BY SULIN NGO
“The future of city-building is female, unapologetic & intersectional.”
-Jay Pitter, international placemaker & author
When you think of city-building, do you think first of bricks & mortar? For this conversation following Women’s History Month, we expanded our aperture to a more holistic view of community infrastructure, including public health, education and care.
Urban Consulate knows that women are making history all year round – and not always in ways that are acknowledged. In celebration and acknowledgement of these often unseen, unsung contributions that fuel our communities, Consulate hosts Naimah Bilal and Megan Trischler convened a virtual salon on April 12, 2021 to ask: Women are working to build better cities. Are cities working for women? How are women changing how we think about city-building?
To explore this question, the Consulate welcomed three guests:
Kiana Trabue, new Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for bi3, which makes philanthropic investments to spark and scale new approaches to improve community health in the Cincinnati
Dani McClain, reporter on race and reproductive rights for publications including The New York Times and The Nation, including the recent special issue, Parenting As a Radical Act of Love
Elese Daniel, Cincinnati poet and contributing writer to Seven Hills and a Queen to Name Them, and Education & Outreach Manager for Cincy Red Bike
Daniel set the tone for the conversation by performing an original poem titled, “Every day I am awake, I am made aware.” Then Bilal guided virtual participants through a conversation starting with a nod to history – including Black feminists bell hooks, Audre Lorde and The Combahee River Collective — and ending with the future.
Who is a woman?
McClain and Trabue both stressed that “womanhood” is not defined solely by biological sex, and that important contributions have been made in shaping the meaning of the word by those who have historically been excluded by it, such as trans and non-gender-conforming people. McClain drew from her experience reporting on pregnancy and reproductive health, and from the long and rich history of Black women writers on the subject.
“One of the most useful ways of defining womanhood is through the lens of misogyny. We know what it’s like to be hated for being a woman. If we think about what it is that’s so threatening, it’s instructive,” said McClain.
Trabue derives meaning from her relationships. “For me, it’s being a mom, a sister, a daughter to others and being in relationship with other self-identified women who go through the same triumphs and struggles I do,” she said.
Is city-building welcoming?
Trabue is a city-builder not just by virtue of contributing to the region’s health agenda through The Health Collaborative and now bi3 – she is also the mayor of the Village of Woodlawn in metro Cincinnati.
But despite her accomplishments, not all spaces are accommodating.
“When I walk into a room, I always walk in as my full self, so you always get Kiana Trabue every single time. But Kiana Trabue is not always received that way,” she said, describing the microaggressions she encounters on a regular basis, such as comments on her hair, age and position.
“Most of these [comments] are rooted in the fact that I am Black and I am a woman, unfortunately.”
Is health valued in city-building?
“What being in public health taught me is that all health is political,” said Trabue. “So when we talk about how healthy cities or communities are created or destroyed, it’s through politics and policy.”
Programs designed to address health issues, such as weight loss programs or healthy eating programs, are ultimately limited because they do not address the root cause of the problem – structural discrimination based on race, gender, class & more that is reinforced by laws, budgetary decisions, law enforcement and other political tools, Trabue explained.
“[By] taking a public health framework into the political world,” said Trabue, “I realized it’s the same game with different players.”
How do we shift policy?
McClain challenged us to think outside the box about “city-building,” noting that defining women’s contributions by the geographic boundaries of a city was limiting.
“Women have a lot of power, wherever we are, wherever we show up. We have the potential to shape our immediate worlds and the broader world,” said Trabue.
“Kiana talked about changing policy... In order to move policy, you have to simultaneously shift culture alongside that policy creation. And I think that women play a role in shifting culture,” said McClain.
One example of this is the current national conversation about caregiving as essential infrastructure for a post-COVID future, led by women organizers including Ai Jen Poo, Sarita Gupta & more. #CareCantWait
What is the legacy you hope to build?
“For a long time, asking hard questions about race and gender wasn’t seen as serious,” said McClain. “I hope I’m part of changing that and showing that writing about families, parenting and the decisions we make about our bodies is serious. I hope this is part of my legacy.”
“I work to center other people and what types of opportunities are being created for others as a result of what I’ve been able to do. And so that’s what I hope my legacy is. Not someone talking about how, ‘she was this’ or ‘she was that’ but, ‘She did XYZ that created a path and a space for someone else to come in and succeed,’” said Trabue.
“I want all of the different multiple facets of my work to serve something beyond myself,” said Daniel.
Reflection & Discussion
Following the conversation, Megan Trischler invited participants to engage in breakout dialogue:
Who are the women city-builders in your lives?
How can we better appreciate what women are building when we expand the definitions of both “city” and what can be “built”?
What can we do to support them?
Many thanks to all who participated. We encourage you to continue the conversation and explore how you can recognize, support and promote women city-builders in your community.
Urban Consulate brings people together to share ideas for better cities. In Cincinnati, monthly salons are hosted by Naimah Bilal and Megan Trischler in partnership with Afrochine, The Mercantile Library and the Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation. For past & future conversations, click here.