A Room of Her* Own - Gender Wealth Gap and (residential) property

In her 1929 essay "A Room of One's Own", Virginia Woolf formulates two minimum requirements that enable a woman* to participate in social life in a self-determined way: sufficient monthly funds and a room of one's own. In the research project, we examine the connection between housing and economy from an intersectional perspective, according to which gender, class and origin act as central dimensions of unequal access to housing and wealth.

The (re)production of the gender wealth gap is primarily considered in the discourse of poverty and wealth research, to which we would like to connect with the perspective of critical housing research - because when it comes to wealth, it is about real estate ownership. Existing homeownership conditions are largely associated with the decline in state investment in object promotion (social housing) and the increase in public subsidies for subject promotion (including private single-family homes) in recent decades. At the level of housing, we are planning the architectural analysis and presentation of various housing typologies, the financial conditions of their residents, usage patterns as well as support and financing structures.

In order to enter into an interdisciplinary exchange, we organized a hybrid mini-symposium "A Room of Her* Own - Gender Wealth Gap and (Housing) Ownership" from 26.01-27.01.2024 in Kassel, with Monika Grubbauer, Gabu Heindl, Julia Koepper, Tabea Latocha, Nina Manz, Dagmar Pelger, Niloufar Tajeri, Sarah Uhlmann and many more. We discussed the following questions: What role do property and gender play in urban policy conflicts? How can property and the economy be socially conceived? How can (residential) property be rethought in feminist, intersectional and collective terms?

The research project is funded as part of the "Dimensions of Gender - Women's and Gender Studies in Hesse" program of the Hessian Ministry of Science and the Arts.

Prof. Dr. Gabu Heindl is leading the project together with Nina Manz (research assistant). Annabelle Oeste and Joanna Weise are working as student assistants for the graphic design and organizational implementation.

© Graphic novel by Naemi Sünderhauf