GMTC
GMTC
WHY
GMTC
GMTC
The public woman
For centuries, women’s place was at home, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, paid work and politics. Women who ventured into the public domain were seen as inferior and treated as public property.
Today, not that much has changed, as far as the organisation of the city is concerned. Women can vote, study, work, and go to bars, but they still do so in a male-dominated world. Not to mention the overwhelming number of streets, buildings and statues dedicated to men.
As a woman, you are usually left alone when you are shopping or out with children, but not when you are sitting on a bench or strolling by yourself. “Les hommes occupent, les femmes s’occupent,” says French collective Genre et Ville. Men can just ‘be’ in public space – manspreading! -, women cannot. Those who do occupy the space must therefore – it seems – take the male stares and comments for granted.
It’s a man-made world
“Our cities are patriarchy written in stone, brick, glass, and concrete”, says feminist geographer Jane Darke. Public space is still made for men and by men. This is not illogical, considering they also make up the majority of policymakers, urban planners, architects and engineers. And that group traditionally has a blind spot for all those who are different from them.
Eva Kail, the mother of the concept of gender planning, puts it this way: “Urban planners think that what is good for them is good for everyone, but they are mainly white, middle-class and male and therefore do not take a lot of people into account”.
Those people feel that first-hand. For pregnant women or young parents, crossing the city feels like an obstacle course, especially if they are carrying a pram and groceries: poorly laid sidewalks, lack of (clean!) public toilets, too narrow bicycle racks, awkward revolving doors, broken escalators, nonfunctioning lifts, overcrowded trams, and no place to nurse a screaming baby. In fact, most of these obstacles also reduce freedom of movement for older people and people with disabilities.
The car still rules in many cities, while we know that women are more likely to use soft mobility, especially for daily journeys. That public transport is also clearly conceived by men. The supply of buses and trains is tailored to the hourly schedule of a 9 to 5 worker, but women very often work parttime, and thus travel during less-served ‘off-peak hours’. And poorly conceived street lighting reinforces the ever-present feeling of insecurity.
The feminist city
Fortunately, things are changing. In Austria, urban planner Eva Kail has been pushing for gender mainstreaming in urban planning policy since the 1990s. She is the founder of the Frauenburo in Vienna and the driving force behind the city’sfirst pilot project in which female needs were explicitly considered in the design of an apartment complex. ‘Frauen-Werk-Stadt’, designed entirely by women architects and completed in 1995, was followed up. The city has already launched sixty gender-sensitive pilot projects and assessed a thousand others.
Other cities such as Paris, London, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Stockholm and New York are also experimenting with gender planning, with the aim of making the city more inclusive. ‘The gendered landscape’ in Umeå, Sweden, has an international reputation.
Meanwhile, people start to realise that a gender-friendly public space is about much more than pink benches and rainbow-coloured zebra crossings – although there is nothing wrong with that. In her book ‘Feminist City’, geographer Leslie Kern describes the feminist city as a place where bar-
riers – both physical and social – are demolished, a place where all bodies are taken into account. Or as the architecture platform L’architecture qui dé- genre puts it, “A feminist city is one that treats its inhabitants with care, regardless of gender, orientation, age and disability.”
Where are the girls?
Particular attention in gender planning goes to teenage girls. Unlike their male peers, they are one of the most invisible groups. Popular films and series starring teenage girls do not have the city but the bedroom as their setting. Indeed, according to researcher Eva James, girls are much more likely to meet indoors because they do not feel at home on the streets.
This is confirmed by a survey of Belgian research centre Kind & Samenleving (2019): far fewer girls (37 %) play outside than boys (63 %). A balance can nearly be found among young children, but in the 9-11 age group, only 27 % of children playing outside are girls. Girls of all ages are also more likely to play under adult supervision. The researchers also counted far fewer girls among the children on the move, leading them to conclude that girls are simply less present in public spaces than boys.
Specifically for teenage girls, the (feeling of) insecurity is an issue. According to Plan International, nine out of ten girls in Antwerp, Brussels and Charleroi have already experienced sexual street harassment. Half of these girls adapt their behaviour on the street or on public transport, fundamentally restricting their freedom of movement. They avoid certain places, take a different route, only go out with a friend or dress differently.
What also plays tricks on them: the ‘masculine’ design of public spaces. With only 15 % girls, sports zones are really boys’ places. Of course, girls also like playing football or basketball, they just don’t feel welcome in a place dominated by others – mostly boys – where competition is central.