I have been calling myself a feminist for years now. Being socialized as a girl, receiving education, listening to stories of my friends, and experiencing assault, it became an inevitable topic for me. When I started studying city planning, I wasn’t aware how much our cities are shaped by the gender hierarchy, I thought at least our cities are based on a “neutral” planning base. Today, I want to share with you what I learned from this and why I was wrong.
Isn’t this topic overdue?
Some of you reading this might think “Why feminism? We have equality today, women have achieved so much, this is overdue?”. Well, this is your chance to learn more about how our cities are designed and what this has to do with sustainability and why we need a feminist approach.
The situation right now
City planning is still a male dominated field. Think about this. It is no coincidence that the queue to a women’s toilet is often 5 times longer than the queue to the men’s restroom. Biological facts force women typically to use the bathroom more regularly than men, menstruation, pregnancy, a smaller bladder, infections or accompanying children or others. So, it would be logical to provide more gender-neutral toilets, or more toilets for Flintas*. However, in most places, it is the opposite. There are more urinals installed then women’s toilets.
Another issue is safety and the privilege to walk alone at night. According to a study from the university of Heidelberg, 83% of women actively take detours to prevent spaces of fear. 58% even state that they avoid going out if they are not sure how to get home safely. An experience that I also grew up with. Double checking that no one is following me when I am walking alone at night, pretending I am on the phone with someone, being cat called, being afraid. Especially in dark side streets, parking houses or parks. With the provision of well-lit streets, parking houses with a security system, parks where there is guidance for safe paths are crucial. Providing safer environments which will be free from violence and assault, we all get the chance to participate fully in the urban life.
Our gender stereotypes are connected to our city planning
Our cities today are planned in a way that they favour the male citizen. Let’s start with this fact. According to the International Labour Organisation 2018 globally, women perform 76.2 % of total hours of unpaid care work, more than three times as much as men.
The outdated role models of gender are almost everywhere a daily order. The traditional imagine of a family (a heterosexual couple with two children, the women does more of the care work while the men goes fulltime working) is why, traffic routes, housing and public spaces, our cities are designed for this pattern.
This means that, the topic of care-work is not only happening in the private sphere it also stretches out to our streets and public spaces. Working as a babysitter myself, I realised our streets and public spaces were not designed for caretakers, which are mostly women. Narrow sidewalks, with couple stones in the middle. The parking of a thousand bikes and E scooters in the way, made me struggle to push strollers and managed the kids. Also stepping into public transport – the overcrowded bus or train in the afternoon – was more often a battle instead of a pleasant ride, because it is stressful to push a wheelchair, a stroller or just having young kids with you. Instead, we built cities with a focus on cars. And who is riding them? More men than women. Statistics show that private transportation is much more used by men than women, and the city is designed for that. Historically and in most cities today, men were not expected to help the elderly, the disabled or children in public spaces, that was a job of the women. Therefore, building wider sidewalks, reducing car traffic and parking lot space would not only benefit our environment but contribute to gender equality.
The core of feminist city planning
For centuries planning has been dominated by one view, and that was the able bodied cis-male one. But thanks for feminist sociologist and urbanist these issues are getting more attention which is great because cities have the potential to make the daily life of Flintas better. At the heart of feminist city planning lies the commitment to creating safe and inclusive public spaces. These spaces are designed to accommodate a range of activities fitting to a diverse group of people.
I want to walk safely at night. I want to have pedestrian friendly streets; I want to be able to find a toilet easily. I want to participate fully in the city’s life, use public spaces freely and build up a connection with others without being judged, stressed, harassed, and not soaked in sweat because of the involuntary full time work out I had to do because I had to push the stroller and manage the kids again.
Written by green guide Julia Proksch
Note: Flinta stands for Female, Lesbians, Intergender, Transgender, Agender and is used as an inclusive term
(https://www.ilo.org/asia/media-centre/news/WCMS_633284/lang–en/index.htm)