Women, High-Rise Condominiums and Curated Living: Canadian Hegemonic Itineraries of Female Empowerment

Abstract

The intense development of high-rise condominium buildings in the city of Toronto has been supported by state, media and industry-based narratives depicting empowered women whose achievements and increased purchasing power drive the “feminization” of the city’s real estate market. This article looks beneath the veneer of female empowerment constructed by these cultural narratives. It explores how state, industry-based and mass media constructions of homeownership and luxurious condominium lifestyles in Toronto have empowered local women from different racial, ethnic and class backgrounds. It also explores how this empowerment has allowed Canadian state and capitalist patriarchal formations to adjust and survive by accommodating women’s need and desire for independence, safety, choice, and consumer power, and by reproducing social distances between women and others, including non-humans and the natural world. By mapping and analyzing the occurrence and reiteration of these social distances and the hegemonic powers exerting them, this article contributes to feminist studies of cultures of vertical capitalism.