we want and going ahead and buying it. Indeed, minimal expenditure on other forms of hous- ing, public housing, cooperatives and so on means that other alternatives are rarely an option. The second notion, the ideal of the male-dominated nuclear family, is equally pervasive. Home ownership in its current form helps both to create and to reproduce patriarchal familial relations. It does this on at least two levels: the level of discourse and the VII
The list of books you might like
