Inaugural lecture from Professor Lesley Murray

From a distance, it could be said that much has been achieved over the last 100 years in addressing gender inequalities in city spaces. However, looking more closely, at the countless stories of people living in and moving through our cities, we can see uneven lives more clearly. The hidden ways in which people are excluded from urban spaces because of their gender becomes visible. Women and children are effectively immobilised, slowed down, forced to move in particular ways or rendered motionless.

We make sense of the past through both our own stories and through our understanding of other people’s lives, particularly those who are close to us. This lecture focuses in on stories of moving in cities, connecting personal experiences to wider cultural, political and social meaning, marked by gender. It draws from autobiographical research and from research on gender-based violence in approaching stories from different angles, suggesting ways in which the travels of women and children can become less restricted.

By highlighting the ways in which women and children remain constrained as well as their resistance, this provocative lecture will make you see the spaces around you in a new light.