Making Space for Girls

A new charity is challenging park designers, councils and managers to create better parks and remove the barriers which prevent teenage girls from using public spaces designed for young people.

Susannah Walker, Making Space for Girls

Susannah Walker is a design historian, author and former TV producer.

Sometimes discrimination hides in plain sight, impossible to see until it’s pointed out, and then impossible to ignore. As a feminist and the mother of a teenage girl, I’d never even noticed the way that park spaces catered almost entirely for teenage boys. But when it was pointed out to me, I was furious.

The problem is set out in all too many play and green space strategies, which define facilities for teenagers as being ‘MUGAs, skate parks and BMX tracks. All of these are almost entirely used by boys. Which isn’t to say that girls don’t want to play football or skateboard, but for a whole heap of reasons, including their design and the behaviour of the boys who do use them, they don’t often get a look in.

Make Space for Girls was founded not just out of a burning sense of injustice, but because the current state of affairs goes against the law. Co-founder Imogen Clark, a solicitor for many years, pointed out that under the Public Sector Equality Duty, any public body must proactively consider how any decisions they make may impact on disadvantaged groups, and how to redress those inequalities.

We had identified clear-cut discrimination, and councils were legally required to consider it. On that basis, we had a campaign, and Make Space for Girls – after quite a bit of research – came into being. We are a charity focussed on the fact that parks and other public spaces need to be designed with teenage girls in mind. This isn’t about painting things pink or telling girls to be more confident. We want landscape architects, councils, developers and equipment manufacturers to plan teenage spaces which are more creative and inclusive, and so work for everyone - including the very many teenage boys for whom the current provision isn’t working either.

This matters for a whole host of other reasons apart from just the law. Inactivity in teenage girls is a serious health problem, with only 10% getting the recommended 60 minutes of activity a day, but somehow this is never connected with the fact that they have nothing to be active on. Their mental health is worse than that of boys, and it’s proven that going out into green spaces improves wellbeing.

Teenage girls also have a right to play. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child includes everyone under the age of 18, but older girls are often forgotten. One problem is that teenage play, to adults, often looks like ‘loitering’ or ‘hanging around’, something to be stamped out rather than encouraged.

There’s also a fundamental question of social justice. To be in public space is to be part of the community, but all too often our places tell girls that they are not welcome, that they should be at home instead. “And that’s something they unfortunately might interpret as a lesson for life.”

“Somewhere to meet with friends, to be active or just be, to feel comfortable, and like I belong.”

© Isabel Fox & Harry Groom/ Make Space for Girls

A park that welcomes teenage girls to play

© Isabel Fox & Harry Groom/ Make Space for Girls

All of which could be depressing. But the good news is that change is possible and it’s already proven that design can make a difference to how girls and young women experience public spaces. In particular, work in Vienna, Malmö and Barcelona has highlighted that planning with them in mind can achieve results.

The flagship example for this, as it is for every kind of gender mainstreaming in planning, is Vienna. Einseidler Park was a large urban space with play areas, but the researchers noticed that girls were passing through without ever lingering to play. So they put in some small interventions – hammocks and wooden structures which could be seating or performance areas – and the girls started to use the park more. The researchers talked to the girls about what the issues were and then altered the 1 space. In particular the MUGA was made much less enclosed, with more entrances and one wall of fencing separated off, so that it felt safer for the girls. The pitch area was also divided into two by a multi-use concrete structure so that a game of football didn’t have to dominate the entire space. Girls used the space more, and stayed for longer.

Rösens Rodda Matta in Malmö took a different approach, creating a small urban park as a co-design project with a group of girls. The resulting space contained a stage, a climbing wall and exercise bars, and was also broken up into a number of different areas to prevent one group territorialising the space.

From these projects and others, it’s possible to create a set of guidelines which can make parks and other public spaces more welcoming to teenage girls. These would include better lighting and public toilets, a range of smaller spaces, social seating, exercise bars and swings. They’d cover design issues which improve safety such as better lighting, good sightlines, making sure paths had no dead-ends and putting facilities for teenage girls in well-frequented areas. These are all great and important, but even so they wouldn’t be our number one recommendation. Because the most important thing we need to do to improve inclusivity in our parks is to talk to the teenage girls themselves.

This matters for so many reasons. All parks are different and so are the needs of their users. You could build the most perfect path, but if they have to cross a dual carriageway then use a dodgy underpass to get there, it’s a waste of money. But teenage girls are experts in their local areas – they know where’s safe and where to avoid; they know what they like and how it could be made better. All we need to do is speak to them. It’s a relatively easy starting point, but it’s one that could change everything.

In the course of writing this article, I’ve learned that the landscape profession is gender equal, which gives me real hope that people will see the problem and take any opportunities they have to make change happen. And girls want change to happen too – when Girlguiding surveyed its members, 82% thought that girls should be more involved in the design of parks and public spaces. Now that the discrimination has been brought out into the daylight, it’s much easier to counteract it, and I’m really confident that this is going to happen for girls in parks and public spaces, and soon.

Teenage girls are experts in their local areas – they know where’s safe and where to avoid; they know what they like and how it could be made better.

What is the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED)?

The PSED is a series of legal obligations that public bodies (including local authorities) must comply with in decision making. The purpose of the PSED can be summarised as creating “a culture change so that promoting equality becomes part of public bodies’ core business” (1) .

The PSED in its current form has been in place for over ten years. But when we talk about parks to councils, planners, designers, play professionals and academics, there is a low level of awareness of PSED and confusion about what it means in practice.

What does the PSED require local authorities to do?

The PSED requires local authorities to consider proactively the need to: – eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and other unlawful discrimination – advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not; removing/reducing disadvantage, meeting differing needs, and encouraging people to participate in activities where their participation is low – foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.

What are “protected characteristics”?

The PSED protects people by recognising that there are personal characteristics which can lead to discrimination/disadvantage within society. Sex (male/female) is a “protected characteristic”.

Being a dog walker, a footballer, a skateboarder or a cyclist is not. But far too often parks give priority to meeting the needs of these groups (where there is no legal obligation to do so) and don’t think about the needs of teenage girls (where there is).

Why is the PSED relevant to the work of Make Space for Girls?

Where a local authority’s current facilities for teenagers (skate parks, fenced pitches, BMX tracks) are dominated by boys and/or there is low participation in the park by girls, girls are disadvantaged. The PSED requires local authorities to consider proactively the need to reduce this disadvantage and encourage greater participation.

Isn’t complying with the PSED just box ticking?

No: the need to consider proactively reducing disadvantage and encouraging participation is not about ticking boxes. When councils are taking decisions that relate to their parks, they must exercise the PSED in substance, with rigour and with an open mind. This must be done before the decision is made, not afterwards. If local authorities applied the PSED to their decisions on parks in substance, with rigour and an open mind, they would produce more inclusive parks. Fact.