Men and Women
. . . and just as a community or neighborhood must have a proper balance of activities for people of all the different ages—Community of 7,000, Identifiable Neighborhood, Life Cycle—so it must also adjust itself and its activities to the balance of the sexes, and provide, in equal part, the things which reflect the masculine and feminine sides of life.
Problem:
The world of a town in the 1970s is split along sexual lines. Suburbs are for women, workplaces for men; kindergartens are for women, professional schools for men; supermarkets are for women, hardware stores for men.
Background & Research: Not Included on the site—Go read the book!
Solution:
Make certain that each piece of the environment—each building, open space, neighborhood, and work community—is made with a blend of both men’s and women’s instincts. Keep this balance of masculine and feminine in mind for every project at every scale, from the kitchen to the steel mill.
Usage:
No large housing areas without workshops for men; no work communities which do not provide for women with part-time jobs and child care—Scattered Work. Within each place which has a balance of the masculine and feminine make sure that individual men and women also have room to flourish, in their own right, distinct and separate from their opposites—A Room of One’s Own . . .
pg. 146