‘Before’: Gendered Experiences of Urban Space
Mind the Gender Gap: A Mobilities Perspective of Sexual Harassment on the London Underground
ISBN: 978-1-83753-029-8, eISBN: 978-1-83753-026-7
Publication date: 25 October 2024
Abstract
This chapter draws on empirical data from women’s stories as we start on the ‘journey’ of experiences of sexual harassment. This chapter focusses on the ‘before’, as I present women’s accounts of everyday life moving around London and participating in the rhythmic ensemble of the city. It demonstrates how the city remains a gendered environment that induces both fear and freedom and contextualises the (physical and mental) landscape in which incidents of sexual harassment occur. I will draw on theoretical approaches relating to the emergence of urban modernity in order to contextualise how the social, spatial and temporal conditions in the historical metropolis led to the advent of new sociabilities and modes of being in public life that still influence interactions today. Acknowledging that this remains gendered, I call on the literary character of the flâneur to critically analyse women’s past and present mobilities in the city. I simultaneously incorporate Lefebvre’s concept of rhythm to illustrate how the anticipation and expectation of sexual harassment impact women’s mobilities so intimately that it constitutes their normative urban rhythms. By exploring women’s wider lives in the context of movement and mobilities in the city, this chapter demonstrates the gendered nature of everyday life in the urban environment, including how the anticipation and perceived risk of sexual harassment are experienced and negotiated as an omnipresent possibility.
Keywords
Citation
Lewis, S. (2024), "‘Before’: Gendered Experiences of Urban Space", Mind the Gender Gap: A Mobilities Perspective of Sexual Harassment on the London Underground (Feminist Developments in Violence and Abuse), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 51-74. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83753-026-720241004
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2024 Siân Lewis
License
This work is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this work (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
I’m fairly fearless when I travel around London because I know its rhythms. And it really does have its own rhythms. (Laya)
[…] in London I stride with purpose and ownership wherever I go, I take no prisoners, these are my streets. (Kath)
The first three chapters have laid the contextual and theoretical foundations on which to present women’s experiences of sexual harassment on the London Underground. Throughout, I have argued that it is necessary to locate these incidents in women’s broader, everyday orbit and daily urban mobilities. The aim of this chapter is to understand how women experience and negotiate London and the Underground in everyday life. I start this chapter by introducing the concept of the flâneur, a 19th century Parisian character associated with the modern city. Whilst the flâneur originated in a specific historical and cultural context, it is a relevant concept to discern the modern urban experience and the way in which individuals interact with and perceive the city. It acts as a useful conceptual lens through which to understand women’s experiences in London and on the Tube in the present day. We will look at their negotiations of London ‘above ground’, tuning into the rhythms that are implicit in moulding these urban experiences. Then, we will focus more specifically on women’s perceptions and use of the Underground, and how it can be experienced as a site of boredom, anxiety and pleasure. The chapter concludes by showing how women’s anticipation of gendered violence in public space acts to both constitute and disrupt their rhythms and limit their freedom in the city and impinges on the optimistic possibility of a modern day ‘flâneuse’. Filtering everyday lives and movements around the city through this conceptual framework allows an understanding of women’s everyday gendered mobilities in urban space. This chapter is the start of the journey: the ‘before’ and the prelude, acting to set the urban scene within which incidents of sexual harassment on the Tube are perpetrated and experienced.
The Flâneur
the female flâneur’s desire for her own exploration of the world ends where it encounters its limits in male pedestrians and fantasies, assaulting, annoying, disturbing and perpetually evaluating her in the street. Gleber (1998, p. 8)
Coined in the 19th century, a period of mass urbanisation, the concept or literary device of the flâneur remains a key figure in literature on modernity and urbanisation (Wilson, 1991). The first thorough description of the flâneur comes from Baudelaire (1964) in his essay ‘The Painter of Modern Life’. He draws his inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe’s (1840) short story, The Man of the Crowd, where the crowd is symbolic of the modern city, and the protagonist acts as a new urban type: the unattached observer or stroller. Used to portray a Parisian character in the city, Baudelaire (1964, p. 9) describes him as ‘the passionate spectator … to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world …’. This draws attention to two key qualities that constitute the act of flânerie: walking and looking yet remaining detached – characteristics that became possible with the emergence of modernity. Walter Benjamin (1982) further explores the flâneur in relation to modernism in The Arcades Project, using it as a point from which to investigate the impact of urban life on the human psyche. The rise of the modern city became equated with public life and the creation of conditions of co-presence (Crang, 2001), leading to the emergence of new sociabilities epitomised by Goffman’s (1963) concept of ‘civil inattention’. Of all the literature regarding social interaction and modernity, Georg Simmel’s (1903) essay The Metropolis and Mental Life is perhaps most poignant. He declares that the new urban condition of ‘metropolitan individuality’ and the ‘blasé attitude’ urbanites possess are established by the existence of increased tempo and exposure to constant external stimuli (Simmel, 1903). This is a socio-spatial nexus in which the flâneur thrives. With his contentment in the crowd and affinity for transient interactions, the flâneur is often proclaimed as the ‘modern hero’ (Urry, 2007, p. 69). However, perhaps unsurprisingly, the experience of the flâneur was recognised as distinctly male. As Wolff (1985, p. 40) considers: ‘these heroes of modernity … share the possibility and the prospect of lone travel, of voluntary uprooting, of anonymous arrival at a new place. They are of course, all men’.
The Elusive Flâneuse?
The flâneur continues to be used as a tool to examine a variety of social concerns in urban spaces. In his article ‘Disabling the Flâneur’, Serlin (2006) situates the flâneur as occupying able-bodied privilege and calls for the inclusion of sensorial and tactile experiences of disabled people in narratives of urban modernity. Within the vein of sensorial understandings of the city, Boutin (2012, p. 124) asks the question whether the ‘lure of the visual has blinded us to other significant aspects of urban experience’ and asks that we focus on the non-visual, sensorial ways in which the flâneur experiences the city. There is also a faction of work that argues how flânerie can act as an alternative way to collect qualitative data in urban space (Beck & Sznaider, 2006; Jenks & Neves, 2000; Rizk & Birioukov, 2017). These works follow the lead of Walter Benjamin’s own assertion that the action of flânerie includes observation, listening, reading (of the city and texts) and producing texts (Frisby, 1994). Surprisingly, in the realm of criminology, there has been relatively little uptake of the flâneur as a conceptual tool. An exception comes from Lynes et al. (2019) who, in conjunction with an ultra-realist perspective, explore how serial killers operate in the modern urban landscape. There is, however, a significant body of work elsewhere that has explored the gendered nature of the flâneur and flânerie. I hope that by connecting the flâneur with the negotiation and experiences of sexual harassment in the city, it demonstrates the scope of the concept in criminological inquiry.
Encapsulating the liberating, sensuous enjoyment that can be found from walking aimlessly and anonymously through the urban spectacle, feminist critiques argue that this act of ‘flânerie’ is a manifestation of male privilege and leisure (Elkin, 2016; Wolff, 1985) and that the ability to be private in public is not equally enjoyed by women. In her essay ‘The Invisible Flâneuse?’, Janet Wolff (1985) employs the concept of the ‘flâneuse’ to symbolise women’s restricted participation in public space as well as to highlight the gender bias in classical literature on modern cities. To put it simply, women did not have access to public space in the same way that men did, and their experiences were often marginalised and overlooked. Gendered divisions between men and women in the 19th century were pervasive, and the ‘separate spheres model’ (Bookman & Morgen, 1987) – the binary division between public and private spaces – is crucial to understanding how women have been confined to the domestic sphere whilst men have been public figures in public space. Because of this exclusion, when women did enter the streets, it was often under the endurance of the male gaze (Hubbard, 2012). As Pollock (1988, p. 259) suggests ‘the gaze of the flâneur articulates and produces a masculine sexuality, which in the modern sexual economy enjoys the freedom to look, appraise and possess …’. Unlike the male flâneur, for women in the 19th century, visibility on the streets was commonly equated with moral laxity and sexual accessibility (Brooks Gardner, 1995; Solnit, 2001). By being in the city alone (particularly at night), women ran risks to their safety, reputation and virtue. Due to the voyeuristic nature of the city and the divisive gender relations of the time, it was almost impossible for women to stroll unnoticed through the streets (Wolff, 1985).
Over the past few decades, arguments have emerged contending that there is, and always has been, a female flâneur: the flâneuse. In her book The Sphinx in the City, British sociologist Elizabeth Wilson (1991) considers the possibility of the flâneuse on the grounds that whilst the public domain was perceived as male-dominated and potentially dangerous for women, in comparison to suburban and rural domesticity, it provided opportunity and freedom, an escape from restrictive, often exploitative familial and patriarchal relations. With the city providing an escape from the spatial confines of home, women gradually became more visible participants in the urban scene, in part due to modern consumption transpiring as a female leisure activity (in particular department stores and cinemas). This meant that women were permitted to enter the city whilst retaining their respectability (Chaney, 1983; Felski, 1995). Yet with regard to flânerie, this was a freedom afforded within the confines of consumerism. Therefore, whilst recognising the growth of a female presence in the city, it did not allow women the fleeting, anonymous encounters or purposeless strolling that men were accustomed to (Solnit, 2001; Wolff, 1985).
In her book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London, Lauren Elkin (2016) traces how various women throughout history have engaged with the city. An excellent illustration is that of the modernist writer Virgina Woolf, who drew immense vitality, pleasure and inspiration from her walking in London. Woolf’s (2006) musings on London are most vividly portrayed in the collection of essays entitled The London Scene. In her work, Woolf describes the anonymity of London in the 1930s as a desirable aspect of the city, allowing her to be freed from the subjugation of her own identity. Similar sentiments weave through the women’s narratives presented below. Elkin also offers the example of the French novelist George Sand who famously dressed up as a man in order to roam the streets in 19th century Paris. Whilst Elkin uses Sand as an example of how women negotiated and transgressed boundaries and gender constraints, Wolff’s (1985) position would argue that this once again proves how women could not stroll alone in the city, pertaining to the idea that the flâneuse was non-existent. Yet Elkin (2016, p. 11) considers that ‘perhaps the answer is not to attempt to make a woman fit a masculine concept, but to redefine the concept itself’. The concepts of the flâneur and the flâneuse are useful tools of analysis that can be employed to explore gender relations in public urban space and women’s right to the city. With their fluidity and continual reworking, the concepts will be engaged alongside rhythms when analysing the accounts of contemporary London presented in the following sections of this chapter. By showing how women experience and move through the city and the Underground on a day-to-day basis, I aim to actively redefine how we think about women in public urban space by recognising the freedom and pleasures that coexist and intertwine with the potential dangers of urban life.
Gendered Mobilities in the City: London Life – Arriving, Thriving, Surviving
I think if you’re trying to capture the vibe of London you have to more understand why people come here to begin with. And I think that’s a mixture. I think London has this glamorised thing of lights, big city, prospects of jobs and money and excitement. And at the same time, all those big lights and the hustle and bustle makes it easier for people to come to the city to disappear … whether that’s good or bad. (Ally)
This chapter now moves on to expose the strain between pleasure and anxiety that many women negotiate in 21st century London. Life here is varied, turbulent and fragmentary. Yet, viewing these experiences through the lens of rhythmanalysis and flânerie we can begin to discern patterns that help understand women’s mobilities in urban space. We will start broadly at the epidermis of the city, traversing through both the imaginings and footsteps on the streets of London, exploring how the rhythms of the city are felt and negotiated and are implicit in the formation of particular experiences of the city. We will then delve deeper to explore women’s understandings of and interactions with the London Underground and weave through positions of stress, anxiety, comfort and pleasure. We see that the Tube is something to be both endured and enjoyed. As we near the end of the chapter, I will hone the focus towards how freedom is often negotiated amidst a peripheral or lingering sense of fear, and how the anticipation of gendered violence acts to constitute, disrupt and shift women’s urban rhythms.
As discussed, the flâneur is inextricably linked with modernity, a period of mass movement from traditional rural living to the city (Baudelaire, 1864; Giddens, 1990; Simmel, 1903). This appeal of the urban continues today. Embodying the compelling magnetism of a global metropolis, for many, London whistled promise, and for a number of women, the prospect of life in the city was spoken of as a childhood dream, an exciting next step. Arriving and surviving in the city was symbolic of progression and independence.
Rachel, a 31-year-old academic who grew up in a small town in Essex described how she felt before moving to London 10 years ago: ‘It’s such a childhood dream to be here and it represents a lot in that way of getting out of the small town. London always seemed like the place to be and I felt like my life was about to begin, all these new opportunities … I was ready to be in the big city’.
Grace, 36, also grew up on the outskirts of the city and spoke about how as soon as she and her friends finished college they committed to their intentions to move to London: ‘This strange little place where I’m from, everyone grows up and wants to come to London … I was always drawn to London, there are so many opportunities here, I understand the pull’.
Similarly, Cris, 28, now working as a nurse, said that after university ‘it seemed like a really obvious choice to come to London, not too far away, a big city, lots of hospitals, job opportunities and I followed the crowd, a lot of people were coming to London’.
These imaginings of London mirror the emancipatory appeal of urbanity that began to transpire when the modern city came into being in the mid-19th century. A trace of this mentality lingers today, with the city representing financial and social opportunity, unmatched by rural or suburban places. For Rachel, Grace and Cris their perceptions of London and the anticipation of the possibilities it offered preceded its actuality and swayed them to pursue life in the big city. For others, circumstance rather than appeal brought them to London. This was the case for both Sheila and Alison who, being from the North of England, possessed a different perception of the city, holding a certain ‘anti-urbanism’ perspective (Thompson, 2009) with regard to London.
Alison graduated university three years ago, aged 20 and accepted the first job offer she received, in London: ‘London never appealed to me. I’d never wanted to live in London … I struggled but, I gradually got more comfortable and now it feels like home, I love it, there’s always something different, that’s what I love’.
Going through a hard time at home, Sheila, now 36, spontaneously took a summer job with a charity, expecting to hate it and only stay the season: ‘I think I had this image in my head of London as being big horrible crazy smelly polluted and unfriendly. But I came to London that summer and I fell in love with the place … I think it’s opened my eyes to a very diverse, very vibrant culture and in fact there’s always something to do, you’re never bored and I’ve met really great people. I think moving here opened up a whole new world for me and it made me realise that there’s a lot more to life’.
This relates closely to Simmel’s (1903) theorisation that the urban initially induces shock and fear yet is often learnt to be appreciated. Indeed, an agglomeration of the opportunities and encapsulating urban buzz motivated these women to construct their space within the cityscape. Far from being exceptions, the allure of London as a city of prospects is far-reaching and attracts individuals from all over the world, which contributes significantly to its diversity and multiculturalism. These aspects were highlighted as defining factors contributing to the character of the city and are elements that many were proud of.
Kreeda, 25, working in student welfare who has grown up in London with Indian parents similarly said, ‘It’s so diverse. I’m not saying there isn’t racism and homophobia, but I feel for the most part it’s a very accepting city’.
When I asked Annie, 26, what kept drawing her back to London she said, ‘I think it’s the multiculturalism of London, that’s what I really like is the mix of people, you don’t get that elsewhere’.
Eliza, who has grown up in North London said, ‘I love the multicultural-ness of it, the feeling of importance, almost like it’s the centre of the universe, I like feeling like I’m at the centre of something’.
Sammi, 37, who grew up in London and is of British and Indian descent described what she liked about the city: ‘its cultural diversity and acceptance … my experience of leaving London was always accompanied by a sharp rise in cultural ignorance, nationalism and whiteness. I would suddenly be complimented for being exotic’.
This ‘commonplace diversity’ (Wessendorf, 2014), contributes significantly to the alluring anonymity that London offers, ensuring a certain degree of ephemeral freedom when roaming the city.
As Dora, 30, mused: ‘In London, everyone and no one fits in. Everyone and no one stands out’.
It is within this urban context that, despite the historical elusiveness of the flâneuse, we can catch glimpses of her in contemporary London.
Kath, 40, who grew up in London and recently moved away, said: ‘What do I miss about London? I miss my freedom … it’s that anonymity first of all, that makes you feel a bit freer. It’s partly the size and sheer volume of people and the extent of transience’.
One of the flâneur’s most noteworthy characteristics is that they remain anonymous and detached whilst observing and strolling through the urban spectacle. A number of women described how this was one of their favourite features of life in London, with some specifically highlighting the pleasure in doing this alone, as a solo venture.
Alison, from Huddersfield, said she would not have previously considered this appealing, but this changed since moving to London: ‘I do stuff on my own now. I didn’t used to like my own company but now I walk around, explore, go to a few exhibitions by myself, that’s what I love … I used to get really lost, but it was fun!’.
Becky, 31, considered how this sort of pursuit was particular to urban space: ‘Cities are good places to be if you like the outdoors. In London you can walk everywhere if you’re central. I try to walk everywhere and take different routes. I like to be outdoors and walking’.
When I asked Grace to describe what she liked about living in London she answered: ‘It’s like the whole world has opened up. Where can I go, what can I do? And that’s what I love about London. You wander around and you don’t know what you’re going to see around the corner, who you’re going to bump into. I sometimes think, I haven’t had time just to walk around for a while, so I go around and walk the streets and see what’s going on’.
Made possible by significant progress in gender relations, women undoubtedly have access to traverse and enjoy the public spaces of London. These experiences and the ability to walk unnoticed are in part permitted by one of the core attributes of urban life: anonymity. As previously mentioned, this is also one of the most salient characteristics of the flâneur (Baudelaire, 1964; Wilson, 1991). Living in the city was defined by participants as permitting a certain amount of privacy and freedom.
Demi, 38, describes how it ‘gives people the space to be able to be who they are, or who they want to be’.
Dora came to London from France 11 years ago when she was 19 and recalls how she felt liberated by walking through the streets, particularly in comparison to other cities she’d lived in: ‘The first thing I noticed when I moved to London … well I like to wear small dresses and when I first moved here I noticed I wasn’t getting harassed for wearing short skirts. I didn’t get harassed on the streets, nobody gave a shit. The amount of shits people did not give was amazing’.
Becky, born in London and moving back to the city aged 23, reiterated this saying ‘I feel a certain amount of freedom in the anonymity; nobody gives a shit about what you’re doing … nobody cares’.
This links again to Simmel’s (1903) ‘metropolitan individuality’ and ‘blasé outlook’: the notion that modern urbanites treat those around them with ambivalence and indifference due to a filtering out of excess external stimuli.
Laya, 40, who moved to London 17 years ago considers this almost directly, as she stated: ‘I don’t think that people in London are particularly unfriendly, it’s just the rush of the city and the stresses of living here that make people retreat into themselves … that shield, it’s a necessity, a resilience or protection thing’.
It became clear that Londoners themselves recognise that this attitude is often perceived as rude and unwelcoming by those unaccustomed to the fast and indifferent pace of the city.
Eliza considered this saying: ‘There’s this theory about how Londoners are really unfriendly, which in my experience just isn’t true. I think actually Londoners are some of the friendliest, most welcoming people when you break that barrier’.
Sammi recognised how the collective enactment of these sociabilities creates certain expectations: ‘I think this anonymity might have something to do with the fact that we’re quite rude, for want of a better word. I think a lot of people who come from elsewhere say Londoners keep to themselves, mind their own business … but it’s quite normal and I do enjoy it. No one bothers you, it’s a social norm you get used to, and I quite like it! You can go about your business and expect not to be interrupted’.
There is a clear correlation here with Goffman’s (1963) theory of ‘civil inattention’. Those who have become accustomed to this mode of being are able to appreciate that, whilst this type of sociability may seem averse and hostile, it is a highly functional, yet subtle, manner of communication (Bissell, 2010). This favourable notion towards sociabilities such as a ‘blasé outlook’ and ‘civil inattention’ offers a mode of being in the city that resonates with the comfort that the flâneur found in being anonymous in the crowd. The women describe their enjoyment at how being in a diverse metropolis affords them the privilege and pleasure of anonymity. This imitates Baudelaire’s (1964, p. 9) depiction of the flâneur who likes ‘to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world …’. As well as this pervasive anonymity, there were substantial references to the fleeting social intimacies that occur in everyday urban life, due to living in a state of almost constant co-presence (Crang, 2001).
Eliza reflected on this: ‘I think the lovely thing about London is that actually we’re probably more used to people being in our personal space. I don’t think twice if I’m squashed into a space and people are touching my arms and stuff … I think most people in London will have an experience of a stranger being in their personal space, not on purpose but out of necessity. So, I think we’re more tolerant of it than people in other places, which I think has its strengths and weaknesses, but I think sometimes it’s a really good thing to be tolerant of other people’.
Correlating directly with the flâneur’s desire for transient and anonymous interactions, Becky describes the comfort that can be drawn from these types of abbreviated and fleeting urban sociabilities: ‘You’re never alone when you live in the city and I like that. I don’t like isolation … in the city there’s always people around, even if they’re strangers and anonymous, there are these fleeting possibilities …. It’s comforting, it really is. I think it’s an odd type of community but I enjoy it’.
This state of co-existence that permits momentary, intimate glances into people’s lives became an unintentionally prominent focus throughout my early fieldnotes. I became hooked on capturing that melancholic sensation that seemed to flow as an ever-present undercurrent to daily life in the city. I developed a habit of writing the most intimate things I could observe about the people around me on buses and Tube carriages, often in the form of single words or stand-alone observations.
Stain on shirt.
Scar on neck.
Odd socks.
I watch her as she soothes her face with a soft, moist wet wipe. I’m close enough to smell its floral scent. She moves the cloth around her face, folds it and repeats. She moves on to her hands, wiping the length of each finger. Her skin is glistening as she wipes herself clean from the dirt of the day. It is intimate, sensuous and made public. There is something comforting about it. I feel relaxed watching her. It’s a glimpse into her routine, her personal life, of the tenderness and self-care that she permits herself. Private in public. A slow moment amidst the rush. (Fieldnotes, 31 March 2017)
Clip on earrings.
Bead of sweat.
Missed a hair shaving.
At the time, these observations often seemed whimsical and futile in terms of actual research, and yet, the implication of these fragmented annotations became clearer to me when I later considered them through the lens of rhythmanalysis. Each of them revealed something about the person I encountered. It exposed their particular and personal rhythms and helped me acknowledge that, despite individual rhythms becoming seemingly entrained by the dominant temporalities of the city and Tube, they remained all the same. Not eradicated but nudged into the background. Recognising the subtle presence of these rhythms decelerated time and disrupted the notion of the rapid city as an entirely dominant and dictating mechanism. It allowed me a discernment of the plurality and complexity of the polyrhythmic interactions that manifest in the city.
The melancholy caused by these brief glimpses into the lives of others, the sense of an ephemeral, anonymous, transitory connection is a privilege only afforded to those living in the modern metropolis, and traditionally, only to men (Elkin, 2016; Wilson, 1991). It is one of the features of the flâneur that holds most dear: detachment; the ability to observe and be observed, without interacting. Alongside the descriptions of strolling and exploring the city for leisure, the pleasure that women attribute to these fleeting interactions perhaps demonstrates that they are indeed embodying certain traits of the flâneur, giving hope to the attainability of the modern day flâneuse. Yet conversely, it takes little imagination to see how the permutation of co-presence, anonymity and transient exchanges can also leave women exposed to less desirable, intrusive and non-consensual interactions. These apparent freedoms will be brought back into debate when women articulate how the risk of sexual harassment acts to disrupt and challenge their negotiations with the city.
Rhythms are also important here as to how women experience the city as a place of comfort and freedom. Knowing a rhythm or becoming accustomed to the rhythmic ensemble of a place is significant.
As Laya states: ‘I’m fairly fearless when I travel around London because I know its rhythms. And it really does have its own rhythms’.
Here, adopting the pace of the city and knowing its tempo is described as offering a sense of accomplishment and belonging. This ‘knowing’ of the city was considered with specific regard to adapting to its spatio-temporal nature.
Rach, 30, a bartender living in Bristol and travelling to London regularly for work said: ‘I still feel excited when I arrive and don’t have to check where I’m going, that I’m moving quickly … there’s an excitement and a sense of achievement that you’ve conquered London’.
As discussed by Lefebvre (2004), the rhythmic ensemble of a space contributes significantly to how it is experienced, and the rhythmical attributes of speed and pace are often considered one of London’s defining elements.
Rach elaborates, saying: ‘It’s fun and exciting but also exhausting, so I couldn’t live here because everything is always open and it’s busy busy busy, go go go all the time’. Grace similarly describes the city as having a ‘24/7 culture … people are always around and it’s constantly going’.
Alison considered this saying: ‘They say in London getting somewhere never takes less than 45 minutes, some places take me an hour and a half … back home in Grimsby you wouldn’t travel that far to meet someone for dinner … it’s a weird concept but I quickly got used to it and that’s just part of the way of being in London. I don’t think about it now’.
This illustrates how time takes on a different quality in relation to space and how these various urban tempos establish the quality of rapidity that is such a dominant rhythm in London. I quickly came to recognise the importance of being acquainted with these temporal rhythms in order to feel settled and at home in the city. In the first few months in London, my fieldnotes and reflexive diary possess a tone of excitement laced with a consistent weariness, as I wrote of the city ‘sapping my energy’, and of feeling constantly jostled by the crowds and overwhelmed by the fast pace that often left me exhausted, anxious and fragmented. In February, after five months of living in the city, I wrote of arriving back into St Pancras station after a short trip away:
With a smile I realised that this comforting feeling I was experiencing was familiarity. The clashing noises and too bright lights in the hall of the station, the repetitive mingling of people arriving, leaving and waiting, the sagging of the seats on the Tube, it all made me feel at ease where before I had felt tension … and I was no longer thinking about my next move, I was just moving methodically, in a reassuring, arrogant, trance like state … I feel like I’ve gradually become intertwined with the city, at times I can’t tell if my pace of walking is my own choice or if it’s the push and pull of those around me. (Fieldnote extract, 24 February 2017)
I had gradually adapted my own rhythms and movements to those of the city, becoming part of the polyrhythmic ensemble. Similarly, many women, both those who were ‘born and bred’ in London, and those who have come to know the city as a place called home, described the pleasure in having corporeal knowledge of these urban rhythms, that often led to a perceptual ownership of the streets and public space.
Kath who recently moved to Leicester, said that she has a ‘London walk’, which she re-embodies when she ‘steps back into London, like a skipping rope’. She described her ‘London walk’ as ‘rude and rapid, speeding and weaving with no eye contact … in London I stride with purpose and ownership wherever I go, I take no prisoners, these are my streets’.
Grace has lived in the city since she was 18 and similarly described how having a sense of familiarity impacts her attitude towards navigating the city: ‘I think there’s a bit of arrogance that comes from kind of growing up in London, knowing London … it’s my claim to the city’.
This sense of ownership of the streets is derived, at least in part, from implicitly knowing, embodying and performing (consciously or subconsciously) particular dominant rhythms that are present and active in parts of the city. Being accustomed to its complexities and rhythms was significant to women’s confidence and conviction in the city, permitting them to experience and act out a version of flânerie.
However, despite the freedom that the dominant rhythms and sociabilities of London can foster, they can also act to induce feelings of fear and isolation. As highlighted in historical literature regarding urban life, the urban public domain was initially perceived as a dangerous and mentally damaging arena, particularly for women (Hubbard, 2012; Massey, 1994). Whilst the contemporary city is now hailed as a desirable and profitable place to live (Zukin, 2009), women highlighted concerns that they pertained as specific to life in the city, particularly feelings of fear, isolation and the relentless pressure of a high-paced life.
These elements were emphasised by Emmy, 31, who lived in London for a year before moving to a village in the Midlands. She said: ‘I wanted to be based in London but it wasn’t for me. There were bits I hated, especially the rush and stress of getting the Tube every day. I found it a very isolating place to be and I think I didn’t feel that safe’.
A high proportion of depictions of fear and discomfort came from those who did not live in the city. This relates back to the notion that knowledge, familiarity and being accustomed to the rhythms of a place, all contribute to feeling safe, competent and more at ease in the city (Hornsey, 2012).
Ellie, 30, who travels to London occasionally for work from her home in Brighton recognised this saying: ‘London is too hectic for me. I can find it quite fast and frightening and I definitely feel less safe. I’m sure that has a bit to do with it not being my home, with it being unknown, but it can be quite a scary place’.
As well as feelings of fear, a more commonly emphasised notion was that the city was ‘hard work’. Whilst for some, the urban temporalities of London created a sense of importance and excitement, others highlighted how this unforgiving rapidity acted to create sociabilities and interactions that led to feelings of isolation.
Dora, who enjoyed the anonymity of the city, said: ‘It can be a harsh place, tough, and incredibly difficult to live in if you’re feeling down or not doing so well. When things were not going well for me I felt like the city was just chewing me up and was about to spit me out, it was awful. And when you’re down, nobody gives a shit. If you’re crying on the tube no one is going to ask you, which is great if you want to be alone but not when you’re at a point where you just need somebody to say it’s going to be ok. Nobody is going to tell you that, they’re going to look away’.
This reveals the conflicting experience of sociabilities in the city: they simultaneously permit anonymity and freedom and induce a sense of isolation and loneliness. As a specific, transitory space, the Underground has its own rhythms that implicate women’s experiences of mobility in the city, and this is given specific attention below. It helps us to develop an understanding of the network as an arena of abundant mobility, composed of multitudinous rhythms that coalesce to create the atmospheres of the stations, carriages and places in between. The interactions that occur within these liminal spaces, including incidents of sexual harassment, are meaningfully shaped by these rhythms and social atmospheres.
The Need for Speed: Rhythms of the Underground
Simultaneously replicating and facilitating the institutionalised, time-conscious rhythms of the city above, the Underground is a rapid, regular transport network. As a far-reaching mobility system, it is an integral component of life in London, facilitating the everyday mobilisation of bodies around the city. The network is often seen as being dominated by the fast-paced circadian beat of commuters, with an impersonality and insolence that imposes itself (Bissell, 2010). Yet with more intimate observation and analysis, it becomes apparent that there are innumerable rhythms, individual and collective, that concurrently exist and interact in tension with one another. The nature and hierarchy of these rhythms will be explored here, and their impact upon sociabilities on the network will be investigated throughout succeeding chapters.
The necessity of the Underground was emphasised by most participants who lived in London.
Carla, who has lived, studied and worked in London her whole life said: ‘London couldn’t function day to day without it … it’s vital, and it’s amazing that when the system breaks down, you see the city come to a standstill, you really see the effects. It goes to show how important the Underground is for life in the city, work, pleasure or studying, it’s absolutely vital to get around.
Eliza describes it as ‘enabling’ and said that without it ‘your experience, your life in London is stunted’.
Alison considers how ‘it opens everything up and makes the whole city accessible’. And Rachel says how ‘life would be so much harder without the convenience of it’.
The network’s regularity and predictability were considered to be the system’s most defining and favourable features. Each Tube stop has real-time computerised updates that signify when the next train will be arriving, accompanied with regular updates in the form of voice announcements. At peak times, and even off-peak, there is rarely a gap of more than 5−10 minutes between departures, with trains often arriving every 1−3 minutes in central areas of the city.
Ruth describes her appreciation for how accurately she could calculate her commute when she lived in London: ‘I’d leave my house at 7.20, walk for 20 minutes, then the first train would take 26 minutes, then the Waterloo and City Line would take 8 minutes. I did that every day for three years. The convenience was amazing’.
Comparing London transport to Bristol, Rach says: ‘I prefer the Tube. Buses are never on time, or they just don’t show up. The Tube … you don’t have to wait more than two minutes, and you know it’ll be there. That makes it so convenient’.
This illustrates how some of the women have an affinity with the rhythmic attributes that are equated with the modern city. The predictability of the environment was also highlighted as allowing for ease of travel.
Demi states: ‘For people who use it everyday … you don’t really need to pay any attention, it’s like wallpaper, you’re on auto-pilot’.
Sara, 40, describes how she is ‘obsessively routine … I stand in the same spot on the platform because I know where the doors open. It’s always the same’, and Carla says how she enjoys using the Tube because ‘I don’t have to think much … it’s easy to work out, it’s not complicated’.
This, in part, signifies the success of Harry Beck’s (the creator of the topological Tube map) vision for Tube users to become self-governed and therefore more efficient within a legible environment (Hornsey, 2012). As well as allowing for a maximised use of time, these aspects also permitted a sense of security and safety, particularly at night.
Sara says: ‘the Tube is so consistent and reliable that it makes you feel safe, the familiarity and predictability makes you unconcerned. It’s like a cocoon from the streets, it’s indoors and regulated’.
Similarly, Rose considered: ‘The Tube is so familiar, why would I be frightened of it … when something is familiar there’s less fear and the Tube is so familiar and reliable, it’s always the same. Every time I go on the Tube I have a very similar experience to the last time I was on the Tube’.
These repetitive and predictable experiences are, at least in part, resultant of the Underground’s materiality, its architecture and the way the system is physically structured (both the trains themselves, the tunnels, and the stations). It is designed to dictate, or at least encourage a homogenous mode of being. Like the city, rapidity is a dominant rhythm on the Underground. Not just in the mechanical speed of the trains, but equally in the ebb and flow of individual bodies moving as a collective within the network, that are similarly moving to minimise time in transit.
Annie, whose job as a tutor required her to travel all over the city captures this saying: ‘I always feel like I’m in a rush, even when I’m not, on the tube it just always feels like that, maybe because everyone else is rushing. So you’re annoyed if you miss a train, even though you have plenty of time and there’s another one in two minutes. So often I think it’s quite a stressful experience that makes you very aware of time’.
Demi, who visits regularly for business trips, also describes her movements through the network as dominated by speed: ‘On the Underground I’m always moving quite fast, I’m part of the movement, I can’t help it, I’m kind of powering through, walking up the escalators and wherever I go I’m looking ahead for the most efficient paths through the crowd without getting in the way of anyone else’.
This prevailing impulse for speed became evident to me when I was riding the Underground purely for the purpose of ethnographic observations (rather than to get somewhere). I was essentially travelling without a destination, and consequently without any real sense of urgency or purpose. And yet I found myself struggling to slow down, and I still felt a twinge of annoyance at missing a train by a millisecond. I was swept up in the seemingly irresistible current of the network, and the urge to harmonise my movements and tempo with those around me. As well as speed, some women considered how, on the Underground, they felt a change in their persona when travelling, particularly at rush hour.
Ruth says, ‘the journey does turn you into an aggressive and confrontational person because everyone else is, it’s sort of infectious’.
Chloe considers: ‘I don’t think I’m a very nice person on the Tube, I’m rushed and unforgiving, I want to get through’.
Grace describes how when she embarks upon the part of her commute that is on the Tube: ‘I switch and I’m in work mode, I fight to get on, I get more aggressive, I push in and don’t let anyone in’.
Sheila mirrors this saying: ‘Sometimes on the Tube I want to lose my temper … with tourists, when it’s rush hour and they’re holding you up because they don’t know what they’re doing at the ticket barriers, you just want to swear at them!’
This has strong connotations with Simmel’s (1903) idea that the nature of the metropolis changes individual’s behaviour (metropolitan individuality) and Bissell’s (2010) consideration of the affective nature of commuting. Often these frustrations were brought out by disruptions to the normative, fast-paced rhythms:
Kreeda says: ‘You should know which direction you’re going in, and always have your Oyster card ready at the gates because otherwise that holds people up and you can create a back log that stops the flow of people going’.
Similarly, Cris, who often travels in rush hour says: ‘You get your card ready, the barriers can slow you down but it should be easy, you tap your card down and that’s usually quite smooth but you get annoyed at people when they aren’t as ready as you’.
Ruth, remembering her first few weeks commuting in London says: ‘If for some reason you’ve not got your ticket ready, you want the ground to swallow you up because you know you’re holding people up, even if it’s a nanosecond, it’s just the awkwardness of having to take that step backwards … you learn to try and avoid it’.
Many of these norms, described by Tess as ‘Tube etiquette’, are so ubiquitous because they actively contribute to the flow of people and thus, capital, through the system. Signage, posters and audio announcements from Transport for London and British Transport Police are regular features around the network, often in an explicit attempt to manage subjects that move through the system by signifying preferential modes of behaviour. For example, this includes instructions to stand on the right side of the escalator to let people move quickly on the left, to move down into the middle of carriages to make more space, to let people off the carriages before getting on, and to have your ticket or oyster card ready when approaching the barriers. Yet despite ‘official’ instruction, much of the corporeal movement that can be observed when moving through the network is embodied and self-governed by regular users of the Tube. From my observations, I recorded countless incidents of passengers regulating and disciplining one another’s behaviour if it was not deemed appropriate. The following fieldnote was recorded within a few weeks of me arriving in London:
It’s 9.45 pm at St Pancras. Walking through the passageway from the Underground to the main station, the flow of people moves swift and purposefully. Polished heels are clicking, and trench coats are swirling in the gust of the tunnel. As I move with the stream of bodies, I notice (or feel?) a disruption. A man who has just marched past me pushes by another man who is walking (relatively) slowly; he responds by exclaiming ‘Woah, scuse me mate!’ The first man looks back without stopping and says ‘You are in the way, you shouldn’t be walking in the middle, walk to the side if you’re going so slowly’, to which the second man replies: ‘I don’t have the same control over how fast I walk as you do’. At closer observation, it becomes clear that he is hobbling slightly, walking with a slight limp. The older (faster) man waves his hand dismissively in the air behind him, and that is the end of their exchange. (Fieldnote extract, October 2016)
This epitomises how users of the Underground discipline one another into conforming to the social norms and rhythms of space. It also signifies how individual bodily, physiological rhythms can serve as a disruption to the collective. At the time, I felt indignant towards the first man for his rudeness and hostility. Yet only a few weeks later, I had Canadian friends visiting, and (to my shame) felt a fluttering of anxiety in my stomach as they stood obtrusively on the left-hand side of the escalator and chatted loudly and cheerfully across the aisle on a busy Tube carriage. I didn’t want to feel embarrassed, but … they were breaking the rules! I had to consciously stop myself from glancing apologetically at fellow travellers. My internalisation of the social norms of the Underground was mirrored by some of the women, but they described how they took pride in calling people out if they were acting in a way that was deemed inappropriate for the space. This included telling other passengers to take off backpacks, to move down the carriages and to give up seats for elderly people or pregnant women. This pervasive (social) policing of others demonstrates how dominant rhythms and modes of behaviour are established, embodied and (re)enforced. In her work on the embodiment of urban geographies, Middleton (2010) discusses the practice of being a ‘good’ or ‘skilled’ pedestrian in London. Here, women expressed similar sentiments of pride in being established and competent Tube users.
Alongside whole bodily movements, there are also ‘micro’ behaviours that are collectively enacted within the space of the Underground. These interactions are ones that, whilst seemingly unfriendly and antisocial, are often deemed as necessary and appropriate for the efficient functioning of a system that requires such a high level of co-presence. Two of the most iterated examples of this were a pervading silence, and a lack of eye contact on carriages.
When I asked women to describe the ‘social scene’ of the Underground these aspects came up repeatedly: ‘It’s a very formal and British space, so no eye contact, little speech and even smiling is somewhat frowned upon as being too intimate’ (Sammi); ‘zero eye contact, and I can probably count the number of conversations I’ve heard on the tube’ (Alison); and, ‘avoid eye contact and keep to yourself’. (Sara)
Despite their functionality, some women felt that these combined sociabilities meant the Tube was an immensely unpleasant, impersonal and stressful place.
Eliza and Emmy both described rush hour as ‘survival of the fittest’ and Ruth, who noted the Underground as one of the main reasons she left London said: ‘It’s the worst part of anyone’s day, it’s miserable everyone just wants to get to work so they can carry on being a normal human being … when I could, I’d avoid the Underground at all costs’.
Yet most of the women I spoke to recognised the function of these seemingly hostile norms as a way of ‘allowing people their personal space whilst really, there is absolutely none’ (Kreeda). Sammi also says: ‘a lot of it is about allowing people to stay in their private bubbles’.
In fact, some women spoke of how the rhythms of the Underground, and the anonymous interactions they induce, allow a sense of comfort and pleasure whilst on the move, that can be paralleled to the activity of the flâneuse. Whilst (if she existed at all) she traditionally roamed the city on foot, these accounts reveal that fragments of the character of the elusive flâneuse are being embodied and experienced on the Underground.
Rose hints at this saying: ‘I can be completely disconnected from everybody else, and that’s allowed in this space, there’s no obligation for me to interact with people’.
This pleasure in transit connects with Goffman’s (1963) concept of ‘allocation involvement’, whereby travelling is the main purpose and activity being performed, thereby permitting the opportunity to withdraw and relax.
Alison also captures the possibility of being alone in the crowd, saying: ‘My commute is an hour and twenty minutes long, but I love it! It’s a bit of me time that I rarely get … nobody talks to me, it’s silent on the Tube which I love. I don’t get a moment to myself so sometimes I’ll make my journey home extended so I have more time on public transport … even though you’re surrounded by so many people, that’s my alone time’.
Grace said that she finds being on the Tube ‘comforting and relaxing’. And Rachel explained that when she was writing her Ph.D. she would ‘sometimes get my laptop out and sit on the circle line and go round and round, I found it a relaxing environment to write in, I think because it was insulated from the outside world’.
Becky said: ‘It’s a place where no one expects anything of you, it’s almost like being at home because no one expects anything of you, you can just go about what you need to do, put your headphones in … when you’re travelling nothing is expected of you. Because I’m working and studying, I don’t get any down time and 40 minutes, twice a day I can listen to a podcast, I don’t have to talk to anybody, nobody needs anything from me, I don’t have to think about anything, I don’t have to process any information, it’s my quiet time. I think for a lot of people in London that’s the same’.
Chloe describes her commute in a similar fashion: ‘Once I get on it’s my own personal space, a really key part of my day, I read my book, zone out or whatever. It’s often the only time of the day where no one is interacting with me, it’s alone time, relaxing before I get catapulted into my job’.
This mirrors research that has acknowledged the positive utility of commuting time (Redmond & Mokhtarian, 2001) and framed it as desirable time to oneself or, ‘me time’, in a separate ‘third space’ between work and home (Pindek et al., 2023). There are also enjoyable moments on the Tube when the veneer of ‘hostility’ is broken.
Rose describes these fleeting moments saying: ‘I’ve actually had some really nice experiences on the Tube, small chats and little smiles when you catch someone’s eye. And those moments can make you feel good’.
Laya further explores this, explaining: ‘You sometimes get those moments where something happens and it unites the whole carriage, everyone laughs, it breaks down that shield, only briefly but when you see it happen you realise, the barriers everyone puts up on the Tube, it’s deliberate but it can be broken easily, it’s a temporary and fragile construct’.
As a fundamental part of London life, the Underground, acting as the veins and arteries of the city, can often be seen as mono-rhythmic, relentless and hostile. Indeed, the network is structured and managed in order to encourage fast and efficient movement and it is clear that these notions of predictability and efficiency act to create a sense of ontological security. Yet with more intimate observation and analysis it becomes apparent that there are innumerable rhythms, individual and collective, that concurrently exist and generally interact in relative harmony. These can even be experienced as comforting, offering women the opportunity to engage in a contemporary form of flânerie. Yet despite the curation of this space in which freedom can be felt, it will become apparent when looking at incidents of sexual harassment on the network that the accumulation of these rhythms and the behavioural norms they define, are all significant in shaping the trajectory of incidents of sexual harassment that happen within the space. The following section will explore how (the threat of) sexual harassment more broadly constitutes a part of and a disruption to these rhythms and women’s lives in the city.
Disruption on the Line: The Risk and Anticipation of Male Violence
[…] expect it and then accept it. (Janice)
Despite women displaying and enacting forms of modern day flânerie and discussing how the city and the Underground provided them with freedom, anonymity and pleasure, they also spoke of how the risk and actuality of sexual harassment and men’s intrusions impacted their negotiations of the city and how they experienced public space.
Grace, who spoke strongly about her feelings of ownership of the streets considered: ‘I do feel I have access to everything in London. But I will say that with that comes a constant reassurance to myself that I have this access, rather than it just being, I have to reassure myself … I have a place here, I can do this … it’s like this internal monologue that just takes up headspace. I really want to get to the point where it doesn’t enter my head’.
Chloe expresses similar sentiments about navigating the possibility of unwanted interactions with men in public, saying: ‘Having to think about these things … it’s an invasion of your mental space’, and Eliza, considers: ‘Worrying about these things is annoying because it kind of distracts you from your personal zoning out time’.
One of the core characteristics of the flâneur is his ability to be aimless and aloof whilst traversing the city. Whilst the previous sections of this chapter show many women enjoy the practice of urban wandering, the perceived risk of male violence insists that they maintain a sense of vigilance. Furthermore, many of the women recognise the gendered nature of this tension as something that men are often oblivious to.
Janice summarises this saying that sexual harassment: ‘for most men it’s just not in their sphere of expectation. For women we almost expect it and then accept it’. Gillian spoke about how her male friends are always surprised and disbelieving when she recounts stories of sexual harassment.
Similarly, Ally says: ‘I find it frustrating that men have no idea what it’s like, and so they’re so dismissive of sexual harassment because they’ve never been followed home, they’ve never had someone expose themselves, shouted at. Men don’t understand that it isn’t a one off, these are regular, multiple experiences’.
Demi talked about how when she spoke to male colleagues about sexual harassment in public space they saw it as a joke, and she said ‘it’s not a joke. You don’t know what it’s like to have to watch yourself all the time’.
In this sense, the fear or knowledge of the potential for sexual harassment is an active and ever present normative (psychological) rhythm that women navigate. Furthermore, as well as being a psychological rhythm, it often manifests in physical actions in order to traverse public space in a way that feels safe.
Demi said: ‘You’re forever having to justify that you want to exist in public space without harassment, so I think we all have these little things we do to protect ourselves, ask any of my female friends, they’ll tell you’.
Kath considers how: ‘It doesn’t matter where you go, there’s always this other layer of navigation, like you’re constantly policing yourself and your actions’.
Tara mentions having ‘safety plans’ to get home at night, and Laya considers the exhaustion from occupying these thoughts: ‘it’s bullshit that we have to continually come up with these like, tactics and negotiations to feel safe in public space’.
These strategies and negotiations caused by the risk of sexual harassment and violence act to demonstrate that whilst women are an equal part of the urban scene, experiences of the city’s public spaces remain highly gendered and often fraught with challenges.
Despite the omnipresent and normalised risk of sexual harassment that many women experience and internalise, when an incident does occur, it still causes ‘arrhythmia’ and a disruption to a general sense of safety and well-being, often causing feelings of vulnerability, distress and anger, and making the city (temporarily) seem an unfamiliar and intimidating place.
Speaking of an incident of sexual harassment she experienced, Sammi states: ‘It really shook me up, I was always aware of dangers, but it came out of nowhere. I was in my own little world, and it came like a slap in the face’.
Tara describes this similarly saying: ‘Every time something like this happens, even a little thing, it sort of rocks you and wakes you up’.
Kath considers: ‘The most violating thing was that it was challenging to my idea that I was free to go about my business as I please without interruption’.
These comments reveal that women’s daily trajectories in the city require a level of negotiation in public space that, largely, does not exist for men. Discussions about women’s access (and limits) to public urban space have been historically situated within discourses of vulnerability, often taking on a highly paternalistic nature. This remains pervasive (if more subtle) in modern society and was recognised and challenged by some of the women who explicitly demanded the right to take risks. As Phadke et al. (2011, p. 180) consider, by doing so ‘we are implicitly rejecting this conditional protection in favour of the unqualified right to public space’.
Chloe speaks about this explicitly: ‘I feel for a really long time people have been frightened about travelling around on their own as a woman and I don’t like that. It’s really important to me that it’s not a big deal. I don’t like it when people say let me know you get home safe … there should be no reason to expect that I won’t. I won’t live like that’.
Ally expresses similar sentiments: ‘I tend to get angry when people say oh don’t walk home alone, these things could happen to you. And I’m like I know, you think I don’t know this? But what annoys me is it shouldn’t be this way, why are you conditioning me to be afraid, reinforcing this behaviour, making it acceptable to say I shouldn’t go out on my own? That pisses me off’.
These reflections show that traversing the city in an aimless and uninhibited way, is a prospect that exists just out of reach in contemporary London. Whilst many women highlighted that the city provides them with a sense of freedom, anonymity and pleasure, the perceived risk and anticipation of gendered violence exist as a tension and limitation to these experiences. The perceived need to assess and negotiate one’s presence and safety in urban space is pervasive. Yet looking at this through the lens of the flâneur allows us to challenge narratives that only present the danger, fear and victimisation that women experience in urban space. Reaching optimistically for the possibility of the flâneuse forces us to engage with the multitudinous rhythms and negotiations women occupy when navigating the city.
This chapter has offered a tapestry of women’s experiences that ‘set the scene’, or the ‘before’, everyday stage, amidst which incidents of sexual harassment on the London Underground play out. Using Lefebvre’s rhythmanalysis and the concept of the flâneur, this chapter has portrayed the tensions that exist with the possibility of a claim for the modern day flâneuse in London. These accounts given by women come together to co-create a representation of the rhythmic attributes of the city and the Underground, and how they impact urban experience. Finally, these themes were drawn together to demonstrate how the anticipation and perceived risk of sexual harassment, both constitute women’s normative rhythms and act as disruptions that hinder their perceived freedom in the city. As we see in the following chapter, these anticipations are not misplaced, as the urban rhythms and sociabilities we have explored here are exploited in the spaces and paces of the Underground.
- Prelims
- Chapter 1. Introduction: Arrhythmia and Egg Yolk
- Chapter 2. Everyday, Everywhere: Theorising Sexual Harassment
- Chapter 3. Space, Time and Rhythms: Introducing a Mobilities Framework
- Chapter 4. ‘Before’: Gendered Experiences of Urban Space
- Chapter 5. ‘During’: Moments of Sexual Harassment on the London Underground
- Chapter 6. ‘After’: The Impact of Sexual Harassment – Remembering and Resisting Across Time and Space
- Chapter 7. Conclusions: Slowing Down
- References