Women Foreclosed: A Gender Analysis of Housing Loss in the U.S. Deep South

Women were a focus of subprime lending during the housing boom, increasing their risk of mortgage foreclosure during the Great Recession of 2007-2011. Following Valentine’s (2007) call for a feminist geography on interactions between social categories and spatial ordering, this article investigates housing loss among women foreclosees in a southern U.S. county with a history of residential segregation. We collected data manually from legal notices and public access property records between 2008 and 2013, and then combined the information with census tract data for GIS analysis. We found significant differences between women foreclosees in terms of marital status, race/ethnicity, and location. While married women foreclosees typically lived in majority-white areas throughout the county, their unmarried counterparts were clustered in low-income Black neighborhoods close to the county seat. Women’s foreclosure activity followed historical patterns of residential segregation, with privilege and disadvantage in juxtaposition with social hierarchies of race and class. We conclude that housing loss in the U.S. South is complicated by racial history and the subordinate status of ‘women alone’ in the property market.