Gendered Spaces

In hundreds of businesses, secretaries — usually women — do clerical work in “open floor” settings while managers — usually men — work and make decisions behind closed doors. According to Daphne Spain, this arrangement is but one example of the ways in which physical segregation has reinforced women’s inequality. In this important new book, Spain shows how the physical and symbolic barriers that separate women and men in the office, at home, and at school block women’s access to the sociall...