Space is gendered. Domestic space, associated with nurturing and child-rearing, was conceived as a women’s space. And the city, comprising of spaces and places that support mobility, adventure and economic growth, was conceived for men. This bias has created spatial and systemic barriers for all women and gender diverse individuals, especially those between the ages of forty and sixty. Exploring Invisible Women Syndrome will broadly define this phenomenon and then use spatial feminism and intersectionality frameworks to uncover how this impacts women’s access to public green spaces, recreational facilities, transit and local networks.

About the presenter

Jay Pitter, MES, is an award-winning placemaker whose practice mitigates growing divides in cities across North America. She spearheads institutional city-building projects specializing in public space design and policy, forgotten densities, mobility equity, gender-responsive design, inclusive public engagement and healing fraught sites. What distinguishes Jay is her multidisciplinary approach, located at the nexus of urban design and social equity, which translates community insights and aspirations into the built environment. Ms. Pitter also makes significant contributions to urbanism theory and discourse. She has developed an equitable planning certificate course with the University of Detroit Mercy’s School of Architecture and taught a graduate level urban planning course at Ryerson University, among others. Jay also delivers keynote addresses for entities such as the United Nations Women and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is the co-editor of Subdivided: City-Building in an Age of Hyper-Diversity, and her forthcoming book, Where We Live, will be published in 2021. Ms. Pitter is currently the John Bousfield Distinguished Visitor in Planning at the University of Toronto.

This event is part of a special 11-session event series hosted by professor Julian Agyeman and Cities@Tufts and sponsored by Tufts University and The Kresge Foundation with media partner Shareable.net.

More information can be found here: www.citiesattufts.com/fall-colloquium-2021

Limited space is available. Pre-registration is highly encouraged.

The Series Hosts:

Cities@Tufts is a cross-disciplinary academic initiative that recognizes Tufts University as a leader in urban studies, urban planning, and sustainability issues. Anchored by the department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, it aims to highlight our impressive contributions in community strategy, civic democracy, ethnographic research, urban and community health, food justice and security, urban politics and economics, social inequalities, and GIS. Cities@Tufts works with students, academics, policymakers and planners, businesses, and community stakeholders to develop cross-disciplinary and cross-sector collaborative and community-based research. We aim to develop solutions to today’s urban challenges and opportunities based not on presupposed notions but on being critical: first asking the right questions.

Shareable is an award-winning nonprofit media outlet, action network, and consultancy. Our mission is to empower communities to share for a more resilient, equitable, and joyful world. We inspire social change by publishing solutions-based journalism, running campaigns, and helping our consulting clients achieve their goals through sharing. For more information visit shareable.net.

The Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America’s cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grant, loan, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information visit kresge.org.