A feminist perspective on urban politics and social space in the neo-liberal city. Theoretical outlooks and social practices in the Italian context

Gender dimension, from a feminist perspective, in urban policies is a subject that urban planners, urbansociologists, politicians, and activists have often grappled with over time. However, the need to achievean overall feminist take (Mol) or a gender urban advocacy approach (Kern, 2020) has frequently clashed,in urban activism or in the analysis of policy areas and segments open to gender issues, with a culturalclimate resistant to gender inequalities, especially in the context of the neoliberal city. The latter isfocused on maximizing its ability to extract value from cities and citizens, and naturally tends not to paythe necessary attention to the spatialization of inequalities (both gender and intersectional) that occur inthe urban context. On the other hand, the increasingly widespread adoption of the gender mainstreamingparadigm seems to permeate various institutional levels, descending from the supranational level of theEU, where it was formulated, down to a more formal than substantive incorporation in urban contexts.This paper aims to analyse, first and foremost, from a theoretical perspective with the necessary referenceto the gender claim of urban space and the introduction of the gender mainstreaming paradigm in publicpolicies, and secondly with an empirical approach dedicated to Italian metropolitan cities, the ways inwhich the right to the city (Lefebvre) is interpreted in terms of gender. The goal of the work is to highlighta formalistic and non-substantive adherence to the gender mainstreaming paradigm in the context ofItalian cities, where, in the light of references to gender equality in the right to the city, predominantlysymbolic and commemorative references to the role of women are made, proceeding only in limited casestowards planning urban spaces and services tailored to women, supporting women's participation in citylife, and fully integrating gender issues into the programming of social, educational, and city-sizedwelfare services