Gendered Spaces

How does the organization of spaces--exterior locales and interiors for living, work and worship--reflect and determine gender relations? Spain (coauthor of American Women in Transition ) takes a cross-cultural, historical approach in answering this question. Among New Guinea's Wogeo Indians ceremonial men's huts serve as storehouses for flutes associated with supernatural powers; their geographic inaccessibility to women ``facilitates preservation of musical knowledge for men,'' which they use as a form of control over women. In contemporary offices women tend to be set pk ``together in one place (the secretarial `pool') that removes them from . . . input into the decision-making processes of the organization.'' For Spain then, gender-segregated spaces reinforce ``status differences between women and men'' to women's disadvantage. Spain details this fascinating topic with an impressive variety of examples, tables and interpretations of popular documents such as back issues of House Beautiful . She neglects, however, the relation of aesthetics to gendered spaces and manages a merely functional, charmless prose style. (Mar.)