Researching Female Public Toilets: Gendered Spaces, Disciplinary Limits

Authors

Barbara Penner

Abstract

I have always been drawn to study intimate yet public spaces – most notably Victorian ladies’ public lavatories and American honeymoon suites. Such research raises larger questions concerning the legitimacy of certain objects of inquiry and of feminist and interdisciplinary work in general. This paper aims to go behind the curtain of academic research and to think about the challenges one faces “back-stage” when investigating spaces or objects connected intimately to sexuality and the gendered body.

Author Biography

Barbara Penner is a Lecturer in Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. In 2003, she completed her doctoral dissertation, “Alone at Last: Honeymooning in America.” Her essays have been published in several edited collections and scholarly journals, most recently in Architecture and Tourism: Perception, Performance and Place (Berg, 2004) and the forthcoming Negotiating Domesticity (Routledge, 2005). With Jane Rendell and Iain Borden, she edited Gender Space Architecture (Routledge, 2000).

Recommended Citation

Penner, Barbara (2005) "Researching Female Public Toilets: Gendered Spaces, Disciplinary Limits," Journal of International Women's Studies: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 6.
Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol6/iss2/6