Level with us, regional development is still ‘man shaped’: feminism, futurity and leadership

ABSTRACT

Regional development is ‘man-shaped’. This article calls for more engagement with the feminist concept of futurity by bringing together and troubling masculine-coded understandings of regional development, leadership and power over time and space. It argues that continuing to neglect feminist politics and practices in regional studies stifles conceptual and practical advances in subnational development. Drawing on the example of the UK at a time the government seeks to ‘level-up’ longstanding geographical inequalities, the article highlights and troubles the construction of a masculine gaze of development over time, and how this limits the becoming of ‘otherwise’ regional futures.

KEYWORDS:

• feminist futurity
• regional development
• leadership
• levelling-up

JEL:

• B54
• R11
• R58

1. INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPMENT IN MAN-SHAPED REGIONS

Any settlement is an inscription in space of the social relations in the society that built it.

(Darke, 1996, p. 88)

The way we plan, maintain, encounter and think about the development of regions and associated economic, political and social order are spheres both dominated by men, and understood through a masculine gaze. This is a global and persistent concern that overlooks significant issues in inequality and difference and limits the scope of future imaginaries. This article argues that the field of regional studies needs to better centre feminist concepts, politics and practices to disrupt the current masculine-coded understandings of regional development. Such thinking ought not to be rendered as ‘merely feminist’ (Amoore, 2020) or peripheral to the perceived more pressing demands of enquiry, often the economy (Gray & Pollard, 2018). In continuing to overlook ingrained inequality and difference, various intellectual disciplines attuned to understanding how regions develop and change are stifling conceptual and practical advances in regional development. Economic geography, for example, continues to face a ‘persistent neglect of gender and social difference within the conceptual terrain of the sub-discipline’ (Werner et al., 2017, p. 3) and relatedly its predominant gendered (male) and racial (white) make-up (Gray & Pollard, 2018; Pugh, 2018). This oversight comes despite wider and varied demands for a more holistic approach to understandings of ‘the economy’ (Hall, 2019; James, 2017; Jarvis, 2007; Massey, 1995; Perrons, 2011; Sen, 1999).

Whilst scholars across different disciplines, including geography, planning, architecture and sociology, have argued for some time that cities are ‘man-shaped’ (Darke, 1996) and called for them to become ‘non-sexist’ (Hayden, 1980), this article argues that regions and perceptions of development are also ‘man-shaped’. It invokes the aim of this section of Regional Studies – to intellectually extend our urban and regional horizons (Harrison, 2015; MacLeod, 2014) – by calling for scholars to centre a range of feminist perspectives, politics and practices to better understand our urban and regional worlds. This is an urgent agenda, which can be taken in many directions across different geographical regions, both advancing alternative ways of seeing and understanding regional development, but also recalibrating current concepts and practices. This article builds on longstanding and more recent feminist thinking to offer only some ways in which we can begin to disrupt the masculine gaze of regional development. It draws attention to ways in which development is still dominated by masculine notions of leadership, competitive growth and ‘world-leading’ developments by master builders and ‘starchitects’ (Siemiatycki et al., 2020), despite gender equality being identified as a United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal. This domination of development thinking and practice brings uneven implications in the construction and maintenance of patriarchal norms globally. Such inequalities are not just issues of gender alone, but intersect with race, ethnicity, sexuality and class (Holmes et al., 2015; McKittrick, 2011; Valentine & Waite, 2012). Recognizing that gender is constructed differentially across different systems of power and geographies, this article analytically focuses on gender – as part of a broader call for scholars of regional studies to engage more closely with varied feminist perspectives – to argue that gender-coding is embedded into the way in which we do, and think about, regional development.

This needs urgently addressing as many women continue to be denied an equal opportunity to shape urban and regional life, whilst also experiencing life through a set of barriers, which can be physical, social, economic and symbolic, and are often invisible to many men (Kern, 2020). In particular, there is a separation of public and private spheres that attribute and reinforce roles according to gender (Feinstein & Servon, 2005; Hayden, 1980; Jacobs, 1961). Women have less freedom and often rights to move about space freely, encountering violence and fear (Falu & Sassen, 2018; Valentine, 1989). Women participate less in formal decision-making to shape urban and regional organization (Roth et al., 2020; Siemiatycki et al., 2020; UN Women, 2020). Infrastructure can also reproduce gendered, racialized and class-based forms of power/inequality both through large-scale infrastructural projects dominated by men and associated masculine practices of hierarchies, assertiveness and confrontation (Siemiatycki et al., 2020), but also when conceptualized as embodied by less visible people, infrastructure can operate unequally and violently though everyday politics and social and material forms (Truelove & Ruszczyk, 2021).

This article highlights and troubles the construction of a masculine gaze of development over time and space, and how this limits the becoming of ‘otherwise’ regional futures. It finds that continuing to reproduce masculine-coded ways of seeing and understanding inequality in regional development and offering narrowly selected solutions is an ongoing injustice. It makes an original contribution to the literature in regional studies by applying a gendered lens to current theoretical and policy approaches to development, with a critical eye on understandings and enactions of leadership and power. The article therefore calls for scholars of regional studies to engage more meaningfully with feminist concepts and practices, arguing that there is both space for new ways of thinking about regional development and inequality and also ways in which current concepts could be feminized.

The remainder of the article is structured as follows. The next section offers some ways to achieve this by drawing on feminist thinking about time, in relation to regional development. It draws in particular on feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz’s (Grosz, 2005) concept of futurity as a helpful way to counter patriarchal framings of time (and development) as linear and how we can alternatively think about relations of past, present and future, in ways that are not fixed. It looks at examples of ways in which current thinking in regional development could incorporate a broader and more varied set of feminist perspectives and practices, learning from a ‘feminise politics’ toolkit (Roth et al., 2020). The following section looks at the gender gap in development through the example of the UK, at a time the government seeks to ‘level-up’ longstanding geographical inequalities. In particular, it highlights the way in which history, place evolution and notions of leadership are constructed in current policy from narrow and ‘masculinized’ perceptions of regional life and power which focus on selected actors, and overlook the gendered dynamics and inequalities built into regional development. By highlighting the maintenance of ingrained patriarchal conceptions and selections of, and interventions in, development over time, the article argues that attention should not just be on ‘places left behind’ but ‘people left behind’. As the final section concludes, we need to extend our horizons of regional development theory and practice by drawing on a range of feminist theory and practices in order to break the cycle of reproducing masculine-coded ways of seeing and understanding development, and leave open ‘otherwise’ regional futures.

2. FUTURITY, TIME AND EVOLUTION: FEMINIZING DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Thinking about regional development and future place imaginaries are often framed by normative understandings and narratives of the past, notions of identity and belonging, which historiography tells us is a construct, with a sense of direction (Carr, 1961). The march of progress in regional development over time has largely been defined through a masculine gaze – or history – with women usually entirely absent from accounts, or reduced to passive bystanders. The selection and narration of versions of regional life and development continue to overlook more varied ways of seeing and understanding particular people, rendering them invisible. Both history (the study of selected recordings of past events) and time (as a non-spatial continuum) (Henning, 2019) shape our understandings of contemporary – and future – regional development, and are in need of critical feminist enquiry. The following section offers some ways in which we can apply this thinking to feminize regional development; shedding light on the exclusion of certain people, and troubling the foundations from which development thinking is built.

For example, feminist work has called for time to be ‘dislodged from its patriarchal moors’ and given ‘a feminist/feminine face’ (Soderback, 2012, p. 7; Chidgey, 2012), particularly through disrupting our understanding of time as linear. The conception of time as a linear continuity between past, present and future can be understood to ‘trap us in the past, foreclosing the possibility of a radical break, or the production of “new” horizons’ (Soderback, 2012, p. 8; Bianchi, 2012). Feminist theorist Elizabeth Grosz’s (Grosz, 2005) work on time is helpful in explaining that time can be thought about through two trajectories: actual, which makes the present pass, and makes space for anticipation of an undetermined future; and virtual, which preserves time as past. These two different trajectories coexist, meaning that time functions in moving the present forwards, but is also ‘generated through the untimely re-activation of the virtuality of the past which has been actualized in the present’ (p. 3). Time, therefore, has a ‘double orientation of temporal movement’; it is pulled towards both the past and the future in a way that fractures the present – so that it is ‘never fully present’ (p. 4).

Without denying the importance of the past and historic narratives in shaping place attachment and senses of belonging (MacKinnon et al., 2021; Tomaney, 2013), there is a distinct power imbalance in the way that virtual time (and history) can shape the present and future. Following Grosz’s thinking on time, one potential path to feminizing regional development is to focus on the reality of time – to give us ways of seeing and conceptualizing differences and experiences – and thereby allow a becoming of the future. This is a concept that Grosz calls futurity: a strive to see a future as connected to what exists in the present, and connected to the past, but not in a way that is fixed; it leaves a future with many potential directions. Futurity is a deliberate move to think about the future as open, as active and as undefined. To regard the future as open and unknown, brings with it an uncomfortableness, a duality of perceived risk in potentially creating or allowing a more regressive future in some way, but also a space to see ‘otherwise’ possibilities in the present, and allow alternative futures to come into existence. Futurity is therefore a deliberate and political move to not be ‘conditioned or restricted by the patriarchal arrangements of the present and the past’ (MacLeavy et al., 2021, p. 2). Black feminist writer and researcher Lola Olufemi (Olufemi, 2021) recently explored the idea of ‘otherwise’ as an important political, and experimental, tool in imagining, encouraging us to make real, and present the power of imagining a future: ‘the future is now and all those political promises we make to one another, all the wishing and hoping in earnest’ is not for another time or realm, but can become, now (p. 7).

There is space for scholars within the field of regional studies to engage more centrally (less peripherally) with feminist perspectives which offer a future-orientated politics that is open, wide ranging and pays closer attention to inequality in the present. This requires a challenge to the perceived fixity of prevailing practices and knowledge set by linear understandings of time and thought (MacLeavy et al., 2021). There is space to develop novel ways of seeing and understanding regional development in this way. But we can also recalibrate (feminize) existing concepts, theories and associated analysis, many of which already claim to make space for more varied and open understandings of regional development and regional life.

For example, Evolutionary Economic Geography (EEG) emphasizes the historical unfolding of regions through evolutionary concepts, analogies and metaphors from biology, physics and ecology as a way to think through transforming economic and regional landscapes (Martin & Sunley, 2015). There is much criticism in the application of Darwinism; that natural science metaphors can be stretched too far in social contexts, and can be used to legitimize and explain development, without overthrowing forms of social and spatial injustice (see MacKinnon & Driscoll Derickson, 2013, on the example of resilience). However, there are productive dimensions for feminist thinking to inform these debates, and Grosz (2005) highlights that more open-ended concepts are valuable in thinking through multiple ways of becoming, which do not have to be fixed, nor in contrast to (or siphoned off into) cultural debates, but very much embedded in ways of seeing and understanding development and the wider political economy. Many proponents of EEG argue for more fluid and open approaches, which link to other stands of thinking (Martin & Sunley, 2015; Hassink et al., 2019). And so we arrive at a point where conceptually there is space to be more open – for evolutionary ways of thinking to make space for seeing accounts of the past as partial and selective (Henning, 2019) and whilst influencing the present, could also be more critical of the fixity of virtual pasts being actualized in the present. This could in turn lead to more openness to envision and actualize other futures. Yet, for the moment we continue to rely on narrow and biased accounts of history that categorize and exclude people, and understandings of time that are linear, fixed on selective understandings of progress and development which define the creation of particular futures. Thinking has (perhaps unthinkingly) become locked-in.

Another area in which the field of regional studies could more centrally embed feminist thinking is in the strive to break from the growth-dominated approaches to the economy. There are increasing calls to shift the balance of power and relations in defining what the principles and values of local and regional development are (Pike et al., 2007), beyond neo-classical economic conceptions – largely growth orientated and measured by indices of gross domestic product (GDP) and income per head – towards a focus on broader factors that build on a foundational set of principles and values of things such as equality, fairness, justice, democracy and unity. But we also need to challenge patriarchal knowledge systems (and racist, colonizing, ethnocentric knowledge, too) within this balance and reframing of development (Beneria et al., 2015; Sen, 1999). There is a need to reassert feminist principles and values in order to broaden conceptions of what development is, what it ought to be and for whom. We can look at this though the example of the Foundational Economy (FE), a collective that rethinks the relations of economy, society and politics through foregrounding the importance of infrastructure (both physical and social) as a necessity for everyone to function (The Foundational Economy Collective, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic has given more visibility to the centrality of the FE’s argument – that policymakers ought to pay more attention to, and revalue, essential goods and services such as housing, utility supply, local transport, health and care – ‘the list of essential workers in the current lockdown provides a common sense and practical definition of what counts as foundational’ (Foundational Economy, 2020, p. 2). Recalling the UK post-war 1945 Labour government’s building of a social settlement through investment in education, hospitals and social housing, the FE call for a contemporary vision that does not rely on civil society, but ‘solidaristic values in material systems that underpin collective foundational provision’ (p. 3), actionable through a 10-point plan (detailing priorities on healthcare, housing, energy, food chains, social licencing, tax reform, local assemblies/citizen juries and participation).

We must use the [COVID-19 pandemic] crisis actively as a lever to make the case for foundational provision and the value of collective consumption. Not simply economic infrastructure renewal but broader programmes focused on social protections and provisions which are the infrastructure of well-being.

(p. 3)

Such calls for change from the FE perspective are certainly not out of step with feminist ways of thinking and valuing of services, the structure of the economy and more equitable citizen inclusion and participation. However, the FE neglects to explicitly engage in the unequal gendered dimensions of these issues (and longstanding feminist scholarship in this area). For example, such foundational services are often performed by women; more than 70% of the heath workforce globally is women, but systematic bias, discrimination and inequality sees most decision-making lie with men (Herten-Crabb & Davies, 2020), and there is a neglect of the wider and complex web of gendered care (Bunting, 2020). The foundations and infrastructures (physical and social) of an earlier social settlement in the UK are ‘man-shaped’ and continue to be encountered unequally. In fixing a selective account of the past, the highly gendered (and intersectional) dynamics of social and material organization are overlooked. It is an example of an ‘absent presence’ of invisible people (Criado Perez, 2019). No matter how well aligned FE thinking is with a broader set of values of collective consumption and a renewed emphasis on care, to neglect the unequal foundations this earlier social settlement was built on will not move us towards dismantling the structures of power that still hold these inequalities in place today, and patriarchy therefore continues to silently – often without thinking – shape future imaginaries.

The FE’s above call to ‘use the crisis actively as a lever’ to change attitudes and systems of provision is significant when thinking through temporality and feminizing regional development. Crises are often political opportunities, which are claimed and narrated in particular ways to make present selected futures (Heslop & Ormerod, 2020). Moments of crisis have long been central to political–economic understandings of the economy and social and political transformation; both marking and generating history and our comprehension of it (Kosselleck, 2006). The temporal dimension of crisis, as rupture to the present which can lead to various outcomes, can also be understood as an experience of time, stretched out beyond a particular moment (Roitman, 2013). We cannot overlook the gendered nature of various crises in multiple and overlapping ways. For moments of crisis have a tendency to stall, or undo previous progress on gender equality, they also have uneven gendered impacts (Fagan & Rubery, 2018; Pollard, 2013), as do the selected routes out of crisis (Walby, 2009). The COVID-19 pandemic is one such crisis that has revealed ongoing gender inequality, with women being disproportionally impacted by unequal pay, employment, healthcare, an undervaluing of care (both formal and informal), as well as exacerbating instances of gender-based violence. These impacts are both hidden; described as ‘the shadow pandemic’ (UN Women, 2020), and more explicit, seen through the examples of opportunistic power-grabs which claim increasing control over women’s bodies and rights.¹ And so, whilst claiming the pandemic as a ‘lever’ for foundational social and economic change can be progressive, a closer understanding of the gendered dimensions, temporality and nature of crisis and any route out of it is urgently needed. The very notion of ‘post-crisis recovery’ is questionable if crisis is understood less as a moment of action and more as a protracted series of events that continue to marginalize women by offering solutions that operate through masculine-coded constructs and cultures that value certain forms of labour, knowledge, power and leadership.

The European Trade Union Confederation has acknowledged the importance of gender as a lens to evaluate post-pandemic recovery through a ‘gender sensitive recovery strategy, which recognises the pandemic’s specific toll on women and takes action to combat longstanding inequalities’ (Bir & Bruser, 2021, n.p.). But whilst advocating for a gender-sensitive approach to development, it should also be recognized that policymakers can suffer from ‘gender fatigue’, often compartmentalizing gender inequality without addressing the more fundamental issue that development continues to prioritize the economy as all of, not part of society (Perrons, 2011).

We need a broader and varied set of conceptual tools that will re-examine the past and present and make space to leave the future more open. Perhaps learning can be taken from a mutual connection between feminism and rethinking political and socio-economic organization by some within new municipalism, a left-wing grassroots movement across Europe. Countering failed economic and political systems following the financial crisis and subsequent austerity measures, this movement connects a variety of different locally led initiatives to build power from the ground up, through solidarity and participation. Aiming to rethink what democracy can look like, new municipalism mirrors feminist politics and practice, with an emphasis on care, solidarity, empowerment and equality, and as a result some within the movement are emphasizing and amplifying this mutuality. Whilst shared values are not understood to be prescriptive, or even entirely unified, they are understood to act as a framework that can challenge patriarchal, racist and exploitative structures of power in organizations, decision-making, and inclusion or exclusion. ‘Feminise Politics Now!’ is a publication and toolkit,² by the municipalist movement (Roth et al., 2020) which draws on various different experimental approaches to reforming local politics. Feminizing – which Roth et al. (2020) recognize is perhaps an imperfect term – is not about imposing feminine traits, or prioritizing women above men, but is about challenging privileges and structures of power and agency (patriarchy), seeking to see things from different perspectives and strive towards making organizations more democratic, practices more inclusive and implement feminist values in work and everyday lives, for all. Just as feminism is not a singular thing, but is made up of different issues, people, needs and wants that can produce a unified call for change – what Soderback (2012) calls a ‘polophony’ – feminizing can have some shared values and principles, but take different forms.

This is helpful to current and future thinking about regional development and geographical inequality. For example, attaining gender balance in the distribution of positions of power and responsibility is a key component of Roth et al.’s (2020) toolkit. Although achieving gender balance is an important step, Roth et al. recognize that this alone will not address the unequal structural issues and automatically lead to equality. Focus should instead be less upon the agent and more upon agency; women ought to be present, not to recreate or perform masculine (or feminine) traits or tendencies, but to add more (and varied) perspectives and knowledge, in a move towards sharing power, responsibility, care and participation across all people. Social difference can be understood to be a political resource that can undo bias of dominant and partial perspectives, but there are limits to inclusion and representation. As Young (2002, p. 83) reminds us, ‘A democratic process is inclusive not simply by formally including all potentially affected individual in the same way, but by attending to the social relations that differently position people and condition their experiences, opportunities and knowledge of the society.’

In constructing spaces for decision-making to be more inclusive, the otherwise invisible forms of support, work and knowledge need not only to be made visible but also part of the decision-making and discussion. Roth et al. (2020) recognize that it takes time and trust to be focused on constructive discussion, but that this distribution of power and collective working needs to be the starting point, not specific policies or the gender balance of boards alone. Such policies can themselves become tokenistic ways to fulfil equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) criteria, without getting to the heart of unequal cultures and practices. Whilst this is to some extent an experimental approach and a process of learning, it is importantly a much-needed break from ongoing neoliberal forms of decision-making and governing, which often employ masculinized social constructs as tools:

We need to build feminist power that is not based on competition, annihilation, violence and muting dialogue. But there is a moment for making decisions, even imperfect ones. Feminist decision-making entails assuming that each decision is the best possible under the circumstances, but that we’ll continue thinking about the issue and considering when the next right moment has come to take a further decision.

(Aurea Carolina, Muitas, cited in Roth et al., 2020, p. 34)

The success of the new municipalist projects – such as Muitas (meaning ‘Many Women’) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Barcelona en Comu which are collectives that take on more collective and participatory forms of organization and debate to achieve local positions of power – are perhaps more of a beginning, and on-going strive than an end point. They are also very local. But the movement also strives to rethink territorializing logics and practices of central states by making global–local connections, networks and solidarities (Thompson, 2021) through platforms such as Fearless Cities. Learning from the new municipalist toolkit, we can seek to feminize regional development by ensuring the inclusion of multiple and varied voices in the thinking and decision-making on what is prioritized and valued, what form any future social protections and provisions will take, paying attention to often-invisible power relations, and rejecting masculine notions of leadership, even under the promise of decentralized power. Amidst an international focus on economically lagging and ‘left behind’ places, the following section looks more closely at the case study of the UK, arguing that current attempt to ‘level-up’ longstanding geographical inequality needs to pay more attention to the people, as well as the places, ‘left behind’. It thereby spotlights the masculine-coded policy approaches that overlook the gendered dynamics and inequalities built into regional development and life.

3. LEVEL WITH US! THE UK’S GENDER GAP IN LEADERSHIP AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In the UK, Brexit and levelling-up are two high-profile and significant regional development issues that are pivotal to the changing landscape of gender equality. The argument presented here is that while there has been no shortage of regional development research on the implications of Brexit (Bailey et al., 2022; Brown et al., 2019; Gibney et al., 2021) and levelling-up (Billing et al., 2021; McCann et al., 2021; Tomaney & Pike, 2020, 2021), discussions of gender equality in these significant social, political and economic moments are often lacking. First, as the UK exits the European Union, under claims of increased sovereignty and control over decision-making, it should be remembered that the UK has hampered EU attempts to embed gender equality measures in policy – through gender mainstreaming – for decades (Fagan & Rubery, 2018). Despite benefitting from some EU (hard and soft) legislation (in relation to child care, gender pay gap and women’s representation on corporate boards), the UK has ‘usually sought to stall, dilute or divert legal measures’ (p. 312) to embed gender equality. Weakening EU directives on issues such as maternity leave, or opting out of directives entirely, the current UK government has also overlooked the gender inequality of its domestic approach to austerity and welfare reforms (Deusdad et al., 2017; Fawcett Society, 2020; Hall, 2019). The UK’s exit from the EU is therefore a significant threat to the future pursuit of gender equality domestically within the UK, where ‘more insular approaches to policy design’ (Fagan & Rubery, 2018) are likely to be sought, and there are significant challenges for devolved nations to maintain progress (Minto & Parken, 2021). And so, we need to look at how feminist thinking and practices can shape analysis in the present, for example, in critiquing the construction of language and narratives of development and the economy, by providing alternative narratives to enable new futures (Gibson-Graham et al., 2013), ‘including when objects of study are neither explicitly “about” women or gender’ (MacLeavy et al., 2021, p. 7).

Second, following decades of failed interventions and a widening of socio-economic and health inequalities, the UK now purports to be ‘levelling up’, an agenda that was central to Boris Johnson’s 2019 general election strategy and which appeals directly to places understood to be ‘left behind’ (MacKinnon et al., 2021; Tomaney & Pike, 2021). The Levelling Up White Paper³ (Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022) offers a longitudinal approach – drawing on evolutionary economic geography concepts such as path dependency and path creation – to try to explain the complexity of geographical inequality and previous policy responses. It focuses in some detail on the historic development of cities and regions and the drivers of economic growth over time, seeking to understand present inequalities, and to some extent the future, with a gaze very much turned towards the past. Whilst wider critique of this policy approach is beyond the scope of this article, there is one very clear, gaping hole: in the Levelling Up White Paper’s coverage of a wide range of geographical inequalities across the 332 pages, gender inequality in the UK is not mentioned once.

But ‘strong’ and ‘ambitious’ place leadership is a key mode of delivering the levelling-up agenda, and much of the proposed framework hangs off empowering local leaders and communities through devolution. It even appears to be a condition of regeneration: ‘The UK Government will proactively identify and engage with 20 places in England that demonstrate strong local leadership and ambition’ (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022, p. 208). Yet in making a call for strong and ambitious local leaders to step up and deliver ‘levelling up’ it is not acknowledged that only 15% of local authority leaders in England are women, as are only four out of the 16 directly elected mayors in England and Wales (Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), 2017).

This inequality in subnational leadership, and oversight of it, are particularly troubling given a very particular (masculine) view of power has come to dominate our imagination of place leadership, and this is often reproduced across leaders, no matter their gender. It is also a vision of power that is particularly difficult to uproot as men continue to dominate sectors of politics, public life and business, excluding women – especially women of colour – through structural barriers, discrimination and harassment (Fawcett Society, 2020). In the UK, women are underrepresented and unevenly paid across built environment professions,⁴ and a Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) report on Women in Planning (2020) saw an overwhelming majority of respondents (almost 80%) mention that workplaces are still dominated by masculine culture and norms, leaving women planners feeling excluded and finding it necessary to adopt such traits. Longstanding systems of oppression continue to reproduce inequality in ways that are complex and unfold differently geographically (Bennett, 2015; Walby, 2009).

We need to call into question the language and intent of key development issues, such as leadership, asking what does subnational leadership (and relatedly devolved power) look like in practice, and what could it look like? In the UK, not only is formal local leadership massively unequal in terms of gender representation, but also the White Paper’s policy call for ‘strong’ and ‘ambitious’ leadership speaks to masculine-coded qualities and particular ways of leading. ‘Strength’ and ‘ambition’ are understood to embody qualities such as overconfidence, competitiveness, aggression, risk-taking and charisma that have come to dominate our understanding of leadership, and form a very particular aesthetic of power (Mahdawi, 2021; Roth et al., 2020). Such masculine-coded models of leadership have directly contributed to the current strong-man populist moment and political tribalism, moving us away from individual value systems into silos where alignment with a particular ‘side’ surpasses critical thinking and values (Mahdawi, 2021; Hill, 2021). Alternative qualities of solidarity, collaboration, reflection, listening and care are often coded as feminine (and weak). Such qualities, and alternative understandings of ‘strength’, can, however, lead to less risk-taking and destabilization (Roth et al., 2020). More is needed to be understood and amplified about the significant success of alternative styles of leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic at national and subnational scales, where perceived ‘feminine’ traits such as reduced risk-taking, increased empathy and care, and efforts to communicate led to better health and economic outcomes (Garikipati & Kambhampati, 2020; Mahdawi, 2021). Policy calls for ‘strong’ local leaders to step forward to shape and deliver the UK’s levelling-up agenda is pitched to be a devolving of power, but it is only a small shift if it is one that maintains the power of white patriarchal organization.

At the same time, academic oversight of gender in discussions of leadership also limits our thinking about power and development. For example, a 2017 special issue in Regional Studies entitled ‘Leadership in City and Regional Development’ sought to empirically and conceptually understand subnational leadership, with a specific focus on structure, agency and power. Despite highlighting issues of ‘messiah’ complexes and ‘heroic’ and ‘great man’ styles of leadership (Nicholds et al., 2017; Sotarauta et al., 2017), there was no explicit engagement with the gendered nature of understanding different forms that leadership can take. Upholding masculine-coded notions of leadership has significant implications for the way in which particular inequalities and versions of power are not made visible. It is a blindness that reproduces inequality in the present and continues to limit thinking about available futures. Not paying attention to a plethora of present inequalities constrains our understandings of what development is, who gets to decide that and any opportunities to imagine otherwise.

We can seek to feminize place-leadership in relation to development in a number of ways that reject notions of corporate feminism that encourage women through self-help to ‘lean-in’ to masculine forms of leadership; how to dress, how to speak and how to behave (Mahdawi, 2021). Drawing together the arguments in this article, and particularly on the notion of futurity, I suggest three related directions that could move this leadership agenda forward: reimagining power and inclusion; leadership qualities and socialization; and understanding (and re-valuing) forms of leadership across time and space.

First, place leadership in development continues to rely on understandings of power as authoritative, legitimizing and confrontational, accumulated in such a way that ‘loyalty and uncritical fidelity have been consolidated by the patriarchal conception of power’ (Roth et al., 2020, p. 33). The literature on leadership in urban and regional development recognizes that for ‘the development of prosperous, fair and inclusive cities – a more distributed and locally adaptive form of leadership is required’ (Nicholds et al., 2017, p. 251), but it must also be recognized that less hierarchical and nepotistic forms of leadership is specifically needed to shift the confines of patriarchal organization. This includes recognizing that formal leadership opportunities can overlook women (Roth et al., 2020), and necessitates power being taken and redistributed, not just given in sometimes patronizing ways (i.e., through notions of empowerment; Mahdawi, 2021) that can maintain existing structures of power. Paying closer analytical attention to existing intersectional inequalities that profile who steps forward to take positions of authoritative power and shape future development, as well as a better understanding and amplifying other forms of leadership and power that exist in places, should be central to a new research agenda in the fields of urban and regional studies.

Second, we need to challenge the dominant masculine-coded forms of leadership that have a current grip on our economic, political and social organization. Whilst there is an inherent problem with the way in which particular qualities are socialized into gender stereotypes of ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ traits, we must recognize this occurs and strive to value a variety of traits and perspectives that should not be reduced to ‘gender’. There is currently a need to balance authoritative leadership which is mired in hubris and sensational language such as ‘world-beating’ and ‘world leading’ with traits of self-doubt, reflection, learning from mistakes and vulnerability which could instead be positioned as strengths we value in leaders. ‘Strength’ could be understood as being more risk averse on issues such as the economy, health and climate change and less reactive to immediate popular decision-making and individualism. This would perhaps go some way to disrupt our conflation of confidence with competence (Mahdawi, 2021). A clearer focus on care, collectivism and communication is not a small shift, but it will lead to more democratic decision-making.

Finally, drawing together the calls for less authoritative and more distributed place-leadership with the need to feminize leadership outlined above, we can see a need to disrupt the development of ‘man-shaped’ regions over time and space, and the persistent separation of public and private spheres, of formal and informal. The role of women in development and leadership has been more significant than historic accounts have afforded, and this has denied the value of and leadership qualities in networks of care, reciprocity, mutuality and cooperation. Whilst scholars of regional studies have offered critical insights into the way in which different types of leadership are interpreted and enacted (Nicholds et al., 2017), the significance of anchor institutions in shaping various forms of place-based leadership with varying degrees of formality and informality, networks and relations (Normann et al., 2017; Raagmaa & Keerberg, 2017), there continues to be an oversight of ingrained inequalities such as gender and race. There is much to learn from informal organization globally to move us past the ‘masculine transcendence’ in urban and regional development and help advance conceptual and policy insights into leadership and uneven development.

4. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The otherwise requires a commitment to not knowing. Are you ready for that?

(Olufemi, 2021, p. 17)

The aim of this article was to highlight and trouble the construction of a masculine gaze of development over time, and how this limits the becoming of ‘otherwise’ regional futures. It has demonstrated that despite calls for increasingly open ways of seeing inter- and intra-regional inequality and doing development, regional development theory and practice is still ‘man-shaped’ across time and space. This can be ‘unthinking’ (Criado Perez, 2019), but also a deliberate selection which upholds patriarchal organization and masculine-coding. This article has argued that feminist interventions should not be siloed or sidelined for perceived more pressing demands of enquiry (Amoore, 2020; Gray & Pollard, 2018), as doing so stifles our ability to better conceptualize ingrained inequality and difference. The article draws on feminist thinking to trouble the selective and partial historic accounts of regional life that continue to erase the role of certain people in the past, define our present and confine our available future imaginaries. In suggesting that we can disrupt ideas of development over time as linear, the article applied feminist theorist Grosz’s (2005) concept of futurity as a way in which we can instead focus on the reality of time. It argued that doing so could bring forth a variety of ways in which we can be better empirically and analytically attuned to existing inequalities, conceptually keeping space open for a broader range of alternative futures to come into existence. This calls for both new ways of thinking about regional development and also a rethinking of existing concepts and policies, which have space and make claims to be more open, but currently fall short of engaging with feminist thinking.

There are many directions in which this agenda might be taken in theory and practice to understand more deeply longstanding structures of patriarchal power and cultures of oppression in urban and regional development, and how new forms of political, economic and social organization can embed different forms of power-sharing, participation, non-violence and care. As Bunting succinctly highlights, issues such as care are not confined to singular issues (such as health and social care in her case), but entwined with ‘culture, politics and ethics in the face of dramatic social change’ (Bunting, 2020, p. 10). This article has only touched on a few examples to begin to think about time, the temporality and politics of crisis and futurity. It offered the example of the heavily centralized UK at a time it claims to be devolving power, and ‘levelling-up’ longstanding geographical inequalities. But we saw the way in which this policy agenda overlooks gender, drawing on selected versions of the past which shape our understanding of the present and reproduce masculine-coded understandings of leadership and power to shape defined futures. We also saw the way in which academic discussions in Regional Studies on subnational leadership in development are dominated by male colleagues and overlook the gender dynamics of masculine-coded notions of ‘strong-man’ leadership, and the impact this has on agency and power. The article had suggested that a new research agenda of feminizing leadership could incorporate ways to reimagine power and inclusion – beyond authoritative and confrontational – to question and better understand a range of leadership qualities – including care, reflection, self-doubt, collaboration and communication – and the way in which these are socialized and rely on problematic gendered stereotypes. Valuing a broader set of leadership qualities will lead to more equal and democratic decision-making, moving past reactive and popular decision-making and individualism in which confidence is often conflated with competence (Mahdawi, 2021).

In setting out some ways in which regional development is ‘man-shaped’ over time and space, this article calls for a broader set of ways in which subnational development in regional studies can be feminized. Not doing so will curtail meaningful change, both in terms of the impact that selected research has on policy and practice, but also of academic teaching: who the academy trains and for what purpose – how we equip future planners, architects, development consultants, economists and leaders. Continuing to reproduce heavily masculine-coded ways of seeing and understanding inequalities within and between the development of regions, and offering solutions which uphold patriarchal systems and cultures is an ongoing injustice.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere thanks to Hanna Ruszczyk for her encouragement to undertake this project, and for her insights, draft readings and shared writing time. I also thank Alice Cree, Julia Heslop, Louise Kempton, Jessa Loomis, Andy Pike, Jane Pollard and John Tomaney for reading earlier drafts of the paper and/or for discussing the ideas within it. I am also incredibly grateful to colleagues in Newcastle University's Economic Geography Reading Group who read an early draft of this paper and offered insightful feedback and discussion about the ideas within it, although the views expressed here are my own. Thanks also to Marcella Sutcliffe not only for her hospitality and facilitation at Chapelgarth Writing Retreat, but also for her engagement with developing ideas and support to keep going. Finally, I thank the anonymous reviewers and editorial team for their insights and care, from which the paper was undoubtedly improved. For the purpose of open access, I have applied a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Examples include the withdrawals of reproduction rights in Poland and the United States, a hardening of right-wing education on gender in Hungary, Denmark and Romania, and Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention fighting for women’s rights.

2. Specific tools are framed around issues of: gender balance, cooperation and power relations, leadership, care, participation and democracy, diversity and democracy, diversity and intersectionality, and non-violence (Roth et al., 2020).

3. A White Paper is a policy document produced by the UK government for consultation, providing context to an issue and setting out their proposals for future legislation.

4. Chartered surveyors (women earn 0.7% more and hold 18% of jobs), architects (women earn 15.3% less than men and hold 29% of these jobs) (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2021) town planners (paid 12.8% less, ONS, 2021; but occupy 42%, RTPI, 2020).