| As urban scholars grapple with rapidly shifting urban terrains and governance structures, power relations, and geographies of uneven capitalism, theories. However, these theories have often erased, ignored and failed to deeply interrogate gender relations as a constitutive aspect of urban politics. In doing so, the literature has reproduced gendered dichotomies, privileged certain sites and scales of analysis, and often failed to incorporate feminist insights and perspectives.;This dissertation takes up this silence, addressing gaps in the literature related to gender, race, and urban politics. It takes theories of urban neoliberalism---which articulate the extension of market logics into urban governance and politics---as its departure point. Specifically, I ask: Is neoliberalism about invigorating (hegemonic) masculinities as much as markets?;Using a broad concept of masculinist power that focuses on political, discursive, and material relations and neoliberal subjectivities, I probe this question through an extended case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After conducting a historical analysis, I explore the production of and resistance to contemporary neoliberal urban development projects and discourses, including privatized downtown development, 'Creative Class' discourses, and New Urbanism.;My data---garnered through interviews, discourse analysis, participant observation and document review---suggest that gender, race, and neoliberalization processes are knit together in complex and tendentious ways in Milwaukee. For example, neoliberalism has led to the intensification of elite, masculinist relations, and there has been a general abdication of social reproduction by the city (with gendered effects), as it pursues development 'at all costs.' Furthermore, neoliberal policies and ideologies have substantively shaped and constrained community 'resistance,' with feminist and racialized organizations being particularly vulnerable.;After discussing the findings, I reflect on the possibilities of understanding and challenging uneven power relations, arguing that we might effectively try to both see both through and beyond neoliberalism. This involves an imaginative and temporal strategy, in which we do not view neoliberalism, gender, and race as contained within each other, or as presenting a future of inextricable gloom. In a pragmatic way, I suggest that (re) analyzing, and politicizing social reproduction is a useful feminist starting point through which to begin expanding our vision. |
