What: “The Invisible Curfew: Women’s Fear & Use of Public Space during China’s Urbanization,” featuring Global Practitioner-in-Residence Peiqin Zhou
When: March 1, 7-8:30 p.m.
Where: Sussman Theater, Olmsted Center

Peiqin Zhou is associate professor and deputy chair in the Dept. of Sociology at Nanjing University in China. She is serving as visiting Global Practitioner-in-Residence in Drake’s Department for the Study of Culture and Society. Zhou studies urban women’s use of public space in China and how fear affects young women in a low-density suburb. Due to “the shadow of sexual assault,” women usually show more fear of crime, measures to avoid victimization, and negative impacts on their lives. The crucial factor triggering fear is the lack of informal social control, which is partly due to the architecture design embodied by modern functionalism and partly due to the homogeneity of social life. She argues that women’s spatial experience will improve if more informal social control is put into effect, but a more profound sociological imagination is called on to better understand this issue.

Sponsor: The Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship.

— Submitted by Denise Ganpat, Center for Global Citizenship