Time Shattered

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine the temporal dimension of city life in postindustrial society. Typical aspects of the experience of women in cities will be discussed and an attempt made to understand why it is that `city time' has recently begun to form part of the political discourse of women. Using the metaphor of the city as a time machine, it is suggested that city time is constitutionally linked to the onset of the modern concept of time as a resource belonging to an economic system based on the production and exchange of goods. Women, situated as they are at the centre of the complex network of the city's temporal interdependencies, are viewed as the privileged protagonists of the new postmodern temporal condition. However, the increasing demands made on their time, both quantitatively and qualitatively, at the workplace and in the home, marks the friction which results from the objectivization of time based on economic calculations and the temporal experiences linked to each individual's situational context.