A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing

6 A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing Rashi Bhargava and Richa Chilana of accessing certain kinds of rental housing and once this access is established, the negotiations that happen thereafter. Abstract Urban ecology often addresses issues of how to make cities more liveable and sustainable, unravelling the dynamics that are located within the space that it seeks to establish. One such dynamics can be found within the domain of rental housing where one’s identity plays a significant role in access to these spaces. There are many studies that have addressed this issue of discrimination based on different aspects of one’s identity, but very few have foregrounded the predicament of single tenants within the age group of 25–40 years, who have migrated to metropolitan cities. Using Lefebvre’s three-pronged strategy to understand the social nature of space and the spatial nature of the society, we begin with the contention that rental housing is not only a geographical space but also a social space. This paper also looks at what de Certeau calls “ways of operating” by looking at the spatial practice and representational spaces occupied by these women and men where “singlehood” emerges as a significant variable affecting one’s chances Keywords Singlehood Urban space Gender equity
6.1
Rental housing
Introduction Urban ecology addresses issues of how to make cities more liveable and sustainable, unravelling the dynamics that are located within the space that it seeks to establish. The previous scholarship in urban studies originating from the Chicago School (predominantly Park and Burgess 1925; Wirth 1938, 1956) that concerned itself with issues of crime, law and order, migration, segregation, residential patterns, neighbourhoods, slums, ghettoization, discriminations,1 etc. conceptualized the city as a multifaceted physical space. The 1 R. Bhargava (&) Department of Sociology, Maitreyi College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] R. Chilana Department of English, Maitreyi College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India e-mail: [email protected] For studies linking residential patterns and class see Castells (1977), Kurtulus (2007), Sandhu (2003), Soni (2000) and Thrift and Amin (1987). For studies on segregation based on race and ethnicity, see Drydakis (2011), Jackson and Smith (1981) and Peach et al. (1981). For more recent account connecting religion and urban segregation, see Jamil (2017). For studies on migration, neighbourhood, kinship and residential patterns, see MSA Rao (1992). The list here is by no means exhaustive but only an indication towards some of the many issues that were addressed within urban studies. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. U. Joshi and C. Brassard (eds.), Urban Spaces and Gender in Asia, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36494-6_6 95 96 discipline of urban studies that emerged in the eighteenth century has been a largely androcentric and occidocentric discipline. Despite feminist interventions, the two disciplines—urban studies and gender studies—still exist as separate spheres of inquiry into our lived realities (Jarvis et al. 2009). However, recent studies on cities have started to look at the city through the lens of processes and experiences within spaces and times (e.g. Robinson 2006; Srivastava 2015) thereby making a case for locating individual experience within a larger social context. The growing preoccupation with understanding urban as a dynamic, processual social space (e.g. de Kooning 2007) unravelled new forms of social interaction, hierarchies and segregation creating its own spatial regimes (de Neve and Donner 2006; VeraSanso 2006, pp. 182–205; Srivastava 2015). One such interconnection was brought forth through the linkages between space and gender in the works of Phadke (2007) and Ranade (2007) who looked at city spaces as gendered spaces, which limit women’s access to many sites creating new forms of gender inequality. Raju and Dutt (2011) have made a case for reconciling feminism and geography to arrive at feminist geography as a tool for creating a more gendered understanding of urban processes and spaces. One such process is that of migration to the cities which gained momentum after the neoliberal economic policies that promised a better future and a vast pool of newly available employment opportunities. Employing a gendered understanding of the process of migration, Chanda argued that women have been socialized to desire financial independence by the first wave of the feminist movement, but the conditions in which this independence is realized have made the experience traumatic for most women migrants. She argues that feminist scholars tend to focus on the “goals rather than processes” (2017, p. 89). The experiences recounted by some of her informants, (single women varying between 16–21 and 65–67 years of age who migrated from rural/semi urban spaces to the city) indicate that the gains of equal opportunity and freedom of movement need to be accompanied by crucial steps that will help in making these gains, as R. Bhargava and R. Chilana pointed out by Chanda, “operative, meaningful and finally acceptable as gains” (2017, p. 90). Writing specifically about gendered experience within housing studies, Kaul (2009) argues that for the state and policymakers a woman’s ability to attain the right to ownership of property is seen as a progressive end in itself but the experience of ownership of property is mediated through gender, caste, class, age, societal expectations, daily interactions, etc. She further suggests that research on gender and development tends to focus on poor women. For instance, Baruah (2007) looks at urban settlements to understand the significance of gender with respect to access to landed property. Her focus is on women from low-income groups whose access is affected by “the structures of power confronting women [that] operate at local, national, and global levels and within diverse institutional arenas represented by communities, social movements, markets, states, kin groups, and households” (2108). Although Kaul’s work brings forth the problems of single elderly women in their access or/and ownership of property, it does not particularly address singlehood as a key feature in determining one’s access to rented accommodation in urban spaces. On the other hand, Chanda’s (2017) work looks at the migration of single women from the suburbs and how they “self the city” without interrogating single women’s definition of themselves, or looking at singlehood with regard to men or without paying much attention to how singlehood mediated their access to rental housing. These studies raise the question—has the city changed, become more gender sensitive to accommodate women or men with specific social status (singlehood, for instance) who have come to live here? In order to create sustainable cities, close attention needs to be paid to sociocultural attitudes and perceptions, in addition to the changes in economic and political policies, which affect the structuring of the urban space and ways of inhabiting that structure (Chant 1992, 2013, 2007a, b; Brydon and Chant 1989). The introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015 that places emphasis on sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) 6 A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing 97 creates an urgent need to investigate the relationship between gender and space. In other words, SDG 5 (gender equality) and SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) should be brought together to discuss gender inclusivity for sustainable urbanization processes. Housing is also a significant feature in UN-Habitat’s Global Campaign for Secure Tenure, as well as in the World Urban Campaign (UN Habitat Report 2013, p. 27). Keeping in mind the above mentioned, this paper seeks to explore the predicament of single working middle-class men and women in their access and habitation of rental housing, which is a prerequisite for participation and productivity in continuously expanding workforce post liberalization. Through an analysis of spatial ideology, spatial practice and representational spaces (Lefebvre 1991) and “ways of operating” (de Certeau 1988), this paper explores how singlehood manifests itself differently in different temporal and spatial arrangements, among these rental housing. In view of the above, this research seeks to answer the following questions: First, how do single people define themselves and what is their understanding of others’ perceptions about them? Second, what are the biases which determine one’s access to rental accommodation and how do people bypass these prejudices? Once access is established, how do they negotiate and resist, if they do, their circumstances and get past everyday forms of blatant and subtle discrimination? Finally, how do hegemonic constructs of masculinity and femininity come into play here? Do their strategies of negotiation and resistance contest or reproduce these constructs? Data collection for the present study was done using an open-ended questionnaire exchanged over emails in addition to in-depth interviews conducted with seven of our informants using the semi-structured interview schedule in 2017. The research sample comprised working men (never married—7, married—2 and divorced—2) and women (never married—17, married—3, divorced—1) within the age group of 25–40 years, having migrated from different regions and residing in cities of Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. The informants in our study are engaged in different professions like academics, research, publishing industry, social sector, media, film industry, information technology (IT), law and the corporate sector. This small sample was far from random, rather we used purposive sampling, mainly because of our research topic. This was further aided by our own status as single working women making the study intersubjective. In addition, we also used what Okely (1996) has called “retrospective fieldwork” as a method of data collection, thereby using our memories of encounters with single friends and an account of their situations, to aid us in our work. 6.2 Research Methodology The present research can be located within the constructionist turn in the social sciences where the focus is to grasp and record the multiple meanings that our informants attach to the phenomenon under study. Rabinow and Sullivan (1987, p. 7) claim that meanings or norms “are not just in the minds of the actors but are out there in the practices themselves; practices which cannot be conceived as a set of individual actions, but which are essentially modes of social relations, or mutual actions” (1987, p. 7). Butler (1990) argued similarly in terms of the performativity of gender wherein she foregrounded the manner in which gender identities are a result of actions and behaviours in everyday situations that produce the normative meanings of masculine and feminine. This provides a framework for the present study to locate the idea of singlehood for men and women as multivocal and multifaceted produced through practices, behaviours and actions. Although a number of studies explore the issue of singlehood (Bell and Yans 2007; Taylor 2012), others address rented accommodation (Coolen and Meesters 2012; Drydakis 2011; Koropeckyj-Cox 2005); there are few studies that link the two to create a comprehensive understanding. 98 6.3 R. Bhargava and R. Chilana Singlehood: Definitions, Redefinitions and Reconfigurations Singlehood studies which began in the mid-90s are an emerging field that brings together the commonsensical and academic understanding of singleness (we use the term “singlehood”) by engaging with assumptions, perceptions, theories and terminologies associated with it. One of the most common perceptions about singlehood across societies, as brought forth by these studies is its definition as deviant vis-a-vis the marital state which is seen as the norm. The responses gathered during our research further elucidated this when our informants shared their understanding of the perceptions of others, wherein singlehood is seen as a transitory phase which when extends longer than it should, is either seen as a heinous crime or a chronic disease, or a dangerous situation that demands adequate attention and reform. In addition to the above, our research brought forth another variable in the definition of singlehood which is that of being in a committed relationship. Though this idea is broader in scope than the idea of a marital bond, yet it reiterates the societal emphasis on compulsory coupledom and the acceptance of a person in a committed relationship within the societal fold. One of our female informants based in Mumbai said, “in most of my circle, singlehood is not just the absence of a marital bond. Somebody in a committed relationship that is out in the open, that people know of, is also taken to be a relationship of almost the same importance as a marital one.” What happens when one is neither married nor in a relationship? Often, people around them turn into matchmakers trying to set them up with their other single friends, colleagues, acquaintances or family members so as to treat their “disease” or help them reform till there is still time. The most typical response that we received was from one of our male informants who when asked about how others perceive him, replied, “Older people want you to get married as soon as possible. It is like getting off the Titanic before it sinks.” Although most informants talked about how members of the older generation perceive them as an aberration, some also shared how their single status is becoming acceptable amongst some people of their generation, if not all. This could be attributed to the growing number of single people, the reasons for which are various, in present times. The discriminatory attitude of people towards single people gets manifested further in the differential treatment or/and expectations they face within institutional settings especially at the workplace. The majority of our informants shared that their single status was often construed as them being available at any time of the day, to put in more working hours than their married colleagues and to put in more efforts while undertaking a task or a project. This was applicable for both men and women across different organizational spaces and professions. The most typical responses with regard to the difference in the number of working hours for a married employee and a single employee was as follows “Occasionally there is the assumption that single women don’t have families to go back and take care of, so we should be okay spending long hours at work.” Explicating the expectations with regard to the quality of work produced by single people as opposed to the married ones, a married male informant working in a corporate office stated, “Single people have been given less scope of excuses to incompetence, insincerity. Married folks have been given a benefit of doubt as they are deemed to be serving a higher purpose by having a family. This would also depend upon the relationship status of their bosses.” The societal perceptions on singlehood often translate into negative labels like irresponsible, untrustworthy, loose/flawed character, financially unstable, lacking in physical or mental wellbeing, eccentric, idiosyncratic, an oddity, self-indulgent, vagabond, etc. Although these above-mentioned characteristics are applied to both men and women, single women are seen more of a threat to the social order than the men, as pointed out by a female informant, “Especially if you are single female and above a certain age (GASP, 31 and not 6 A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing 99 even looking?!) the assumption is that you are desperate and lonely and were unable to hook a man…Generally men try and hit on single women, women look at them with a little pity (if you aren’t pretty) or wariness (if you are, because man-stealing-desperate-ho alert!).” In case of those informants (three in number— 2 men and 1 woman), who had been married but are now divorced, it emerged that the men found it easier to get accepted amongst their friends and families, even when they were divorced because of their sexual orientation while the woman had to make extra efforts to ensure acceptance. Our female informant shared how people around her considered her as available and spoilt and since she was the one who initiated the divorce, she was/is seen as too headstrong for a woman. Bell and Yans in their study also argued that single people are often considered outcasts or victims of constant moral policing, and “singleness for women, in a wide variety of societies, past and present, has been a negative—something missing, incomplete, or damaged, something without, even something pitied” (2007, p. 1). They further state that singlehood is a social construction, and it is important to trace the linkages in its definition across time and space. In recent years there has been an attempt to develop a counter-narrative to the dominant idea of singlehood which brings the elements of choice, power and authority over themselves and their surroundings in the definition of singlehood (Bell and Yans 2007). Thus, there are attempts to redefine and reconfigure the concept of singlehood especially by single people themselves, where the focus is not on what singlehood is not That is, not being married/without a partner, etc. but on what it is, that is, the possibilities that it may offer to people who consider themselves as single. Sometimes, one’s self-definition may be a combination of these two and the way one looks at one’s single status (married or not in a relationship) decides whether they are looking for a partner or not. If a person locates their single status through the idea of marriage, then looking for a partner is like a project to be completed. As a corollary, singlehood for them is thus, a phase/fluid state that may come to an end at some point in time in their life. The most noteworthy feature of this counternarrative is the turning of the very characteristic of marriage, i.e. permanence on its head and repositioning it as a limiting factor to the growth and freedom of the individual. Thus, the notion of permanence is seen as confinement while singlehood, on the other hand, carries within itself a possibility of novelty, freedom, more than one person to flirt with and a bigger pool of choice. A typical response about this can be gleaned from the following statement by a male informant, who felt that singlehood allows for “passionate indulgences loaded with the thrill of newness, devoid of security or the monotony of the household or any assurances that are taken for granted… being single offers you the choice to reach out to others with greater flexibility and a bigger basket to choose from as far as instant or temporal companionship is concerned.” It reveals what singlehood means to most of the men in our research who spoke of the romantic/sexual possibilities offered by singlehood, while women emphasized on autonomy and freedom. It also offers a glimpse into the changing nature of relationships in present times and the responsibilities that accompany such relationships. Thus, two of our male informants in addition to defining singlehood as no attachment or tensions pointed out how marriage and committed relationships entail compromises and render them vulnerable and being single helps avoid such vulnerabilities. However, except for these two cases, most informants indicated how living alone creates moments of negative as well as positive vulnerability. These may emerge from (emotional) loneliness, lack of physical presence in the house, support for household chores, a caregiver when sick or at social gatherings, or desire to have/raise children, or in case of sexual needs. The feeling was similar for both men and women as evident in the responses given below, The days when I’m ill. Weddings and social gatherings where compulsory coupledom is thrust in my face. I love children, and some days I regret 100 that between PCOS and mental health, I probably can’t even have/adopt any because I might not be able to be a good caregiver for one. (Female informant) Some days when I come back to an empty house. Or bump into an ex. Or when I’m horny. (Female informant) When I go back home from work every day and there is nobody to talk to. The feeling of putting your key inside the door latch thinking there is nobody on the other side is scary. (Male informant) It is interesting that most of our informants referred to a romantic/marital partner when talking about their vulnerabilities, except one who pointed out that she is attached to many people like her friends, family, etc. and added that “being single does not mean that you are living on an island, cut off from the entire world—one will need people around oneself to fall back on when one feels distressed, emotionally weak, etc. Her response is extremely significant in bringing forth the emphasis that members of a society, attach to a romantic/marital relationship where despite the existence of different kinds of support systems, there is a constant feeling of something being amiss. This can also constitute a whole new sphere of inquiry on single people’s support systems which we have not engaged within this paper. Although both the men and women in our research defined singlehood as a freedom to be themselves, to be self-indulgent and independent, or to have options, most of our women informants defined singlehood as liberating, as the freedom to make their own choices and decisions and be in command of themselves and their surroundings. They articulated it as a mix of freedom and responsibilities where solitude is not pitiable but enjoyable. Koropeckyj-Cox in her work on singles in the United States of America writes “positive perceptions of single women were more common among women compared to men…” (2005, p. 92). She referred to the work of Watkins (1984) who argued that for women, remaining single allowed access to opportunities and valued roles not available to married women and mothers. Although their work talks about single women in R. Bhargava and R. Chilana the context of American society, parallels were found in our research as well where single working women migrants’ experience of not being married or in a relationship meant that they are self-reliant, can take charge of their own happiness, can go out anytime and hang out with anyone, a possibility unavailable to many married women. There was also a constant reference to how one can do mundane things like lying in the bed and binge-watch television without being answerable to someone. Some of our women informants also shared how certain people look up to them and consider them as self-reliant, fiercely independent, intelligent, more aware, well-travelled, resourceful, in control of their lives, without attachments that allow for a nomadic life in search of something as definitive as a career or as abstract as their own happiness. It is important to note that most of these women and others who perceive them considered these qualities as acquired because of circumstance/necessity, while in men they are expected to be innate, thus revealing the social construction of masculinity and femininity and the rigidity of such binaries which sometimes gets challenged and sometimes gets reiterated. 6.4 Home, Homeliness and Homemaking The term, “home” is often seen as a prolix and variegated category and is understood in all its multilayered, multifaceted, complex connotations by distinguishing it from “house” and “dwelling”. According to Coolen and Meesters (2012), in housing research, “house” is used to refer to the physical structure of the place one inhabits. A dwelling is seen as a subsystem of the environment which allows/enables a certain system of functions which makes that space a primary anchor for the individual who inhabits that space (Rapoport 1990). The findings in our research about the different facets of the home were supported by the discussion by Coolen and Meesters (2012). The first facet they discuss looks at home in terms of the relationships 6 A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing 101 people experience with the physical structure and the meanings they associate with it, “an idea and imaginary imbued with feelings” (Blunt and Dowling 2006, p. 4). For most of our informants, the motivation behind living alone was an assertion of their autonomy and a desire to exercise absolute control over their space. A typical response about their attitude to space was the freedom to be away, momentarily, from being the object of the gaze, to shed all social facades, to roam around without a bra, to dress/undress according to one’s whims and fancies and to choose to be or not be around others. The ways of inhabiting one’s space and the freedom that it entails are experienced differently by men and women, as was reflected in our findings. A male informant added that “I love roaming around naked in my house”, a comfort with one’s naked body, that was conspicuous by its absence in the responses of our female informants. The freedom to do or not do things at one’s own pace/leisure is another dimension of a single person’s way of inhabiting space, as most informants suggested that every decision, from the most trivial such as when to wash a mug (immediately or a day later), to financial choices is a choice made solely by them without needing to take into consideration others’ preferences and patterns. It was also pointed out that marriage, home and household chores are seen as interlinked where post marriage, home is a more definitive category which means more work and more time devoted to household chores. The second is the spatial dimension of home since people speak of home in terms of spatial entities such as house, locality, neighbourhood, state, country, etc. Only one of our male informants outright rejected the idea of a home by saying that he is happy living out of his backpack/SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) which has his two tennis rackets, a guitar, and formal clothes. When asked about the kind of place they like to go back to, all women informants cited security/preferably a gated community as their first priority in addition to an affordable, clean, airy place, spacious balcony, plenty of water, mood lighting and proximity to the workplace. Saunders argues that “home is where people are offstage, free from surveillance, in control of their immediate environment. It is their castle. It is where they feel they belong” (Saunders 1989 in Johnston and Valentine 1995, p. 100). The inner–outer distinction addressed by Chatterjee (1993) like other gender-specific discourses divide “the social space into ghar and bahr, the home and the world” (quoted in Donner 2006, p.155) gets further nuanced by the creation of the private within the private sphere. As we found out, even within the house, the private is constructed through certain manoeuvers, as a female informant shared that it was the necessity to guard her private space (bedroom) which made her buy furniture for the living room, thus revealing that some spaces within the home are more private/public than others. The temporal facet is the third dimension that appears in studies about home. In some studies, the focus is on the current dwelling whereas in some, there is a difference that is drawn between the place where one was born or raised or spent a simpler, happier time and the current dwelling. The temporal dimension may also manifest itself in terms of a projection for the future wherein one does not think of the place one was born as one’s home because of lack of autonomy/ parental authority and envisages a possibility of acquiring a home of one’s own. Some of our informants spoke of the difference between the parental home and the homes they had made for themselves by talking of how the parental home symbolized innocence since it stood for a particular phase of their life. A return to the parental home during festivals or for family functions is also an expression of a wistful longing for the past, as shared by one of our female informants, “I feel like a kid again with someone to cook and clean for me.” More than one informant suggested that they felt suffocated and deprived of their privacy in their parental home. One informant used the word “house” for his own abode and “home” for that of his parents. There was also a suggestion that the duration of stay in a particular space and the years of separation from the parental home play a crucial role in determining where one sees oneself as belonging. 102 The fourth aspect is the social relations associated with home, family, household, community, etc. There is an assumption of a stark contrast between a single and a married person’s home. According to our male informants, it was assumed by those around them that their homes will be filthy and similar to the house in Delhi Belly.2 Singlehood does condition one’s responses to space, as pointed out by our informants whose single friends/guests admired the user-friendly nature of the space, while those who were married felt the lack of certain things like a dining table. An organized house, especially in the case of single men was seen as “an aesthetic indulgence for the sake of the self”, as pointed out by a male informant. Another male informant pointed out that he is seen as a good housekeeper by both his single and married friends, “My male friends (single or married) would request me to give them the keys of my room if they had to meet someone special whom they could not meet in other places, something that would be unthinkable for a married person’s house which has a certain sanctity. My room keys would become more precious than me.” It is believed that a single person’s abode has the qualities of a chameleon, space which can be both a home (private) and a club (public), another reconfiguration of the public–private dichotomy of space. The fifth dimension is about the distinction between house and home where one defines home as a process or homemaking, a way of shaping one’s self/identity or carving out a niche for oneself in the world. Hooks talks of home as a feeling rather than a fixed space—“home is no longer just one place. It is locations” (Hooks 1991, p. 148 in Ahmet 2013, p. 622). Singlehood for most of our informants is defined as a nomadic/un-rooted sense of being and hence home is seen as one of many locations that one occupies. There is also a certain exhilaration and freedom that this idea of home produces. Home for them is a product of their physical and emotional labour, as described by a female 2 Delhi Belly is a Bollywood film released in the year 2011. R. Bhargava and R. Chilana informant “jisme aapka haath laga ho” (something which is a product of your labour) and a process which some of them never want to complete. The ephemeral/transient nature of home was constantly reiterated by our informants, to quote one of them “home is temporary safe harbors with no fixed locus.” Home is defined in terms of the here and now, not as a space that was once inhabited or will be inhabited somewhere in the future. Following from the above discussion, it can be inferred that home is seen as a necessary dimension of one’s adulthood and a marker of one’s identity as independent and mature. However, single people often find themselves doubly marginalized in their search for a house because marriage is seen as a necessary precondition for having a home of their own. Through the everyday practices of our informants, we saw a constant crossover into what is seen as a masculine domain in the case of women and feminine domain in the case of our male informants. Their behaviour does not fit into conventional gender roles but the change in everyday practices or behaviours does not lead to the change in societal norms or standards of masculinity and femininity. 6.5 House Hunting: Biases and Negotiations Our research which attempts to explore the linkages between singlehood and home draws upon the three-pronged strategy of looking at space suggested by Lefebvre (1991), of looking at the dialectical interaction between perceived, conceived and lived space, to understand the spatial ideology of our society with regard to singlehood. One of the ways in which the spatial ideology can be deciphered is through the access or lack thereof to rental housing for single people. Every space is already in place before the appearance of actors, actors who are individual as well as collective subjects, inasmuch as individuals are members of a class/group who seek to understand and appropriate space in their own ways. Representational space is a “space as 6 A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing 103 directly lived through its associated images and symbols” (Lefebvre 1991, pp. 38–39). Most of our informants bemoaned the fact that their single status raised eyebrows or created hurdles in finding an apartment and once access was established the panoptic gaze of the landlords and neighbours created a great sense of discomfort and annoyance. The surveillance and suspicion were greater in the case of women who came from small towns since it was believed that having led a sequestered life these women would have a “wild phase” after experiencing the first joys of freedom. Most of them pointed out how most landlords assume a moral high ground when interacting with single people and also offer them unsolicited advice. They fear that single men would vandalize the place or single women will use it for “certain kinds of businesses.” Single women are also more vulnerable to harassment, as many of our informants including men admitted that. on security and therefore taking their own precautions by keeping their doors and windows locked. An informant shared a disturbing incident wherein one of her neighbours harassed her and her flatmates for visits of her male friends which was resolved by the support of DCW (Delhi Commission for Women) but the fear and anxiety remains. Sometimes they look at my beard and ask me if I’m Muslim. When I say no, there are no real problems. I’m assuming that a yes would create a lot of problems. But that statement is not based on any statistically significant data points. I think being single and living on rent is awesome unless you are black, Muslim, a girl or have pets or may be gay too. (Male informant) A female informant, who is a teacher while talking of her experience of house hunting recollected an incident when she was not even allowed to see a house because the landlady said that she would prefer renting her house to men working in corporate sector, “humein too MNC wale boys chahiye, beta bura mat manna par ladkiyon ke sath problem ho sakti hai.” (Don’t mind but we are looking for boys working in MNCs as tenants. There can be issues with girls). This was not a typical response though, since, female academicians with government jobs found it relatively easy to find a house as compared to lawyers, freelancers and media professionals. It is because of these biases and prejudices that some of these informants admitted that they had made certain compromises to get the houses they wanted to reside in. Female informants spoke of sometimes, compromising I had a neighbour tell me that everyone knows what type of things go on at my place and that there are boys coming in at ungodly hours and also this is a respectable neighbourhood where such kind of activities won’t be tolerated. He would knock at my door at 12:30 am or 3 am and tell me that my talking on a phone is audible and that if I walk in my flat after 9 pm, it disturbs the people around. He also threatened calling the police on me. (Female informant) Women residing in the North Campus area of Delhi, also pointed out that hostels are notorious for illicit activities while paying guest (PGs) accommodation have a stronger mechanism of surveillance through roll call, etc. which made some of them move out of PGs, located mostly in Kamla Nagar into independent flats in the Vijay Nagar locality. Sometimes the contract carries a clause about the interaction/visits/stay over with regard to the opposite gender. One female informant said that she was asked to keep decent hours, not cook non-vegetarian food but the thing that distressed her the most was how her male friends were bombarded with questions. When asked whether they behaved in a certain way once they moved in, this informant said that she made an effort to not disturb the landlords. The thing that appalled them the most was the unwillingness of others (landlords/neighbours) to help. It is relatively easy for single people to get a house in “urban villages” (Herbert Gans 1962) such as Munirka, Kishangarh, Vijay Nagar, etc. where “people are closely related, interact on a regular basis and share similar socio-economic circumstances” (quoted in de Neve and Donner 2006, p. 8) but which post liberalization thrive on a rent economy. These do not have gated communities or Resident Welfare Associations for grievance redressal. Given that marriage is inextricably 104 R. Bhargava and R. Chilana linked to financial stability, single men and women are seen as bad investments, and even/when they are given access to rental housing, the interaction is solely for monetary purposes. De Neve and Donner pointed out “liberalisation and economic restructuring do not necessarily translate into the rise of more heterogeneous urban spaces” (2006, p. 13). Although in our research we witnessed that these spaces are heterogeneous but heterogeneity does not translate into a cultural exchange or respect for difference or unconventional lifestyles. This discrimination against people living a non-normative/unconventional life is so clandestine that it goes unnoticed or unaddressed but like other forms of discrimination, it is traumatizing to the one who is discriminated against and it is premised on the politics of exclusion excluding those who evolve alternate ways of living and being. This raises concerns, as such instances reveal how the idea of safe cities is compromised because of societal perceptions towards people looking to make a space for themselves, leaving it to them to find solutions on their own. 6.6 Manoeuvering Within the Enemy’s Field of Vision The people in our study have already questioned the normative by being or choosing to be single, however, being single is an identity that needs to be constantly negotiated with. De Certeau has argued that “spatial practices in fact secretly structure the determining conditions of social life” (1988, p. 97). Having said that, one cannot help but notice that the discrimination faced by single people while accessing rental housing though being subtle and often unconstitutional, not only shapes their attempts to bypass/deal with biases but also configures their everyday practices. It is these ways of operating or what he calls tactics which belong to the realm of the weak, a manoeuver “within the enemy’s field of vision” (Certeau 1988, p. 37). Consequently, one can see how single people use various tactics to access rental housing, sometimes pretending to be a married couple or engaged, lying that parents will stay so as make it seem that a family would be staying in, making sure the landlord does not stay there, sometimes not disclosing their sexuality (as pointed out by an informant who identifies as gay), or agreeing to the conditions in the rent agreement but bypassing it after moving in. Thus, most of the time performing socially acceptable roles to “manufacture respectability” as suggested by Phadke (2007) is one of the most predominant forms of negotiation to not only access rental housing but also keep it. Donner (2006) has shown that women in middle-class households have to adhere to certain notions of respectability especially with regard to mobility and social interactions but our research has revealed that in case of single people, even men have to “manufacture respectability.” Although, many of them in the study pointed out that buying or owning a house is a marker of prestige and may lead to lesser discrimination, it remains to be seen whether owning a house will cause a dent in the stigma associated with singlehood and its accompanying need to manufacture respectability. Manufacturing respectability as suggested by Phadke is about overtly conforming to societal norms and conventions to be seen as respectable and “decent” which was noticed more so amongst our woman informants. Additionally, it was noticed that our informants acted in a certain manner not only for the landlords but also for people in the vicinity because of singlehood being seen as a stigma. That is to say that the number of people one manufactures respectability for increases once accommodation is procured. While both male and female informants mentioned that they were conscious of the noise they made, many female informants pointed out that they behaved in a “respectable” way, such as not smoking outdoors and buying condoms or liquor from stores away from their place. When faced with harassment, more than once, they ignored, retaliated by yelling, pointed out how they were being harassed or changed service providers. These ways of operating of single women are what de Certeau (1988) calls the “art of the weak” but they also inadvertently end up reproducing hegemonic constructs of ideal womanhood. They may be able to resist marriage but their daily ways of living 6 A Flat of My Own: Singlehood and Rental Housing 105 and behaving show their entrapment in the narrow confines of ideal femininity. continuously and daily encountered and challenged by most of our single informants. Their responses offered a more layered understanding which encapsulates the freedom, choice, agency and also occasional loneliness that singlehood leads to. This reveals the spectrum of societal acceptance where marriage is sacrosanct, an obvious event in one’s life course; commitment is second in significance to it and singlehood when transitory is acceptable but when it stretches beyond the normative time limit, is considered a threat to the social order. The section on home and homemaking challenged the conventional understanding of home and the public-private binary by looking at home as fluid, a symbol of autonomy, freedom, labour and a process that one may or may not want to complete. There was also a need felt by some to create a private within a private because of the denial of sanctity to a single person’s home. A space which is their space is sometimes claimed by others as their own and hence the need to assert the privateness of that space or create a private within a private. The responses of our informants revealed how although both single men and women encountered discrimination in their attempt to find a rented apartment, the expectation to adhere to normative practices and also the need to “manufacture respectability” was experienced more viscerally by our female informants. The all-pervasive, panoptic gaze was less severe/controlling/traumatizing in the case of men. These responses further indicated the stigmatization of single women as loose, immoral, coquettish, femme fatales whose emphatic refusal to “settle down” was also a threat to societal order and harmony. Our research findings revealed that while single women were seen as home breakers or engaged in illicit activities, single men were often denied a house because of the assumption that men are careless and irresponsible. Thus, singlehood and one’s access to rental housing need to be viewed through a gendered lens since men and women experience and respond to societal expectations and norms differently. The project also unravelled the daily acts of negotiation of these women who are constantly trying to push boundaries in 6.7 Conclusion Through an analysis of these relations of power and these individual acts of resistance, our project lays bare the “powerful recipe for exclusion” (Drydakis 2011) by stigmatizing singlehood which manifests itself in discrimination in rental housing. Thus, as suggested by Nick Drydakis in his study of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, “Housing studies indicate that those who live in rental housing are persons who typically have lower incomes and who are disproportionately vulnerable to discrimination and therefore protected by law…When people and groups are consistently denied housing opportunities, perceive law enforcement as providing little protection, and face discrimination in other aspects of community life, this combination adds up to a powerful recipe for exclusion, and as such, it forms the antithesis of inclusion that is the fundamental notion of integration.” (2011, p. 1252) Lefebvre’s argument about the manner in which societal relations structure space and are structured by space is evident in our research and its findings. The attempt, often insidious but sometimes brazen, to push single people into peripheral spaces with regards to rental accommodation is revelatory of the spatial ideology of our society. It thus calls for an urgent need to create sustainable, inclusive and equitable cities since none of us can be free if all of us are not free. Using Butler’s model of the performativity of gender through “stylized, repetitive acts” one can see how space can act as a site of women’s confinement but can also be a site of resistance. This model also allows us to see how single men through their “ways of operating” are transcending the conventional norms of masculinity in certain spheres like homemaking and aesthetic indulgence, which came through in the responses of all male informants but one. The dominant understanding of singlehood as the absence of a marital bond, an absence which signifies a vehement rejection of societal expectations is 106 one way or the other, as pointed out by Kim Berry (2008). “Yet all single women occupy and negotiate multiple and contradictory” subject positions, complicating any oversimplified narratives of resistance which would cast single women as always and only oppressed in the face of a supposed exterior force of power. Single women’s individual acts of resistance (as is true for all acts of resistance) must be seen as partial, as imbricated in relations of power, and contradictory.” (Berry 2008, p. 23) As suggested by Saba Mahmood (2005) agency also lies in the way one inhabits norms; it may not always be synonymous with a vehement rejection of norms. 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Her doctoral research focused on understanding the growth and role of civil society in the state of Nagaland, India. Her research mainly centres around issues of identity formation, gender and space, and the ethnographic method. Rashi holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University. guest faculty in 2010. Her research interests are gender studies, Indian English writing, post-colonial literature and women’s writing. She has written about Indian Campus Fiction, women travel bloggers and cinema, among other things. Richa is currently pursuing her PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her doctoral research focuses on understanding the “veil” in Twentieth Century Indian English Writing. She has published articles in various journals which include “Chador or Char Diwari: An Analysis of the Veil and the Veiled in and through Indian Literature” in Journal of Psychological Research and “Indian Campus Fiction and its Linguistic Gymnastics” in Fortell: A Journal of English Language and Literature published in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Richa Chilana started teaching at the Department of English Maitreyi College, University of Delhi, India in 2011. Prior to that she taught in various colleges of University of Delhi as a