Solutions for gender fair cities An international action-research report
Š Womenability - December 2017
Solutions for gender fair cities
An international action-research report
Author - Womenability Content
Audrey NOELTNER, Gabriel ODIN, Charline OUARRAKI
Publication managers Data collectors
Julien FERNANDEZ, Audrey NOELTNER, Gabriel ODIN, Charline OUARRAKI
Charlotte BERTHIER, Zoé BLANCHOT, Camille CAUD, Claire CHATELET, Solenn CORDROC’H, Marion DEPREZ, Marie FERRIEUX, Léonor GAUTHIER, Margaux HERBIN, Léa LE SOUDER, Clémentine NOURDIN, Léa RAYNOUARD
Data analyst supports
Contributors
Guillemette BAILLY, Bahia BENNOUNA, Alexandra STAGLIANO, Jasmine PAUL
Photo reporter
Marguerite CARLO, Julien FERNANDEZ
Editing manager Layout
Marissa POTASIAK Julien CHABAS
Preface
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omenability’s report underlines an undisputable fact: nowadays, public space perpetuates existing inequalities between men and women; it serves as a necessary reminder that we cannot do without an in-depth analysis of the place women occupy in the city.
Public space should allow women to exert their fundamental rights, including the right to education, healthcare, work and transportation. Yet women are still forced to develop survival strategies in their own cities; they avoid particular places, use certain transportation modes over others and adapt their clothing out of fear of sexist behaviours and gender-based violence. As our cities are reinventing themselves to face new social and environmental challenges, it has become all the more urgent to integrate gender inequalities into our thinking.
Fighting inequalities through new urban patterns has been the mission of the formidable Womenability team. With the help of innovative methods, they have come up very concrete and relevant recommendations; the use of exploratory walks in particular has proved to be very instructive. The engagement of citizens in the project testifies to the aspirations of all citizens for a more inclusive and equalitarian city. It is not only about security; it is also about giving women visibility in the public space, through the promotion of non-sexist communication, the allocation of female names to streets, squares, and buildings‌ The report offers a number of precious solutions for a more serene and equally-shared city and I encourage mayors worldwide to draw inspiration from it.
Meanwhile, we need to continue fostering the exchange of best practices among cities. Only through the study of the situation in other countries and the comparison with our realities can we find collective responses to this major challenge of urban reappropriation.
I would like therefore to commend the remarkable work done by Womenability, as I invite leaders and communities across the globe to make their ideas and propositions theirs.
Anne Hidalgo Mayor of Paris
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Content
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Preface
Content
Thank you
Methodology
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Introduction
Chapter #1
Chapter #2
Chapter #3
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Chapter #4
Chapter #5
Chapter #6
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Chapter #7
Chapter #8
Chapter #9
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Conclusion
References
Appendices
Cleanliness : The city, “so fresh and so clean”?
The five senses in focus : How do women experience the city?
Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
Sex (and love) in the city
Mobility : Women on the move
Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
Security : Women’s bodies exposed
Men’s voices
Recommendations for a fair shared city
Thank you
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This report is truly a participatory and collaborative work. The Womenability team wishes to thank everyone who participated in this great adventure. We could not have done it without you!
For your help preparing the action-research, building the survey, translating tools, finding partnerships, editing contents, providing feedback... Violaine BALANCA, Chris BLACHE (Genre et ville), Virginie CHOMIER, Joséphine HEBERT, Bastien INTERNICOLA, Marine LAUNIER, Hatoumata MAGASSA, Leila N’CIRI, Marie-Christine NOELTNER, Marissa POTASIAK, Richard SELLAM, Valerie STAHL, Alia VERLOES, Laura et Davy WAI.
For your help co-organizing the exploratory walks : In Paris, EDL Porte de la Chapelle, Céline GORIN, Alice PERRIN. In Malmö, Malmö Jamstellhedtsbyra, Malin BECKMAN. In Prague, Gender Studies, Jitka HAUSENBLASOVÁ, Anna KOTKOVÁ. In Sofia, Via Civic, Dieana DRAGOEVA, Kaloyan GOTLIFE FILIPOV, Deniz MOLLAHASAN, Adlen VASVIEVA, Georgi YAKIMOV, Cristina YON. In Zurich, L-PUNKT, Deborah MITTNER, Sonia. In New Haven, Connecticut Women Consortium, Colette ANDERSON, Kathleen CALLAHAN, Olivia YETTER. In Baltimore, Power Inside, Jaquelyne ROBARGE. In Houston, Houston Tomorrow, Caitlin MCNEELY. In Rosario, Indeso Mujer, Alejandra ROJAS, Betiana SPADILLERO GAIOLI. In Montevideo, OCAC Uruguay, Sol BAUZA, Léa LE SOUDER. In Yokohama, New Women League, Kaori SHIJUJI. In Mumbai, Safe Cities Pin the Creeps, Elsa DA SILVA, Renita SIQUEIRA, Jessica XALXO. In Francistown, YWCA, Ludo Margeret MOSOJANE, Masego LEJOWA. In Cape Town, Sonke Gender Justice and Social Justice Coalition, Siphokazi DYANI, Sikhangele MABULU, Marlise RICHTER, Karen ROBERSTON, Chumile SALI, Zia WASSERMAN, Dalli WEYERS.
For walking with us : Afika, Alberto, Alejandas, Ali, Alia, Alp, Amal, Amkelwa, Ana, Anan, Andrea, Anna, Annan, Artemisia, Ashwathi, Asiphe, Astrid, Athenkosi, Aurore, Twashu, Barbara, Beth, Betiana, Bonga, Brian, Caitlin, Caitlin, Cecilia, Charles, Christiane, Chumile, Colette, Craig, Dabo, Danai, Daniel, David, Debora, Deiana, Deniz, Dianna, Didier, Dithoriso, Domenica, Edda, Erika, Eva, Eva, Evelyn, Farida, Fernanda, Federico, Francisco, Ghaina, Ginny, Gloria, Gofaone, Hamza, Hester, Ida, Ilyes, Ingrid, Iris, Ishmeet, Iva, Jay, Jennifer, Jenny, Jessica, Jillian, Jiri, Jitka, Jitka H., Jonna, José, Julia, Julia, Kalogan, Kameliya, Kana, Kaori, Kartikeya, Keiko, Keitumetse, Kelebogile, Kemiso, Khaidja, Khanya, Kiki, Kizil, Lamis, Latha, Léa LS., Léa, Lelis, Lena, Linda, Lisa, Lisa, Liza, Marc, LM Mosojane, Lomi, Lorato, Louise, Lurdes, Magdalena, Magho, Malin, Mandipa, Mosojane, Maniat, Marc, Marcus, Mari, María, Marie, MarieChristine, Mariga, Marion, Marketa, Marta, Mary, Maryline, Masego, Matilda, Max, Mika, Mindy, Minna, Mira, Miriam, Mohammed, Mubaraka, Mustafa, Myriam, Nadia, Nadia, Nadiya, Nadya, Nancy, Nanu, Nao, Nasakhele, Natalia, Nikita, Nina, Nobathembu, Nokhaya, Nomathamsanqa, Nomlungisi, Nomsa, Nomthetho, Nontando Nopinki, Nosiphiwo, Ntobeko, Olga Bowane, Olivia, Olivia, Peter, Philippe, Radka, Raliba, Rania, Rebecca, Rhea D’sa, Rike, Riko, Ronell, Roshan, Ryad, Samuel, Sekou, Shaines, Shannon, Sheetal, Sifiso, Sikhangele, Simon, Sinethemba, Sithokoziso, Siv, Smita, Sol, Sonja, Sophie, Sukhada, Sumati, Supreet, Sy Fong, Sylva, Tatiana, Thérèse, Thozama, Tove, Ulrika, Mr Vandrepolt, Veronica, Vincent, Wassim, Winnie, Wissam ,Yolanda, Zainab, Zandile, Zandile and Zingisa.
For your financial contribution and so much more Fondation Pro Victimis, Mairie de Paris, ONU Femmes France, Ministère des Familles, de l’Enfance et des Droits des Femmes. Bulle d’un jour, Buddyweb, Canal 171, Cinema Management Group, Sirius Home, Zeens
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Family ALLAIN, Laurie ANDRIAMANARIVO, Zoé AVELINE, Sophie BARBARIT, Thomas BARNIER, Jean-Jacques BEC, Louis and Malou BEC, Lucie BLOT, Clément BOISSEUIL, Matthieu BORNAT, Hanna BOUZEKRI, Kathrine BREKKE, Cyprien BUTIN, Marine CANAVESE, Jean-Michel CARLO, Marguerite CARLO, Mathilde CARON, Edith CHEVALIER, Virginie CHOMIER, Célia CLAPIT, Nic and Marine DA SCHIO, Bénédicte DE LATAULADE, Audrey DELAS, Marion DEPREZ, Reine DIALLO, Pauline DUMONTIER, Rabia ENCKELL, Brigitte ESCOFFIER, Louise FAFA, Pierre FAUCHEUX, Agathe FAURE, Justine FAURE, Marie FEREC, Paul FERNANDEZ, Fabienne FERNANDEZ, Julia FILLIPO, Hervé FONG YAM, Jacques FONTES, Sebastien FONTIMA, Claire- Marie FOULQUIER-GAZAGNES, Joëlle FULAINE, Viviane GASNIER, Elodie GEFFROTIN, Lucille GRESSIER, David GUENEE, Flavie HALAIS, Lila HANNOU, Chantal HERRMANN, Benjamin ISRAEL, Jacky KIPPER, Marion KUNNE, Antonia LAIR, Marine LAUNIER, Oriane LAVOLE, Xavier LE GARREC, Louise LEPETIT, Laetitia MARTY, Hatoumata MAGASSA, Alix MAUBREY, Maïté MOREL, Véronique MORNET-GOULIER, Julie MOTA, Edward et Marie NOELTNER, Gabriel ODIN, Wissam OUARRAKI, Alexandra PALT, Bruno PEREZ, Société PEVAL, Amélie PIROUX, Yonnel PONTON, Anne et Bruno RICARD, Hélène ROUSSEAU, Diane SAGNIER, Alice SAUSSOL, Lili SIE, Alexandra STAGLIANO, Denise STAHL, Valerie STAHL, Alexandre STEPHAN, Raoul TCHOI, Cindy VIEIRA, Françoise VIGNOLLET, Solène VINCK-KETERS, Bénédicte VIVENT, Geneviève VIVENT, Family WAI, Jasmine WEISS. A nous la nuit, Centre Hubertine Auclert, Femmes d’ici et d’ailleurs, Genre et ville, Humanity in Action, New Citizens, Noise le bruit de la ville.
For believing in us from the beginning, our strategic committee Reine DIALLO, Lorraine FARAHMAND, Claire GERVAIS, Erin HELFER, Anne LORIAUX, Stéphane LAVIGNOTTE, Mathieu PRIN, Clément RIVIERE, Alexis ROMAN, Grégory VASSILEV.
And for their unlimited support and active participation, our most heartfelt thanks to Bruno PEREZ, Marguerite CARLO, Wissam OUARRAKI
Walking with YWCA Francistown - Francistown © Womenability
Methodology Over the course of six months, from March to September 2016, Womenability travelled to 25 cities in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa to explore the urban space with the help of volunteer walkers. Our goal? To raise awareness among men and women about the need to design gender-inclusive cities. Our method? Exploratory walks and trainings to help provide a better understanding of the issues and to work on solutions together.
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Preparation for the walk with Connecticut Women Consortium New Haven © Womenability
“I believe that for an individual, for a political system, or for any practice the most valuable meaning can be found in the local factors – in local initiatives and conditions.”
AI WeiWei
Who are we? Audrey NOELTNER, Charline OUARRAKI and Julien FERNANDEZ co-founded this crazy project in February 2015 after a discussion about how each had been working in La Courneuve, a city next to Paris, France. In a few short words, Audrey and Charline explained that they needed to adapt their behaviors, clothes and ways of transportation because of their gender... At first, Julien was not aware of these problems. By observing, he realized that gender inequality in public space is a real issue. That is how this adventure began. Gabriel ODIN, who wanted to work for gender equality in cities, joined the team soon after, thus ensuring the gender parity of the team. Julien FERNANDEZ – Entrepreneur, world explorer and women rights defender, Julien is constantly looking for opportunities to change the status quo and change the rules. For him, Womenability is proof that social entrepreneurship is a powerful way to create more resilient society. Audrey NOELTNER – Urban planner and natural optimist, Audrey believes that cities are not the problem but the solution, and that power lies in the exchange of best practices. For her, the city of tomorrow cannot be co-created without women, youth and minorities. Charline OUARRAKI – Legal expert on cities and geek. Charline has always been an active fighter against discrimination. Her new combat make gender equality a reality and promote the asian community in France. There is nothing Charline cannot do, as long as she has a connection to internet. Gabriel ODIN – Out of sight but not out of mind, Gabriel has been working from Zambia to promote Womenability and create sustainable partnerships with NGOs in the cities Womenability visited, bringing his experience in international cooperation to the team, together with a passion for gender issues.
Preparation for the walk with Malmö Jamstellhedtsbyra - Malmö © Womenability
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What is an exploratory walk? First developed in Montreal (Quebec) in the 1990s, exploratory walks were created as an urban tool for women to navigate through safety and security issues. The first walk was organized by METRAC2 as part of preventive policies on violence against women and children (EFUS, 2010). Today they are mostly a response to the need for participatory planning in order to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of everyday urban life and the appropriation/use of public space by women. Practically speaking, exploratory walks consist of the exploration of a neighborhood by a local group of women, as well as – potentially – local NGOs and politicians. More than tools to gather and analyze the vision and experience of women with their urban environment, exploratory walks also encourage self and community empowerment, engaging a plurality of actors to start the co-construction of the city. It furthermore enhances exchanges between inhabitants, NGOs and public institutions, deepening their knowledge of one another. After the walk, women often feel more hopeful about the future and about their ability to serve as actors of change of their own neighborhoods. Finally, it is a great tool to find collective solutions to identified issues.
“In order for women not to be marginalized, their urban experiences need to be taken into account when local policies are made; thus an institutional perspective from which to look at women and the city (Garber and Turner 1995) is instructive.”1 In their exploratory walks, Womenability chose to include men in the process in order to encourage mutual understanding of the different ways women and men use the city. In addition, the walkers were asked about all aspects of city life – mobility, family, cleanliness, activities, security and love – rather than solely urban and safety issues. Womenability’s goals in this process were to: 1- Collect street knowledge 2- Empower local citizens 3- Find collaborative solutions through partnerships to make cities safe and enjoyable for all
“The essential point of the walks is to hear the residents’ views about their neighborhoods, to democratize the process of planning and designing of areas and to empower the residents into taking care of and being active in their neighborhoods.” (EFUS, 2010)
Womenability’s tools Before any exploratory walk, the team trained their local NGO partners so they could acquire a better understanding of the process. The team therefore organized 13 trainings to teach: inclusive mobilization, organizing, conducting, evaluating and valorizing exploratory walks. The goal: to promote exploratory walks and enable NGOs to continue the work when the team was gone. During the exploratory walks, all walkers were asked to fill in a questionnaire created by the team, in order to collect data. This questionnaire switches between quantitative and qualitative questions to give a full voice to the participants. This allowed them to share their perception of the neighborhood they were walking through. The survey was mainly designed with pictograms, crossing language barriers and creating an attractive document.
1. Kristine B. MIRANNE and Alma H. YOUNG (Eds.), Gendering the City: Women, Boundaries, and Visions of Urban Life, Oxford, Rowman & Liteerfield Publishers Inc., 2000
Methodology
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Our itinerary and partners
Paris EDL Porte de la Chapelle
Houston Houston Tomorrow
New Haven Connecticut Women Consortium
Zurich L-PUNKT
How did we select the cities we visited? For practical reasons, Womenability decided to consider only cities with more than 100 000 inhabitants when setting the itinerary. This threshold was set to provide a minimum size. However, it did not take into account the weight these cities have in their respective countries. Francistown, despite being a city of hardly 100,000 inhabitants, is the second largest city in Botswana and plays an important political and economic role domestically. Yet it cannot be compared to mammoth conurbations such as Mumbai or Yokohama. Searching for other criteria, the team thought about focusing on female mayors to ascertain the growing role that women play in cities. After some research, the team discovered that in 2015 only about 40 cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants were headed by a woman. Hence, this criterion became symbolic; while women mayors do not necessarily represent the interest of all women in their city, their election/nomination contributes to breaking the glass ceiling in politics and offers a role model to women who wish to engage into local politics. Indeed, the team had the opportunity to meet with several women mayors during the tour and to collect their words on the situation of women in their respective cities. With each female mayor interviewed, Womenability wished to encourage more women to enter and participate in local politics.
Rosario Indeso Mujer
Montevideo OCAC Uruguay
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Malmรถ Malmรถ Jamstallhedtsbyra
Prague Gender Studies
Sofia Via Civic Yokohama Kaori SHIRAFUJI
Mumbai SafeCity
Francistown YWCA
Cape Town Social Justice Coalition Sonke Gender Justice
You can find a short description of our amazing local partners p.144
Methodology How should I read this report? Each thematic chapter is divided into three sections:
1. Data analysis : This first part analyzes the data collected with women respondents. Through their answers, they explain how they feel, experience, observe and even dream in their daily use of the urban environment. For a more accurate analysis based on women’s results only, data produced by men was put aside, except for their specific part in Chapter #8.. 2. Women’s recommendations : As the exploratory walk participants were users of their own urban environment, they have great recommendations to share with the authorities. Part two therefore takes the time to share their voices. Chapter #9. assembles these recommendations, which are not thematic. 3. Best practices : Finally, the third part gathers a few examples of best practices together. They were discovered by Womenability during its international action-research or while navigating the web. Of course, the list is not exhaustive and any other ideas you have are welcomed on Womenability’s website. Do not hesitate to share.
It is important to understand that each analysis is not representative of an entire city’s situation: it is just data we collected in a specific neighborhood, at a specific time, with a specific set of citizens. On average, 16 people walked per city, and, for example, the exploratory walk in Paris took place in the Porte de la Chapelle neighborhood and the one in Cape Town in Khayelitsha, which are very different from the center of the city. Yet the scope of this action-research offers an insight into the lives of women in cities from all over the world – how they feel and live in their city and what they wish for the fairer cities of tomorrow. This report is intended to be a modest international situational analysis of gender equality in cities. To go further, you can find the detailed analyses of our 13 walks, videos of the walks, and interviews of female mayors on our website: www.womenability.org. Feel free to keep in touch through our social media channels.
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The action-research in key figures
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Exploratory walks
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180 Questions by survey
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211
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Respondents, including 170 women
Female Mayors or former Mayors interviewed and Heads of gender equality city departments interviewed
Countries and 25 cities explored
NGO actors trained
Introduction “Pessimists are often right; optimists are often wrong. But the only ones who changed the world are optimists” (J. Freedman). With this report, we hope to create awareness and inspire as many of you as possible to co-create the genderfair cities of tomorrow.
Womenability is an adventure as crazy as it is necessary:
to make gender equality a reality in the places where more than half of the world’s population lives – cities. Inspired by the vision of its co- founders, this international action-study was built on three principles: inclusiveness, renewal and grassroots action.
An inclusive approach Women and men do not use cities the same way. Today, women largely use public spaces to go from point A to point B. Women are still the primary caretakers of children, elders and domestic chores, in addition to their responsibilities outside the home, as employees and students. As a result, they must often develop coping strategies, conform their gender identities to social standards and avoid the risk of assault. They are taught to be careful, to be afraid, especially at night. They are often denied the right to loiter, to practice sports, or to simply relax in their own city.
“Sidewalks are sites of both domination and resistance” (Fyfe 1998)2 Thankfully, there are plenty of women, men, NGOs and local authorities who are working to give “the right to the city” to women. Just as the best practices that we identified inspired us to advocate for an inclusive approach, we hope they will inspire you as well. The Womenability process encourages mutual comprehension by offering both women and men a space to express their opinions and wishes for a better, more equal city.
We decided to focus on public space, because the traditional place of the woman was the house. So we decided to look at public spaces and it was the first time that we spoke of spaces of anxiety, of fear, of real feelings. We showed the importance of lightning, of playgrounds and how certain places are important for everyday life. Eva KAIL, Gender expert at Vienna City Hall
A renewed approach, based on well-being When taken into consideration, gender and public spaces are mainly examined through two lenses: urban planning and security. These are two central issues when it comes to a woman’s place in the city. Public authorities and NGOs often advocate that the more secure a city is, the more women can own urban spaces. Their work is essential and invaluable. Yet the Womenability team believes that women deserve more than “just” feeling safe in their city. We wish to offer a renewed approach, focusing on the general well-being of women and men in their city. We therefore asked ourselves the reverse question: what if security was not the solution, but rather what comes after? What if by acting in every domain that impacts a woman’s life in the city, we could contribute to fostering a sense of ownership of the city, to more women in public spaces, and, in turn, to a fairer and safer city?
2. Anastasia LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS and Renia EHRENFEUCHT, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, MIT Press, 2009
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“To change life is to change space, to change space is to change life.” Henri LEFEBVRE
So here we are, walking with women all over the world, asking them about their feelings, their mobility trends, their family life, their personal activities, their security experiences and even their sexual freedom. It seems quite intrusive at first but this is what a city life means. In every exploratory walk, women expressed their right to the city, their right to more than proper sidewalks and lights at night, more than feeling safe.
Walking with OCAC Uruguay - Montevideo © Womenability
A grassroots approach During this international action-research, we met so many incredible women and men who are fighting for a woman’s right to the city. They show that there is no such thing as “little actions”, that anyone can become an actor of change. Women, men, NGOs and public authorities have a role to play and can contribute to make gender fairer cities. Every area has its own local characteristics. Women experience similar challenges everywhere, in relation to mobility, sport or even loitering. Be it individual or collective, established based on feelings or reason, these issues have no borders. From a negative point of view, it means that there is no “perfect gender fair city”. But in our view, it means that there are a multitude of solutions that remain to be discovered: an initiative from Montevideo can be implemented in Mumbai, a French city can be inspired by a Japanese city or a South African project… More than idle talk, here are a few lessons from the Womenability world tour.
Sharing know-how and exchanging experiences with others helps to find better solutions for specific challenges we are faced with. It’s always interesting to see what other cities do in this respect. Corine MAUCH, Mayor of Zurich
Chapter #1
The five senses in focus: How d experience t To understand how women and men experience their city, it is important to know how they feel about it. The city, like everything enjoyable or unlikable, is a sensitive question. In this first chapter of the Womenability report, let us discover how women all around the world feel about their city through an analysis of their five senses.
do women the city? Walking with SafeCity - Mumbai Š Womenability
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How do women feel in their city around the world
During the exploratory walks, women were asked how they felt about the five senses in their city in general. This map shows which sense women prefer in their city. There is no data for Paris or Malmö, as we initially only focused on “qualitative” data before updating our questionnaire with more quantitative questions.
The city, a touchy subject The exploration of feelings is usually confined to discussions between friends and family, and rarely publicized. It is, therefore, rare that the feelings we develop thanks to our experiences of cities are shared. Based on exchanges with the French sociologist Chris Blache3, who developed sensory exploratory walks, Womenability decided to update its survey, with questions related to the five senses, as a way for women to discuss their personal experiences in their city.
“Although the reality of urban space must be investigated, we must also come to understand how women see themselves within that space.”4
This first part of the Womenability study was actually one of the most elusive subject to exchange on with the participants. However, it also created a sense of closeness with women, allowing them to feel more comfortable talking about other subjects.
Due to their intimate nature, the five senses are at the center of one’s experience of the city, even if this is not always obvious. They also reveal deeply rooted issues in urban planning, with serious impacts on the wellbeing and safety of women. 3. President of the French NGO Genre et Ville 4. Kristine B. MIRANNE and Alma H. YOUNG (Eds.), Gendering the City: Women, Boundaries, and Visions of Urban Life, Oxford, Rowman & Liteerfield Publishers Inc., 2000
Chapter #1. The five senses in focus : How do women experience the city?
Cities
Seeing
Hearing
Tasting
Smelling
Touching
Cape Town (South Africa) Francistown (Botswana) Houston (U.S.A) Malmo (Sweden) Montevideo (Uruguay) Mumbai (India) New Haven (U.S.A) Paris (France) Prague (Czech Republic) Rosario (Argentina) Sofia (Bulgaria) Yokohama (Japan) Zurich (Switzerland) Average
17% 70% 11%
23% 70% 22%
24% 90% 33%
0% 44% 29%
5% 75% 14%
100% 35% 73%
50% 28% 36%
100% 72% 71%
40% 17% 60%
50% 20% 33%
89% 9% 100% 100% 100% 56%
44% 25% 50% 40% 70% 39%
75% 63% 75% 100% 100% 67%
33% 20% 38% 78% 70% 34%
88% 14% 63% 100% 90% 45%
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1. Seeing in the city, between a smile and a flower
The first sense to introduce in this section is sight. So, let us take a look at what makes a city enjoyable for the eyes. Sight is one of the senses that we use the most; it gives us information about how to navigate the city, where to go and how safe or welcoming a place looks.
56% of women respondents like what they see in their city.
1 100 %
Montevideo, Sofia, Zurich, Yokohama
Cities which are least attractive to the eyes
2 89 %
Prague
11 %
17 %
Houston
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Cities which offer the nicest sights
9%
Cape Town
Rosario
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2
The elements most appreciated by women’s eyes were those that created a welcoming atmosphere. → The availability and use of green spaces can play an important role in a woman’s life, both as a public good and as a source of wellbeing. Indeed, “flowers”, “trees” and “green parks” are the most repeated elements in the women’s answers. Another noticeable fact is that top cities for sightseeing are all located close to remarkable landscapes: an ocean for Montevideo and Yokohama, a river for Zurich and Prague or mountains for Sofia. The proximity of easily available environmental commodities may increase the attractiveness of a city. → Social diversity, friendliness and women in the streets are also important and linked to the fact that a lively street seems safer than a deserted one. Public spaces with a notable presence of children or women also imply available resources (parks, benches) as well as an implicit welcoming of women, where public space is too often perceived as hostile and excluding.
“Happy children playing” Anonymous, Cape Town “Plazas with women” Alejandas, Rosario → Finally, functioning facilities and diverse architecture is also noted as playing a role in making the city pleasant to the eyes: this is particularly important when linked to the global trend of urban homogenization, as well as the need to preserve urban diversity and cultural heritage.
Women in streets and the Smurfette Principle5
The Smurfette Principle was coined by Katha Pollitt in 1991, referencing the Peyo comics to describe the tendency that works of fiction have to include a single female character among a multiple male casting, despite the fact that women represent half of humankind. In urban planning, it refers to the widely shared idea that seeing a woman at a particular place or time means that that place or time could be appropriated by all women. But public space needs more than one woman to be equally used by women and men.
5. Katha Pollitt, Hers; The Smurfette Principle, http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html, 1991
Chapter #1. The five senses in focus : How do women experience the city?
On the contrary, the following elements play a role in making the city not only unpleasant for the eyes but also potentially unsafe for women. Several of them will be studied in depth in their dedicated chapters. → Uncleanliness, as well as infrastructure and buildings in a state of disrepair, are viewed as unpleasant and potentially unsafe.
“Too much concrete, broken manholes, accumulated rainwater, broken roads” Supreet, Mumbai
→ As previously seen, green spaces are key to a welcoming environment; it is therefore natural for women to deplore a lack of greenery and/or too much space taken up by concrete.
“Hard surfaces, too little green, closed spaces, unsafe pathways, parking constructions” Jenny, Malmö
→ Traffic caused by motor vehicles is also perceived as an issue, since it evokes both health risks (due to pollution) and safety risks (due to potential accidents). → The presence of crime and prostitution in the city play a major role in women feeling unsafe and unwelcome in the city, as it can directly evoke gender-based violence and the exploitation of women.
“Human trafficking and exploitation of women” Lelis, Rosario
→ Finally, the presence and visibility of poverty is also perceived as unpleasant and potentially unsafe. Mumbai © Womenability
In analyzing how women experience sight in their city, several issues and positive elements emerge. It is important to remember that the city often serves as a reflection of the society.
Sofia © Womenability
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2. Listening in the city, a dissonant symphony
Have you ever thought about the soundscape of a city? Who makes the most noise, during the day or at night? Who has a voice in the city? In our survey,
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1 70 %
Francistown
44 %
61% of women respondents do not like what they hear on the streets.
2 70 %
Zurich
Prague Cities with the best soundscape
There are two main factors contributing to a pleasant sounding city:
Cities with the worst soundscape
25 %
Rosario
3
22 %
Houston
1
23 %
Cape Town
2
→ Quietness, symbolizing a respite from the city’s soundscape. → Music, children playing, birds, the hustle of everyday life: all these elements are constitutive of a pleasant environment.
“Talkative, friendly people talking to each other” Shannon, New Haven
There are two main factors contributing to “noise pollution”, according to the women questioned:
→ Traffic noises are the most disliked sound. → They are directly followed by the sound of violence and harassment (whistles, catcalls, insults) in public space.
“Fights, murders and rapes that we always hear” Sinethemba, Cape Town
Because the city never sleeps, it is important that public authorities and urban planners take into account the soundscape of the city, so that everyone can feel at peace, anywhere and anytime.
Tokyo © Womenability
Chapter #1. The five senses in focus : How do women experience the city?
3. Tasting in the city: the street’s many delights
Is your city tasty? Food is often seen as a key part of the character and authenticity of a city. As such, food that can be enjoyed in public space, street-food and local or multicultural food is at the top of the list of the participants.
67% of women respondents like the taste of their city. On the negative scale, the taste left by exhaust fumes and industrial pollution comes first, followed by bad quality food.
3 75 %
1 100 %
Montevideo, Yokohama, Zurich
2 90 %
Francistown
Cities which could still improve their tastiness
33 %
24 %
Cape Town
1
Sofia & Prague Tasteful cities
Houston
2
“Street food in the street markets” LM Mosojane, Francistown
Cape Town © Womenability
Kaifeng © Womenability
“Cockroach and hair in food, unhygienic surroundings” Supreet, Mumbai
24
4. Smelling in the city: a necessary balance between authenticity and safety
“Is there a connection between smells and feeling comfortable and safe? The answer is... yes. Women feel safer in a shop, home or bus when scents are being diffused. Young men, however, appear to be less sensitive to the surrounding smells. These were the results of a recent scent experiment amongst 500 passengers conducted by Connexxion, a public transportation company from of the Netherlands”6.
1 78 %
Yokohama
2
Worst smelling cities
70 %
Zurich
20 %
17 %
Rosario Best smelling cities
3
0%
Cape Town
1
Mumbai
2
66% of the women we surveyed do not like the smell of their city. Smell and taste are often
related; both of them can provide an essential sense of character to a city. As a result, there was a strong, positive correlation between perceptions of taste and smell in our survey. On the bright side, fresh air, nature and the smell of cooking food On the opposite side, the smell of waste, car exhausts or industrial fumes and urine... The smell of urine in public space is a specific issue for women, which is detailed in the chapter about cleanliness in the city, as these smell can directly be linked to a feeling of insecurity. The smell of the city can strongly influence a woman, who will choose a specific route, decide to stay in a specific place or not as a result of the smells around her. It is therefore important to ensure that the smell of a city – in addition to its look and sound – is pleasant, particularly in public spaces or public transportation.
6. A study on scenting public transportation, https://www.air-aroma.com/blog/scenting-public- transportation-study, 2011
Chapter #1. The five senses in focus : How do women experience the city?
5. Touching in the city, a delicate matter
3
Touch in the city is unfortunately often associated with negative events, such as unsolicited contact, be it on the streets, in transit or in crowded areas.
55% of women respondents do not like what they touch in their city.
1
2
100 %
Yokohama
90 %
Zurich
88 %
Prague
Cities where it is better to keep your hands in your pockets
20 %
14 %
Mumbai Best touch-friendly cities
3
5%
Cape Town
1
Rosario & Houston
2
→ Consensual and pleasant contact in the city are therefore subtle and elusive. Women mostly associate pleasant touches with cats, nature and human contact.
“My girlfriend” Sonja, Zurich → Trashes, dirt, roads in a state of disrepair, physical harassment, dirty toilets and crowds are seen negatively. More and more urban designers are now incorporating texture in their projects. Yet there is much more to be done...
Baltimore © Womenability
26
Conclusion
What is it that makes cities pleasant to the eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hands of women all over the world? With the collected data, we have found that there is a link between women’s everyday feelings and sensory experiences and their representation of a city. It may differ when expressed by a man or a woman, because their experience of the city is often radically different. In general, the things women appreciate about a city go beyond simple aesthetics. Women highlight the importance of comfort and safety, but also sociability and the simple pleasures of everyday life in the city. Their negative sensory experiences are directly linked to real, urgent issues regarding infrastructure, as well as behaviors in the city. Urban planners and public policies have a role to play in solving these issues. Improvements can directly contribute to a safer and more user-friendly city. Women unanimously express a desire for more green and clean space, as well as quiet and friendly public space in the city; fulfilling these wishes through better maintenance and alternative planning would make way for the safer and fairer cities of tomorrow.
Next time you are walking down the street, open your eyes, your ears, your mouth, your nostrils and your hands and try to experience the city as it comes, what it has to offer and how other factors may influence your experience... and if there is something you want to change or to improve, check out some of the following best practices gathered from across the world. Remember, anyone can contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities. We all have a role to play.
Walking with Houston Tomorrow - Houston Š Womenability
Best practices
= Level of implementation
Chapter #1. The five senses in focus : How do women experience the city?
Working to make the city more pleasant to the senses also means tackling the issues that plague the everyday lives of women in the city, be they linked to commodities, security, or enjoyment of public spaces. As such, many of the best practices highlighted in this report can have a potential effect on the realm of the five senses in the city. Here are some chosen Best practices that can have a sensory impact.
Guerilla gardening, community gardens and seeds distribution
One of the easiest way to make the city more pleasant to the eye is relying on the goodwill of Mother Nature, along with the help of green thumbed citizens. Collective gardens and guerilla gardening, which originated from Christie Liz’s Green Guerilla Group (USA), and the seed ball technique of Masanobu Fukuoka (Japan) have an important role to play in adding green touches to a concrete canvas7. Seed-bombs-Source-Williams-honey-farm
Citizen, NGOs, local authorities
Waste-Pickers-Source-SEWA-WIEGO
Community garbage picking
The fact that women play a major role in the preservation of the environment, in rural as well as urban areas, was noted as early as the UN Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace of Beijing of 19958.
Carrefour-truck-Source-www.decibel-or.bruit.fr
A private campaign to reduce noise pollution?
How can we make the city a more pleasant place for the senses? Community garbage picking is one solution. When organized by women, it plays a part in providing women with a source of income while making the city a cleaner, safer, more sustainable place. Here’s to the success of many more initiatives like SEWA (Self Employed Women Association) led by Ela Bhatt in Ahmedabad (India)9. NGOs
Have you ever lived on a small street where there is a lot traffic and people honk their horns at all hours? To avoid such unpleasant experience in a neighborhood, the group Carrefour-Supply Chain France organizes deliveries through silent trucks and provides specific timetables for streets and receptionareas to reduce noise pollution. The group won a “Décibel d’Or” in 2011 for this initiative10. Pomander-Source-www.sensorys.com
Private distribution sector
Perfume in public transportation
7. Buy your seed bombs: https://williamshoneyfarm.com/product/seed-bombs/ 8. More info: http://www.un.org/french/womenwatch/followup/beijing5/session/fiche11.html 9. More info: www.sewa.org/ 10. More info: http://decibel-or.bruit.fr/2011/carrefour.htm 11. More info: http://www.sensorys.com/
To find a solution to dirty and smelly subway cars/stations, several French transport companies (RATP & SNCF in Paris, RTM in Marseille) have installed perfume diffusers in their metro stations. In Marseille, the smell of “orange blossoms” is intended to make users feel more peaceful and secure11. Public transportation authorities
Chapter #2
Mobility  Women on
The notion that transportation is not gender-neutral has risen in recent years, with influential international organizations such as the OECD and the World Bank acknowledging the disparities that exist between men and women in this domain, and the particular patterns that guide women’s mobility in the city. Thus, greater emphasis has recently been put on developing solutions that take into account the specific needs of female commuters. In this chapter, let us discover how women experience mobility in their city.
n the move
Kaifeng Š Womenability
30
Taking women’s mobility into account Much has already been done worldwide to promote gender mainstreaming12 in transportation, and the countless awareness campaigns and initiatives that have been developed in this regard are slowly reaching road and public transport users. Furthermore, planners have started to embrace gender analyses and include them in their mobility plans. It would therefore seem that we are on the right track. Yet these small steps cannot hide the multiple mobility issues that women face on a daily basis. The space in which women move is still dictated by male codes – and the male gaze13 – that fail to take into account female commuting habits. It is not easy to adjust a system to the needs of half of the population, and in this regard men have so far failed to hear the voices of women and their needs. In a fast-paced urban environment where multiple trips are undertaken daily, studying the mobility among women provides valuable information about their habits, but also about their perception of the physical space and of the obstacles that they face in their daily movements.
3 4
1 4.5
Paris and Francistown
2 4.25
Malmö
Yokohama and Zurich What are the best rated cities in terms of mobility? (out of 5)
And the worst rated?
2.5
2.25
Houston and Sofia
3
Montevideo
2
Cape Town
1
2
Francistown © Womenability
12. “Gender mainstreaming has been embraced internationally as a strategy towards realizing gender equality. It involves the integration of a gender perspective into the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies, regulatory measures and spending programs, with a view to promoting equality between women and men, and combating discrimination.” European Institute for Gender Equality http://eige.europa.eu 13. Concept theorized by Laura Mulvey in 1975: In visual arts (but it can be extended to every field), it is a very common trend involving considering the masculine point of view (from the male character or spectator), presenting women as object.
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
1. Walking and public transportation are the most common ways of moving around for women Walking is the most common means of mobility for women, determining their relationship to the urban environment and to the others. Women walk considerably more than men, and many of the trips they take on foot are dictated by necessity, as much as by convenience. The use of public transportation over private motorized vehicles is generally motivated by socio-economic factors. Women are, for example, less likely to own a private vehicle, which is expensive to buy and maintain. When available, it is usually the male partner which benefits from its use. In this regard, public transportation provides a cheaper alternative. Yet when it comes to safety, many women respondents prefer a private vehicle or a taxi, especially at night. Both diminish the risks of harassment and assault which is often considered too high in public transportation.
Walking Bus Tram or subway Taxi Car Cycling Scooter Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Very Often
“To abide by [19th century] standards, women walking on city streets had to detach themselves from the surrounding environment by avoiding the gaze of other pedestrians (particularly men), dressing inconspicuously, talking in low voices, and not laughing in public. Unlike men – who could take their time and pace leisurely on the sidewalks, often stopping to chat—middle-class women were expected to walk with a purpose. Even when on the sidewalk, women could not be part of its social life.” 14
14. Anastasia LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS and Renia EHRENFEUCHT, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, MIT Press, 2009
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Vienna, a precursor city in mainstreaming gender in transportation
Since the 1990s, the city of Vienna (Austria) has conducted residents’ surveys about their use of public transportation. Results show that most of the men use only one form of transportation, twice a day, to go to work and to come home. However, women use a wide range of transportation, from sidewalks to public transportation and personal cars, for a wide range of reasons. As Ursula Bauer recalls: “[Women] were writing things like, ‘I take my kids to the doctor some mornings, then bring them to school before I go to work. Later, I help my mother buy groceries and bring my kids home on the metro.’” In response, Vienna’s city planners improved pedestrian mobility and access to public transit, adding lighting, widening sidewalks, and constructing barrier-free staircases with ramps. Photo: The barrier-free staircase and ramps in Vienna’s ninth district. (Josef Lex/Flickr)15
Riding with Gender Studies - Prague © Womenability
15. Clara Floran, How to Design a City for Women, https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/09/how-design-city-women/6739/, 2013 More info: Womenability, Interview of Eva Kail, Forerunner of gender mainstreaming, Chief executive officer in Vienna (Austria), http://www.womenability.org/meeting2-eva-kailceo-of-the-city-of-vienna/, 2017
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
2. Women wish for more freedom on the road
As mentioned above, women walk by choice, but also out of necessity. Although the experience of walking is imposed in many cases, women are still ready to walk more; they simply demand better infrastructure and more safety on the road. The same principle applies to bicycles, which are attractive even to non-frequent users. This wish for non-motorized and non-polluting individual modes of transport also reflects a larger concern for the environment and a willingness to adopt shorter-distance commuting patterns.
Building bicycle lanes takes more time than campaigns to raise awareness on the benefits of cycling!
The appeal of public transportation is equally noticeable; the flexibility of timings and the cheaper cost of a ticket are particularly appealing to women who are deprived of regular access to public transportation.
The same cannot be said of private motorized vehicles, which are seen as a source of accidents (especially scooters) and have high indirect costs attached to them. Not only do they require high maintenance and insurance, they also induce extra parking costs. All in all, our respondents were quick to point out their willingness to shift to greener modes of transportation.
78%
Among frequent users Among non-frequent users
65%
70%
58%
60%
49%
33%
39%
40%
45%
46%
52%
50%
28%
30%
14%
18%
20%
20% 10%
te r
Ca r
i
us B
Sc oo
su or
Ta x
bw ay
ng ki Tr am
W al
in
g
0% Cy cl
Women wish for more....
80%
79%
Sylva SVIHELOVA, specialist in cycling infrastructures working at Prague City Hall
34
How do women move around the world The most used modes of transportation by city
During the exploratory walks, women were asked about their frequency of use of multiple modes of transportation. The map shows the most used ones.
Cape Town (South Africa) Francistown (Botswana) Houston (U.S.A) Malmo (Sweden) Montevideo (Uruguay) MumbaĂŻ (India) New Haven (U.S.A) Paris (France) Prague (Czech Republic) Rosario (Argentina) Sofia (Bulgaria) Yokohama (Japan) Zurich (Switzerland)
Walking Taxi Car Walking, bicycle Walking Rickshaw Walking Walking Walking Car Tram and subway Walking Walking
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
Rickshaw
36
3. What are the main challenges that women face in their commutes? Women shared their main fears and reservations for each mode of transportation.
Tokyo Š Womenability
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
Walking
→ In the absence of proper footpaths, walking is dangerous and uncomfortable. → Bad weather can ruin the experience of walking. → Women are more vulnerable to street harassment when they walk.
Cycling
→ Most cities do not have dedicated cycle lanes, which makes cyclists vulnerable to road accidents caused by other vehicles. → Bicycles are subject to vandalism and robberies.
Car
Scooter
→ Heavy traffic and the absence of parking space make the trip longer. → Cars are an expensive investment because of fuel and maintenance costs attached to them. → They bear a high environmental cost and contribute to atmospheric pollution in cities.
→ Driving a scooter in town is mainly seen as dangerous. → Scooters like bicycles can be easily damaged or stolen. → There is no parking space dedicated to motorcycles in most cities.
Bus
→ Despite running on a schedule, buses are subject to many delays. → Buses are the victims of their own success and tend to get overcrowded. → Women are subject to groping and harassment.
Tram / subway
→ Trams and subways tend to get overcrowded, particularly at peak hours. → The network is limited and may not cover the entire city. → Women are subject to groping and harassment.
Taxi
→ Taxis represent a high cost which is unsustainable for most commuters on a daily basis. → Reckless driving is common among taxi drivers and creates anxiety. → Women sometimes feel insecure in the presence of taxi drivers.
Is sexual harassment a threat to Sexual harassment is an issue for most mobility? women, and is not restricted to a
single mode of transport. Women face inappropriate behaviors in many situations, be it when they walk, cycle or even take a taxi. Even when looking for the comfort of a crowd, women find themselves harassed in public transportation. All in all, only the car seems to offer a safe space to women (which is ironic, given that many female respondents expressed a desire to use their cars less).
38
4. A few lessons from our walks 1. The importance of having good infrastructure and equipment
Although mobility can be seen as an individual choice, behavior on the road is driven by the availability and quality of the options that are available. Based on our exploratory walks, it is very clear that some women ignore some modes of transportation because of their quality. For example, even though most women express a willingness to walk and cycle more, their choices are constrained by external factors that are detrimental to their experience, such as broken footpaths or the absence of cycle lanes. The absence of proper street lighting reduces the possibility of going out at night and creates a feeling of insecurity among women. The same applies to public transportation; the presence of an extensive network does not ensure the ideal conditions for commuting. It needs to be maintained in order to provide passengers with the most comfortable experience possible, while reaching out to the highest possible number of people.
2. Mobility and signage, two sides of the same coin
Signage plays an important role in providing information about location and direction in the city. This information can take various forms: signposts, street names and maps all offer additional knowledge about one’s whereabouts, while clocks or bus schedules help locating oneself in space. Women respondents were generally satisfied with the presence of street names (at 70%) and signs (54%), but 78% were complaining about the absence of maps.
“There are no maps and no sign posts in this part of the city” Ashwathi, Mumbai
Perceptual “imageability” of places—monuments, distinctive landmarks, paths, natural or artificial boundaries (like rivers or highways)—aid or deter a person’s sense of location and the manner in which a person acts.16 Signage also creates a feeling of safety and makes the surrounding areas feel more familiar. By giving places a name and a location, we make cities less intimidating for women, as they feel in control of their movements.
“Develop the informal settlement so there can be maps for the streets with street names and have street lights to decrease crime” Sinethemba, Cape Town
Did you know? Japan is a unique situation, as there are no street names (only block numbers), which makes navigation in the city very complicated.
Ads in the city: A problem that could become a solution
59% of women respondents are not satisfied with the ads in their city. Many judged the ads to be vulgar or inappropriate (because of their nude content or the promotion of alcohol and cigarettes), and unappealing esthetically. People would welcome less billboards in the city. Yet ads are more visible than any other form of signage. Some women proposed creating billboards that promote women empowerment or create awareness of Gender Based Violence (Cape Town), thus giving a woman-friendlier face to the city.
16. Andrew Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, 2013
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
5. We need more female role models in our cities
The absence of women in the urban space is conspicuous on maps: only a handful of streets, avenues, boulevards or bridges are named after women.
However, Womenability still managed to track down a few inspiring street names during the walks. Here are a few hidden gems:
Mumbai
Kalpana Chawla (1962-2003) was an American astronaut and the first woman of Indian origin ever in space. She died in the space shuttle Columbia disaster.
Cape Town
Albertina Sisulu (1918-2011) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, who was jailed on several occasions during the apartheid regime.
Rosario
Virginia Bolten (1876-1960) was a trade-union worker who also contributed to the cause of women in Argentina through her feminist actions.
Montevideo
Juana de Ibarbourou (1892-1979) was an Uruguayan poet, nominated four times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Those few examples are proof enough that women deserve a space for themselves in cities, for gender equality can also be achieved through the greater representation of women in the city. Currently, streets named after women are too rare. Featuring women on street signs also increases the visibility of women and promotes role models who have been neglected.
For the pedestrian lights, this was an initiative as we came up to the 150th year of Wellington being the capital city, and New Zealand was the first country in the world to have universal suffrage and Kate SHEPARD was a woman among many supportive women & men to be seen as a leader in this area, so we thought, let’s have a design with Kate SHEPARD on the pedestrian lights around the Parliament area! At that point we ran into big disagreement with the engineers: in New Zealand the pedestrian lights have really broad shoulders and narrow hips and its pretty obvious they are not women, so we wanted to have a woman in a dress, with a hat, and the engineers thought that might not be safe, and somebody said – I hope it was a joke but I’m not sure it was a joke “How will the men know when to cross the road?” But we haven’t had huge queues of confused men, so not only have we got Kate Shepard, but we have got permanent exemption to have her up, instead of the traditional men sign. Celia WADE-BROWN, Mayor of Wellington
40
Women’s recommendations
→ Promote green mobility o Reduce the number of cars on the streets o Encourage walking and cycling through the provision of footpaths and bicycle lanes → Offer more and better public transportation for women o Develop the public transportation system network o Offer coaches and buses that take into account women’s needs in terms of comfort and safety → Create a better experience of navigating through the city o Install more signposts and city maps at key locations in the city to allow for better directions o Improve street lighting to create a safe environment for women at night
Conclusion
Mobility is a crucial part of our daily urban life and one where gender inequalities are felt the most.
The good news is that there is already a certain awareness regarding the importance of gender in public transportation, but the efforts made so far are not enough to ensure that women are provided with solutions that are adequate to their needs. In this regard, more care has to be devoted to the consideration of the differentiated needs of men and women, and to the impact of poor transportation planning on female commuters and their experience of the city. The widespread use of gender mainstreaming appears to be essential, as are the numerous initiatives that help to create a safer and more adapted environment for women.
Next time you go out, using your feet, your bike, your car/scooter, public transportation or even a taxi, be aware of the reasons behind your choice and your “non-choices” and what improvements would make your experience better. Moreover, if there is something you want to change, check the following (but non-exhaustive) list of best practices gathered from across the world. Remember, anyone can contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities. We all have a role to play.
Walking with with Connecticut Women Consortium - New Haven © Womenability
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
Walking with SafeCity - Mumbai Š Womenability
Best practices
42
On public transportation Propose handles at different heights Several public transportation companies (in Tokyo, Japan or Vienna, Austria for example) have adapted the height of the handles in public transportation. For many years, engineers used the “medium” height of a man as a standard. Yet women are generally shorter than men, and this obvious fact had not been taken into account...until now! Different-size-of-handle-in-tramway_inVienna-Credit-Womenability
Night-bus-stop-on-demand-in-Nantes-Source-www.ouestfrance.fr
Offer special night bus stops Several cities in the world such as Montreal (Canada), Istanbul (Turkey), Nantes (France) or Brasilia (Brasil) offer special “night bus stops”, offering women and men the ability to get off the bus at any place of their choice, in order to minimize the distance to their homes. This initiative contributes to offering a safer passage for women at night.
Create women-only passengers wagons
Women-only-wagon-in-Mumbai-Credit-
Some countries (India, Brazil, Japan, Egypt...) have at some point experimented women-only passenger cars in public transportation, in order to provide women a safe environment during commuting. It is important to note, however, that this practice is a good one only in specific contexts. The authors of the book “Why Loiter” explained to the Womenability team that in Mumbai the women- only cars were a way for women to access universities an jobs, as their families will not let them use public transportation alone.
Womenability
Fight against manspreading Manspreading is a common practice among male commuters, and consists of occupying a large amount of space by spreading out, especially while sitting. The practice increases the feeling of insecurity among women, moreover it is a symbol that men are allowed to take up space, as women are not. Madrid (Spain) was the first city to make manspreading a punishable offence in public transportation, a decision which attracted worldwide praise. It remains to be seen whether other cities will follow their lead...
Provide subway map for wheelchairs accessibility
Montreal-accessible-subway-map-byThomas-Gerbet 17. On Facebook Thomas Gerbet 18. More info: http://www.bykecollective.org/
Montreal-subway-map-Source-STM
MTA-campaign-against-manspreadingNYC-Source-NYT
During a trip in Tokyo (Japan) with a friend in a wheelchair, Thomas Gerbet17 realized that every metro station was equipped with an elevator. In Montreal (Canada) subway, only 12 stations out of 68 are fitted with a lift. He therefore decided to use the city’s subway plan to create a map of accessible metro stops in the city, and the contrast between the two is striking. On the left, the accessible subway map for reduced mobility person (strollers, crutches, canes...), on the right the complete map.
Chapter #2. Mobility : Women on the move
On active transportation Young-girls-repairing-a-bike-in-theBIKE-collective-Source-Womenability
Promote bicycles among young girls In Baltimore (USA), the BYKE Collective promotes the use of bicycles among young girls. As only a few girls are in a position to own a bicycle, BYKE have opened their workshop to them on Monday nights. For an entire month girls repair a bicycle which is offered to them at the end of the training, so that they can reclaim the streets on their bike (and fix it when needed)18.
Art to repair sidewalks
Montevideo_Art_Sidewalk_ ReparationCcredit-Womenability
On signage and lighting
Severely broken sidewalks are dangerous for anyone walking in the streets. But even more dangerous for women wearing heels, citizens with reduced mobility, and the elderly, not to mention parents moving around their children with strollers. So, let us be inspired by this secret artist in Montevideo (Uruguay), who repairs broken sidewalks with ceramic art. The collective of artists Compartiendo Capital from Rosario (Argentina) has even proposed a tutorial to create personalized pavement, so you can also create some with your children19.
Advocate for more female names Nine tram stations on line 3b in Paris (France) have been named after famous women in an effort to ensure parity among the 18 stations on that line. The names include the famous French runner Collette Besson and Ella Fitzgerald. In comparison, only one metro station in Paris (Louise-Michel) is named after a woman and two others share the honor with a man (Barbes-Rochechouart and Pierre and Marie Curie). Louise-Michel-subway-station-in-ParisSource-RATP
Change the representation of women
Working-signalization-in-Vienna
- Vienna’s “Vienna sees things differently” public campaign subverts usual signalization signs by changing the gender usually represented on the sign: for example, you will find a woman instead of a man depicted on signsfor public works, as seen below.
As previously shown, signalization plays an important role in increasing the representation of women in public space. As we have seen, the first way to achieve this goal is to name more streets after notable women, but other strategies can be put into practice.
Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown with one of the new Carmen-Rupe-themed
Women-are-not-commodities-by-Renee-
traffic lights-Credit-Monique-Ford-Fairfax-NZ
Credit-Womenability
- In the same spirit, in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, when one crosses the street in the downtown area, he/she can see a woman figure letting him/her know it is safe to cross. The mayor of Wellington, Celia Wade-Brown, explains that the city wants to change the way signalization lights are made. Why should only male figures be represented? Why not women? And why not choose a figure that can represent the women’s empowerment movement of New Zealand? In fact, the figures you can see in the street lights are not anonymous. The two first women you can discover on the Wellington streets are Kate Shepard20, one of the most famous suffragettes from New Zealand, and Carmen Rupe21, a famous transsexual figure22.
- Furthermore, if you are not happy with sexist advertisements in your city, you can just affix a “women are not commodities” sticker, like Renée did in Wellington.
Increase lighting for better mobility at night
Glowing-Bike-Lane-Poland-Source-www.inhabitat.com
To provide a safe environment for women after dark, Vienna has increased the lighting of public parks, bicycle lanes and stands. In the same way, Lidzbark Warminski (Poland) inaugurated the first Polish cycle path that illuminates itself at night after absorbing day light23.
19. More info: https://proyectoanda.com/2011/04/10/preparando-los-moldes-para-hacer-baldosas/ 20. More info: wellington.govt.nz/your-council/projects/pedestrian-crossing-lights/green-woman-pedestrain- traffic-lanterns 21. More info: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/82903376/Carmen-Rupe-traffic-signals-set-to-light-up-Wellingtons-Cuba-St 22. Watch a Wellington City Council senior traffic engineer explaining that it did not cost much: https://youtu.be/8kAAJSgZwUY 23. More info: http://www.letribunaldunet.fr/insolite/piste-cyclable-lumineuse-pologne.html
Chapter #3
Family Women, wi mothers, da Being in the city with one’s family is an experience that most people face or will face once in their lifetime. Even for those who do not have children, they may go out with their niece/nephew or with their grandparents. Like many other subjects, family is not exclusively a woman’s matter but, in reality, women and family are often linked. In many cases, women disproportionately carry the burden of caring for their families. For example, in France 75% of the parents who walk their children to school and take care of an elderly person in their family are women24. That being said, let us focus on how women experience their city with their family. 24. Yves RAIBAUD, La ville faite par et pour les hommes, Belin, 2015 (Translation: The city made by and for men)
ives, aughters
Yokohama Š Womenability
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Public spaces: A reflection of gender roles in the house? A profound redistribution of roles and shifts in social hierarchies seems more than necessary. Until women and men equally share the duties of family life, Womenability felt it necessary to include this specific chapter on women, their families and their everyday life in public space. Public space cannot be looked at without taking into account the unavoidable challenges that the presence of family creates for women. This section examines the practicality of public space in its design for children and elderly people. It also details the specific constraints imposed upon pregnant women and mothers, when breastfeeding or changing their children in public space. Women report their average satisfaction with everyday life with their family in public spaces as a 2.84 out 5. This was the lowest rating of our different subjects introduced in our report (with activities topping the list at 3.74). This shows that cities have yet to work on the challenge of creating safer, more adapted and attractive public spaces for families.
Montevideo Š Womenability
Chapter #3. Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
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Where do women enjoy experi around the world
The ranking was determined by averaging the walkers’ personal scores. This score was based on their general perception of women’s family life in their city.
1
2
3
4
5
Chapter #3. Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
iencing the city with family
Malmo (Sweden) Zurich (Switzerland) Yokohama (Japan) New Haven (U.S.A) Montevideo (Uruguay) Mumbaï (India) Francistown (Botswana) Houston (U.S.A) Sofia (Bulgaria) Cape Town (South Africa) Paris (France) Rosario (Argentina)
4,00 4,00 3,60 3,22 3,00 2,71 2,67 2,50 2,50 2,13 2,00 1,75
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1. Limited mobility of mothers 62% of the women respondents consider that their city is not adapted to pregnant women and 70% that it is not adapted to navigating with children.
Kaifeng © Womenability
They suggested three main reasons for these challenges. 1. Lack of, or broken, infrastructure. The lack of good sidewalks, in Cape Town, Rosario or Montevideo, and public toilets, in New Haven, seems to be the primary reasons “No places to rest (no why women think cities are not adapted to pregnant women and families with benches in the city), children. Crossing a city with a stroller or while being pregnant with an extended not enough ramps for belly is a nightmare, due to the many stairs (without access ramps), the broken strollers” Olivia, New Haven sidewalks and the lack of clear cross walks. Moreover, the lack of benches indicates that pregnant women or women with children cannot rest or just enjoy their city. It implies that they only use public space to go to a specific location. 2. Crowded public transportation and derogatory remarks by men are other reasons why women do not feel at ease while pregnant or with young children when navigating the “No room in the bus or in city. Getting in a crowded bus or subway where people are bumping into each the metro” Rania, Paris other is not a good experience for pregnant women or women with young children. In addition, the few dedicated seats are often already used and people do not easily step aside (especially without a little disparaging remark). Let us not even talk about abrupt driving or road rage... 3. Lack of safety. Either due to broken infrastructure, crimes or even harassment, pregnant women or women with children do not feel at ease to roam in their city. Indeed, pregnan“It’s not safe to walk alone cy or the presence of children often does not temper the actions or remarks of or with kids” Sinethemba, Cape men. Town
They thought “she’s pregnant, how can she campaign?” Well, women can do anything. Celia WADE-BROWN, Mayor of Wellington
On the bright side, Malmö and Sofia are the best cities for pregnant women and women with children. The participants note that due to good public transportation accessibility with many priority seats and strollers’ spaces, especially in Malmö, and peaceful public spaces, especially in Sofia, it is enjoyable to be pregnant or take care of young children in their city. Families do not hesitate to use public space for walks, even at night. Walking lanes are large enough, plentiful enough and car free enough for women to like being pregnant or traveling with children in their city.
“A lot of people with their babies are out for walks or night out” Deniz, Sofia “I liked being pregnant in the city” Julia, Malmö
Chapter #3. Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
2. Breastfeeding and changing a baby, the big challenge
“Cover up that bosom, which I can’t endure to look on”25 This quote from one of the famous Moliere’s plays25 properly expresses the situation women have to face when breastfeeding in public space. People hypocritically accept nudity in advertising and entertainment, objectifying and sexualizing women, but cannot see a breast simply as a source of nourishment for a baby.
84% of the women respondents do not feel like their city provides them with
safe spaces for breastfeeding in public. They noted that it is not yet well accepted and people’s reactions are more than daunting for mothers. People look down or stare and criticize, so this basic need becomes uncomfortable and embarrassing. This negative mentality and the mothers’ concerns are made worse by the lack of breastfeeding facilities. Again, simple benches would do the job, but as there are often few benches and as public breastfeeding is not approved of, women and their hungry babies have to hide in public toilets or to find a hidden place in a mall, for example. Even in public facilities, more and more testimonies evoke breastfeeding prohibition, even in healthcare26 or law enforcement27 facilities. Nevertheless, no breastfeeding areas were spotted in the cities we studied (they were only seen at the NYC Airport, USA). Both infrastructure and mentalities need an upgrade in this case.
Tokyo © Womenability
“In our society breastfeeding in public is not yet well accepted, and there is no free access to changing room in public spaces” Liza, Rosario
88%
Another challenging subject with a baby: changing diapers. of the women respondents explained that their city is not equipped with enough changing rooms for babies (which is also linked to the lack of public toilets). The primary reason is a lack of proper infrastructure. From New Haven to Cape Town, there are very few changing rooms or private areas in most of the cities we studied. Only Yokohama is the changing room champion, with 88% of women satisfied. For example, in every subway station, there are public bathrooms and changing rooms. When it comes to changing diapers, it is also important to think about fathers: it is important to provide changing tables in both men and women toilets, or in a shared space. Both parents (and also gay parents) have the right to enjoy the pleasure of cleaning their child’s cute bottom.
For families to gain their right to the city, a real effort by NGOs and local authorities needs to be made in order to challenge current mentalities and to encourage a real sharing of responsibilities.
25. Molière, Tartuffe, 1664 26. Testimony of a French woman who was banned from a pediatrician because she breastfed her baby (July 2017) https://www.instagram.com/p/BWfowE0ARJT/ 27. Article about a French woman who was denied the right to breastfeed in the local police station, while she was there with her husband for administrative work (April 2017) http:// www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/un- commissariat-de-paris-refuse-le-droit-d-allaitement-polemique-sur-la-toile-14-04-2017-6855534.php
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3. Hide and seek, recreation with children
61%
For of the women respondents, cities do not have enough recreation spaces for children. In fact, it can be a real problem to find safe and fun spaces where children can play. Public authorities have not always considered parks as a priority, as children do not have a voice or a vote – yet - in the co-creation of the city. Once more, the lack of dedicated spaces or infrastructure for children is highlighted. Some women regret the low number of parks and recreational areas, which are too confined and unnatural, in Mumbaï, and where children are forbidden to make noise, such as in Yokohama. Moreover, a lack of maintenance (broken and unsafe playgrounds, the presence of rats, etc.) and poor accessibility (parks closing too soon, for example) was noted in Sofia and Paris. Last but not least, the provision of parks in the city can be unequally dispersed, thus creating spatial discrimination. Geographical location, for example, in the outskirt of the community, as seen in Houston, Rosario and Cape Town, can have a negative impact on the safety of the children.
“The park closes too early, 4:30 pm in winter. There are rats in it.” Lamis, Paris “Parks are far away from homes, children might get raped or kidnapped...” Olga, Cape Town Some of the cities we studied, such as Zurich and Malmö, are setting a positive example. Women and families seem to be happy with the provision of playgrounds.
Cape Town © Womenability
Chapter #3. Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
4. The needs of older people:, between accessibility and intergenerational interaction
When it comes to families, children directly come to mind, but women are also the main caregivers of the elderly. Moreover, older women often experience double discrimination based on their age and gender. We saw this in our data;
79% of women respondents think that their city is not adapted to the needs of elderly people.
First, a lack of safety is linked to their vulnerability. Older citizens are often the target of robbers and other delinquents. Accidents due to road traffic are also mentioned in connection to the safety of the elderly.
“Traffic lights are too fast” Ingrid, Malmö “Broken sidewalks, dangerous for them, they are afraid to go out” Lelis, Rosario
Secondly, a lack of accessibility becomes a real problem with age, as for any person with reduced mobility. Walking on the streets can become a real obstacle course, because of too many stairs or broken sidewalks, not enough elevators nor benches, and too many barriers.
“Footpath accessibility, traffic, planning has not been done with them in mind” Supreet, Mumbai Furthermore, limited interactions with other generations is another factor discouraging older people from using public space. Social interactions are important components of living together in harmony. Walking with SJC and Sonke Gender Justice in Khayelitsha Cape Town © Womenability
Yet, “by 2050, for the first time in human history, there will be more over-65s than children under 15. The number of people over 100 will increase by 1000%. And as by then 70% of the world’s population will likely live in cites, this will present huge challenges, and cities will need to adapt”28 Because of this demographic change, the issue of elderly citizens needs to become a real priority for local authorities. Older citizens have just as much of a right to the city as young people do. More investment is needed in both infrastructural and social change that targets the well-being of older citizens in urban settings. “It is a huge challenge for world cities – they will need to change, to make sure older people continue to play an active role in the community and don’t become isolated. Isolation has a negative impact on health so tackling that is really important”29. Compact cities, self-driving cars, hybrid zoning... there are numerous solutions that are yet to be discovered and implemented.
Walking with EDL Pte de la Chapelle - Paris @Womenability
28. The Guardian, Improving with age? How city design is adapting to older populations https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/25/improving-with-age-how-city-design-is-adapting-to-older- populations, April 2016 29. Shaping Ageing cities, ARUP, 2016
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Women’s recommendations When it comes to improving their daily urban experiences with their families, women cite three categories of responses centered on infrastructure, accessibility and changes to mentalities.
→ Create new infrastructure to accommodate children, the elderly and pregnant women, particularly in public spaces. This includes intergenerational spaces to play and relax, and of course, changing spaces in all restrooms.
“They must create public spaces for children to play and for the elders to relax and the open space for pregnant people” Sinethemba, Cape Town
→ Improve and adapt existing infrastructure to user’s needs, so that public equipment can be used to its maximum capacity. The first priority is to make them cleaner and safer and to fix the broken ones.
“Add swings in parks” Magho, Paris
→ Adapt accessibility standards to ensure that everyone can have equal access to the city, with no discrimination on the basis of age, race, gender or disability. Keep in mind that improvements designed for a specific set of people can also improve the lives of others in their city. Ramps and elevators, for example, are good for strollers, bikes and wheelchairs, as well, as anyone with a broken leg.
“Toilets have to be free with no charge” Masego, Francistown
→ Change mentalities to accept and include the diversity of users and usage in the city. Better infrastructure is not enough to improve equality in public space. Changing mentalities about women, children, the elderly and their right to the city must be the starting point for any improvements.
“Create signage to indicate that it is safe and possible to breastfeed in public space and to encourage it” Shannon, New Haven
In order to create a more inclusive and accessible city, planners need to incorporate women’s usage experiences and recommendations, as they represent a valuable resource.
“The experience of land users must not only be reflected in the planning process but also legitimated as a source of knowledge to be used as a guide for planning and community development.”30
30. Sandercok and Forsyth 1992, in Miranne and Yong, 2000
Chapter #3. Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
Conclusion
In a more gender equal world, we would not need a section on “women, family and the city”, but rather one on “parents, family and the city”. Yet considering today’s critical situation regarding gender roles, and because women are the first victims of bad infrastructure while pregnant and when caring for children or the elderly, this chapter remains indispensable. Both infrastructures and mentalities have to evolve with the modern day situation. You cannot ask men to change their children if there are no changing tables in the men’s bathroom. You cannot ask women to work until their last month of pregnancy without providing a safe environment during their commute to work. Cities need to design public space “that is thoughtfully designed with the intention of maximizing access”31. More than ever, public authorities, the private sector, feminist NGOs and parents have to work together to make sure everyone, at every period of their life, has the same rights and accessibility to the city. On a more positive note, as people are “voting with their feet“32 and purposely deciding to move to a city according to its positive attributes, cities are starting to understand that the provision of infrastructure for pregnant women, parents, children, persons with disabilities, reduced mobility and the elderly, can be a real reason for future urban dweller to move to a specific city or not. Cities are today therefore more open to the idea of creating a more inclusive and accessible environment.
Next time you go out with your children, with your niece or nephew, with friends who have children, but also with your grandparents, take a look at how they use their city. If you don’t have a family, just observe them and be empathic, as you would be for every person sharing your city. If there is something you want to change, check the following (but non-exhaustive) list of best practices gathered from across the world. Remember, anyone can contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities. We all have a role to play.
New York © Womenability
31. Phadke et al., 2011 32. Richard Florida, Who’s your city, 2008
Best practices
= Level of implementation
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Badges for pregnant women using public transportation Finding a seat in public transportation when you are pregnant can sometimes be hard, and not only during rush hour. Some pregnant women are shy or do not dare ask for a seat, to avoid being the object of unwanted approaches and/ or intrusive inquiries. That is where a badge such as the ones provided by some countries and public transportation companies can prove useful in increasing one’s visibility. Here are some examples from around the world: - Baby on Board Initiative, TFL, London, United Kingdom33 - Mommy Belly Buttons, Brooklyn, New York, USA34 – using humor to tackle this issue - Pregnant priority badges (or Mataniti maku) in Japan35 - Pink light campaign, Daehong, Busan, South Korea36 – using Bluetooth technology pregnant women are given a sensor which lights up a pink light installed near priority seats Baby-on-Board-by-TFL
NGOs, citizens, local authorities, private sector (transportation companies)
Children’s parks open at night
Playground-at-night-in-Malmo-Credit-Womenability
Toilet seats for children, so parents can urinate in peace
In most cities, parks close at sunset. Yet what can you do with your children, especially if you live in a place where it is dark early and you live in a small apartment? The city of Malmö found the solution by incorporating lighting components in children’s games. So children can still have fun after dark in a safe space. Local authorities
Have you ever tried to pee while holding a one year old child in your arms? In many Japanese public restrooms, women toilets are equipped with baby seats, so mothers can relieve themselves in total tranquility. Maybe men/fathers can do the same soon.
Public authorities baby-seat-in-toilets-in-Japan-Credit-Womenability
33. More info: https://tfl.gov.uk/transport-accessibility/pregnant-women-and-pushchairs 34. More info: http://wellroundedny.com/pregnancy-vitals-mommy-belly-buttons/ 35. More info: http://www.nippon.com/en/nipponblog/m00051/ 36. More info: https://www.citylab.com/life/2016/06/koreas-pink-light-campaign-reminds-riders-to-yield-seats-for-pregnant-women/485816/
= Level of implementation
Chapter #3. Family : Women : wives, mothers, daughters
Family-friendly public transportation and public space policies Family life in the city needs to be thought of in holistic terms: - In public transportation, families need children seats, stroller spaces and handrails. In Malmö, every bus and tramway provides space for at least three or four strollers and easy fixation means they do not roll away. - When the travel is over parents with strollers need to face stairs and sidewalks. Not a problem in Malmö and Sofia thanks to their stroller friendly stairs. - Next, where do they park their strollers? The city of Vienna provides “mega stroller parking” to make sure the city can be accessible to everyone.
Stroller-fixation-in-Malmo-buses-CreditWomenability
Local and public transportation authorities
Stroller-parking-in-Vienna-Credit-Womenability
Dedicated spaces to take care of the needs of children Changing room are still mostly located in the women’s bathroom. However, more and more facilities offer shared changing rooms or changing rooms in both the men and women toilets. The first example the Womenability team spotted was at Copenhagen Airport (Denmark). Generally speaking, this best practice can often be seen in recent infrastructure or facilities like airports (Haneda in Japan and Charles de Gaulle in France), train and metro stations and road stops.
Lactation-room-Newark-airport-SourceNew-York-Post
Babies need to be changed, but they also need to be fed. On average, a mother breastfeeds 6 to 8 times a day. This is where a breastfeeding, pumping and nursing cocoon is a good idea, like in Newark International Airport (NYC, USA). This private space is reserved for women to either breastfeed their newborns or pump their milk while in transit. Public authorities and private companies
The city access award The Access City Award37 is the European prize for making cities more accessible to people with reduced mobility, disabilities and older people. The award is open to all cities within the EU with more than 50,000 inhabitants. The award promotes activities and strategies designed to make cities barrier-free, better places for everyone to live and work. Each year, the European Commission publishes a brochure with the best practices gathered during the competition. Access_City_Award-logo
European government
37. More info: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1141
Chapter #4
Cleanliness The city, “so and so clea
Cleanliness is an important matter for urban residents. During all the exploratory walks, urban cleanliness (or rather a lack of urban cleanliness) was widely discussed by women. In this chapter, let us discover how they experience their city through its cleanliness in four main areas: public bathrooms, trash management, the presence of animals and graffiti.
s o fresh an�?
Mumbai Š Womenability
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More than a clean urban environment The ability of a city to offer a clean urban environment has a direct impact on its attractiveness. The cleaner a city is, the more attractive it is to its inhabitants, the more women will occupy and enjoy public space, and the safer cities will become for women. More than cleanliness, a city needs to offer an aesthetic environment to help women safely occupy and use public spaces. As Guy Di Méo demonstrates38, both factors, cleanliness and aesthetics, are strongly related and essential for women to feel safe in public spaces.
“Despite differing degrees of poverty, one finds on a global scale that those in power frequently use the goals of cleanliness and safety in urban spaces to further marginalize the most vulnerable sectors of society.” Ismail FAROUKL
Thus, urban planners and policy makers have to take esthetic and tidiness more into account in their projects and policies. What may be seen as superficial are in fact major contributors to the better appropriation of public space by women.
Security through urban cleanliness
The “broken windows theory”39 suggests a causal link between crime rates and the increasing number of broken windows after only one window fails to be fixed. It suggests that small urban nuisances, paired with a feeling of impunity towards urban space, leads to a general degradation of the urban environment and contributes to increased crimes and feelings of insecurity. This theory needs to be nuanced, however, as in practice, it has brought about a “zero tolerance” policy in the streets of many US cities, mostly targeting low-income people of color. Such policing tactics have increased incarceration rates for ‘petty’ crimes and occasionally result in street harassment from police to perpetrators that can end in physical violence and even death... Safety in public space through a clean urban environment is a real issue for women, but should not be a justification for gentrification or discrimination against minorities. Through the application of this theory, low-income women of color suffer a double penalty40.
“Our public bathrooms do not meet hygiene standards, and there are lot of obscene exhibitionism in the city” Liza, Rosario
“Men pissing on houses: on weekend and evenings and in ports. It’s sad, they are showing power, it feels unsafe” Erika, Malmö
Paris © Womenability
38. Guy Di Méo, Les murs invisibles: femmes, genre et géographie sociale, Paris, France, A. Colin, 2011, 343 p. 39. Theory introduced by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in Broken windows. Critical issues in policing (1982), then developed by George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles in Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities (1996). 40. Watch Kimberlé Crenshaw’s TED about the urgency of the intersectionality https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality
Chapter #4. Cleanliness : The city, “so fresh and so clean”?
1. The desperate need for public bathrooms
A global necessity to improve and increase access to public bathrooms in cities was highlighted by our women respondents. They expressed a need to use the restroom more than men because of their additional and specific needs – menstruation, pregnancy, childcare (which also applies to men/dads). They also need more space inside, as they do not use urinals.
76% of the women respondents do not think they have proper access to pu-
blic bathrooms in public space. Except in few cities – for example Malmö, where they are numerous, or Yokohama, where they are present in all subway stations – all cities seem to need more public bathrooms.
Wellington © Womenability
3 40%
1 75%
Malmö
2 67%
Yokohama
Zurich Cities that offer widespread access to public bathrooms
Cities which need better access to public bathrooms
10 % Paris
3
0%
Cape Town, Montevideo
1
8%
Rosario
2
Even when public bathrooms are present, they are often described as being dirty, unmaintained, or costly to use. As already mentioned, they are not equipped with the right materials for children or for changing babies (in either the women’s or men’s rooms). Some resourceful women know where to go in the city, such as in Zurich.
“There is a dirty pungent smell, nauseating, no maintenance, the men’s washroom smell and there is no privacy” Kartikeya, Mumbai Yet the worst factor associated with the lack of restrooms is public urination. The results from the exploratory walks highlight a general habit of public urination by men, correlated with the absence of public bathrooms. This creates a bad image of the immediate environment: bad smells and hygiene are pointed out, but also scenes of men urinating, which should not be tolerated. People cannot stand to see a baby being breastfed, but nothing seems to be said about seeing a man urinating. Some women even voice their concerns about what they consider to be the masculinization of the public space through exhibitionism and territory marking.
Mumbai’s corporation has been very pro-active to include women in their development strategies: health care and sanitation programs targeted to women only, .skill development for women, give marketing support to women’s projects... Shraddha JADHAV, Former Mayor of Mumbai
More than answering a woman’s and families’ needs, improved access to proper public bathrooms can also be a solution to increase hygiene, healthcare and safety in cities.
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Zoom on Khayelitsha, Cape Town
While organizing the walk in a suburb of Cape Town named Khayelitsha (home to 400,000 inhabitants), the first relevant issue faced was the lack of private bathrooms. In fact, most houses are not equipped with private toilets or running water (conditions that have existed for more than 15 years now). This particular situation can be explained by the heritage of apartheid-era segregation and urban planning regulations. Because there are no private bathrooms, citizens have to share public toilets located on the outskirts of the city (with five families sharing one toilet on average). Their locations are often out of the way, near bars and without public lighting. Moreover, the absence of disposal for sanitary pads and of running water exacerbates the hygiene situation. Sanitary pads and toilet paper are thrown everywhere, on the toilets or the floor. As a result, women and girls report severe problems with hygiene, but also with sexual assaults and murders. Safety, hygiene and access to public bathrooms are therefore major concerns for the community and particularly for women. They asked for more private and public bathrooms, closer to theirs homes, which are clean and equipped with appropriate lighting. “It’s not safe, girls and women get raped and killed” Sinethemba
“It’s easy to get infections from the public bathrooms because many families use them” Anonymous “There are no sanitary pads disposals, there are thrown anywhere, on the toilets or on the floor.” Zingisa
More info about the public toilet campaign run by the Social Justice Coalition: http://www.sjc.org.za/sanitation
In its report Gender equality for smarter cities, challenges and progress, UN-Habitat explains that “inadequate access to safe, hygienic and private sanitation facilities is a source of shame, physical discomfort and insecurity for millions of women across the world. Cultural norms frequently make it unacceptable for women to be seen defecating — forcing many women to leave home before dawn or after nightfall to maintain privacy [...]. Unhygienic public toilets and latrines are threats to women’s health, as poor sanitation makes them more susceptible to reproductive tract infections. When there are few or no toilets, many women have no choice but to relieve themselves out in the open, in secluded areas or under cover of darkness, which makes them more vulnerable to sexual or physical assault.”
Cape Town © Womenability
Of course, these issues affect all women but especially poor women. Wealthy people can use private spaces like their home or their office, unlike people who work or live on the streets or who do not have access to private bathrooms. Those who need proper public toilets the most are those who also cannot afford private ones.
Chapter #4. Cleanliness : The city, “so fresh and so clean”?
2. For a better waste management
One of the first points highlighted during our walks was the lack of available trashcans in public spaces. In some places, the provision of garbage cans also depends on location, highlighting territorial discrimination in the city. Even in the cities where garbage cans are widespread, collections are not organized regularly, which also leads to an unacceptable trash situation for inhabitants. All in all,
58% of women respondents think there are not enough waste bins in their city, thus contributing to a dirty environment.
3
1 75%
Prague
67%
Malmö
2 70% New
Haven and Yokohama
Cities with the best trash management
“People don’t use bins and are littering and dumping on the ground” Supreet, Mumbai
Paris © Womenability
Cities with the worst trash management
27 %
8%
Mumbai
3
6%
Cape Town
1
Rosario
2
In addition, in cities where there are already trashcans, people also have a desire to recycle. Directly linked to environmental considerations, women express the importance of prevention and education. First, cities need to provide proper equipment and then people have to be more respectful of their environment. This same argument applies to public urination; both infrastructure and behavior must change in order for cities to be clean and safe for women and men.
Cleanness and the feeling of insecurity
There is a strong correlation between neglected cities and cities where women experience high levels of street harassment. These results echo the broken windows theory (see supra), whereby the more a city’s infrastructure is neglected by the authorities, the higher the instances of violence on the streets are. The good students
The bad students
Zurich, New Haven, Yokohama, Houston and Francistown are cities that rated as clean and where women experience the least street harassment.
Paris, Montevideo, Rosario, Mumbai and Cape Town are the cities that have very high discontent regarding dirtiness and very high average of general street harassment towards women.
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3. “Who let the dogs out?”, animals in the city
Directly linked to trash management, the presence of animals (rats, cockroaches, dogs, etc.) needs to be included in cleanliness policies.
64% of the women respondents said they were unhappy with the presence of animals in their city.
3
1
2
75%
Houston and Malmö
70%
Yokohama
60%
New Haven Cities where the presence of animals has the least impact on public space
Malmö © Womenability
Cities where animals invade public space
13%
10%
Cape Town
3
“There’re too many rodents and roaches and mosquitoes, too many feces” Supreet, Mumbai
0%
Rosario
1
Paris
2
Multiple women in different cities noted that dog feces left uncleaned by pet owners worsens the situation in the streets. However, at some dog parks the situation is getting better, like in Houston, which inaugurated a new one in Midtown Park. In addition, stray dogs and other animals can make residents feel unsafe.
“Dogs not on leash are a big problem and very dangerous” Jitka, Prague
These incivilities can make it difficult to move freely in the city. If the sidewalks are full of trash and animal feces, it is not only unhygienic, it can also discourage people from walking in their neighborhood. It is also not convenient while using a stroller and moving with young children. For example in Paris, the presence of rats in children’s parks discourages their use.
As important as public bathrooms and trash management are, the presence of animals and their impact needs to be discussed as part of a holistic policy related to cleanliness, appropriation of public space and freedom of movement.
Chapter #4. Cleanliness : The city, “so fresh and so clean”?
4. Graffiti and street art to embellish the city
3 75%
Houston
1 83%
Prague
53%
of the women respondents like the graffiti exposed on their city’s walls. People generally appreciate “street art” and “graffiti art” as a mean of embellishment and as an expression of character. Yet it is still largely associated with urban degradation.
2 80%
New Haven and Malmö
Baltimore © Womenability
Cities with the less appreciation for street art
Cities with the most appreciation for street art
10%
Francistown & Paris
1
13%
Cape Town
2
However, graffiti can also be a subject of discontent, mostly due to the content of the graffiti. A lot of women express their dislike of the sexist and misogynistic messages associated with graffiti. We can note that studies such as Pamela Leong’s American graffiti, deconstructing gendered communication patterns in bathroom stalls, show that bathroom graffiti is often sexist41. On the contrary, women particularly appreciate “feminist street art” and the way it makes them feel “empowered and stronger” when seeing it.
“We need good art work, no insults on the walls” LM, Francistown “I like graffiti art, but monuments should stay clean. Graffiti should be legal in certain places that could make the city more interesting!” Radka, Prague
New York © Womenability
Kaifeng © Womenability
41. Pamela Long, “American graffiti: deconstructing gendered communication patterns in bathroom stalls”, in Gender, Place and culture: a journal of feminist geography, volume 23, 2016, p. 306-327.
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Women’s recommendations
Walking with SJC and Sonke Gender Justice in Khayelitsha - Cape Town © Womenability
→ Increase the number of public toilets → Improve trash management → Encourage street art bearing feminist and empowering messages
Chapter #4. Cleanliness : The city, “so fresh and so clean”?
The data gathered from the exploratory walks highlights global issues regarding cleanliness in the city, which impact women’s ownership of public space. Women express a need for better access to public bathrooms and a more efficient waste management system, all linked to the health and safety issues that put women most at risk. These cleanliness problems are also linked to a need for better education on the maintenance of viable public space, be it on issues like littering or public urination.
Conclusion
Last but not least, graffiti can be seen as an original and attractive key to promoting equality in public space, which shows how cleanliness is also linked to a necessary need to combine business and pleasure and provide healthier, safer and more beautiful environments for women. All in all, for public spaces to be more attractive for women, they have to be both aesthetic and hygienic.
Next time you go for a walk in your city, pay attention to the things we often choose to ignore – trash, animals and the presence of public toilets. Also be aware of those little – or sometimes big – things that embellish your city and can promote gender equality, as female street art can do. If there is something you want to change, check the following (but non-exhaustive) list of best practices gathered from across the world. Remember, anyone can contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities – we all have a role to play.
Best practices
= Level of implementation
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On access to public bathrooms / against public urination Using gods, water-resistant paint or video surveillance to stop public urination Collective, individuals, city
Gods-against-urinationin-Mumbai-CreditWomenability
Tired of men urinating on the walls, corners or stairs? A neighborhood group in Mumbai has found the cheapest and most effective solution. They glued tiled pictures of gods on the walls that are known to be regularly peed on. In this very religious country, who would want to pee on a divinity’s representation?
Filming men who are urinating on the street and then posting the video on YouTube. We are not sure it is moral/ legal, but this provocative idea is worth opening the debate.
We-pee-back-by-the-Saint-Paul-neighborhood-Hamburg
For less religious areas, there is water-resistant paint. In the Saint-Paul neighborhood of Hamburg, Germany, a neighborhood group that was tired of smelling urine in the morning, came up with one of the most innovative solutions. They painted the walls with hydrophobic (water-resistant) paint, which ricochets on people who urinate in public.
Youtube-against-urination-in-Czech-Republic-Credit-Sotak
Find your way to the nearest public bathroom As part of the National Continence Program, the online Toilet Map provides information on over 16,000 publicly available toilets across Australia, including information on accessibility, opening hours and facilities, such as showers and baby changing areas. Public authorities, on the national or local level Toilets-map-in-Australia
On trashes management Brussel’s “canisites” to fight against dog’s dejections In Brussels, as in more and more cities today, dog owners must always have at least one bag with them to clean their dog’s feces. Yet the city has also developed “canisites”, public bathrooms for dogs.
Canisites-map-in-Koekelberg-city
Local authorities, citizen’s initiatives, NGOs
Educational campaign against littering In 2013 in Paris, a campaign for a clean city was launched. On different posters, you could see Paris cleaning staff working behind people throwing trash on the street or leaving dog feces on the sidewalk. It is an interesting idea to be able to put a face to the people cleaning the city in order to be aware of the additional work you give them by throwing garbage in the streets. Killing two birds with one stone, it is also a good way to highlight female street workers. Local authorities
Sensibilization-campain-for-cleanliness-in-Paris
= Level of implementation
Chapter #4. Cleanliness : The city, “so fresh and so clean”?
On street art Feminist graffiti has been a real and growing movement around the world. Women are using spray cans and brushes to spread their art, messages and feminist symbols on walls in every city. This is not just an artistic movement, it is a revolution: helping women to appropriate public space by giving them a voice and a space.
There is no age limit to graffiti art. The Portuguese NGO Lata 65 organizes successful street art workshops for seniors in several countries, especially Portugal and Spain44. This is a good way to mix generations in the city. These initiatives generate multiple impacts, as it normalizes both graffiti as an art and female voices and representations in a difficult environment.
A-Lata65-workshop-participant-CreditLara-Seixo
Local authorities, citizen’s initiative, NGOs
Shamsia-Hassani-in-Kabul-Source-www.bust.com
Follow the example of Shamsia Hassani (in Kabul, Afghanistan) and Dieynaba Sidibe, aka Zienixx (in Senegal), both female street artists, who had to challenge society’s standards at their own risk42/43. They both promote strong messages of female empowerment.
Philadelphia and Baltimore (USA) have been promoting street art as a means of beautifying their neighborhoods, recalling local history and highlighting important figures, including women. In addition, it helped to increase local tourism and community pride.
Crédit Womenability
For example, this mural in Philadelphia depicts the progress made in women’s rights. Although barely visible in this photo, the mural contains a watermark that reads, “Equal Jobs and Educational Opportunities”. The masks worn by some of the women represent the social pressures and problems women have faced (and continue to face) in their progress towards equality. The mural decorates the wall of the New Century Guild building. Founded in 1882 by Eliza Sproat Turner, it was one of the earliest, largest and most successful organizations that dealt with women’s problems and rights as they entered the labor force.
42. More info: http://bust.com/arts/19467-the-writing-s-on-the-wall.html 43. Watch One’s video: https://www.facebook.com/ONE/videos/10154858833624472/ 44. More info: http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/societe-les-grands-meres-graffeuses-de-la- peninsule-iberique
Chapter #5
Activities A woman’s loiter To achieve a gender-fair city, women must be able to reconquer public space by normalizing their presence. The issue of the unequal representation of women in public space (compared to men) is often preliminarily approached through the lenses of security and mobility. But gender inequalities pervade every aspect of a woman’s everyday life, in turn impacting how they use public space, regardless of whether such activities are recreational in nature, linked to work, or born out of necessity. So now, let’s focus on how women use their city when it comes to their daily activities.
s right to
Mumbai Š Womenability
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The right to more than safety Here are some key numbers about women’s activities in their city45: → Boys consume 75% of public funding for leisure activities. → Boys utilize 95% of free access sports facilities. → These figures are in spite of the fact that women make up 75% of those caring for children and elders in urban areas. Women also are more likely to consider safety when determining whether or not they will access a public space. Furthermore, women are more likely than men to engage in defense tactics when moving through urban areas, such as traveling in groups, choosing well-covered colothing, and considering the safest transportation route available to them. These few examples show that women’s lived urban experience can be reduced to a transitory and temporary experience. As said by Shilpa Phadke, women in public space are considered as illegitimate as “trespassers” in any given urban area46. But more often than not, women are more than simply passersby. And feeling safe in a city is not enough. Normalizing a woman’s presence in public space means fighting for a “right to loiter,” as well as the free use of public exercise equipment, benches, or other urban services. Through advocating for this inherent “right to the city”47, women should be able to enjoy parks, play sports, loiter on a bench, shop and work on the streets, and access other critical public services.
45. Key numbers are originated from Yves RAIBAUD, La ville faite par et pour les hommes, Belin, 2015 (Translation: The city made by and for men) – so are stemmed from studies in France 46. Shilpa PHADKE, Sameera KHAN and Shilpa RANADE, Why Loiter, Women and Risks in the streets of Mumbai, Penguin Books, 2011 47. Henri LEFEBVRE, Le droit à la ville, Anthropos, 1968 (Translation: The right to the city)
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
Kaifeng © Womenability
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Where are the best cities for women’s activities The following ranking was determined by averaging the walkers’ personnal scores. This score was based on their general perception of the diversity and accessibility of activities for women in their city.
1
2
3
4
5
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
Prague (Czech Republic) Francistown (Botswana) Sofia (Bulgaria) Malmö (Sweden) New Haven (U.S.A) Paris (France) Rosario (Argentina) Yokohama (Japan) Zurich (Switzerland) Houston (U.S.A) Mumbaï (India) Montevideo (Uruguay) Cape Town (South Africa)
NA 4,8 4,5 4,3 4,0 4,0 4,0 4,0 4,0 3,6 3,4 3,0 2,0
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1. Unequally distributed green spaces
As seen in the chapter on the five senses, women are particularly sensitive to the presence and availability of green spaces in cities.
62% of the women respondents are satisfied with access to nature in their city.
3
1 100% Zurich
New Haven & Rosario
“While female skaters are not explicitly discouraged, their relative absence is only occasionally noted and implicitly condoned. [...] Pressures include those to avoid displaying their bodies in a non-sexualized manner, not to damage or injure their bodies, to focus on inter-gender social relations rather than self-development or homosocial exclusions of men, and to generally grow up as (fully sexualized) adult faster than young men”50
88% Sofia
100%
Greenest cities
Yokohama © Womenability
2
Least green cities
39%
12%
Cape Town
1
Mumbai
2
The availability of green spaces goes beyond the sense of pleasure brought by being in a natural environment. Recent scientific reports have highlighted the link between nature and well-being. According to Laurie Parma, from the Department of Psychology of the University of Cambridge, “green spaces foster well-being in several ways: increasing attention, decreasing stress and strengthening social ties”48. According to the level of satisfaction of the women surveyed, most cities seem to satisfy their green space needs. However, women also highlight issue of territorial discrimination in access to green space: meaning that even if a city has numerous parks or other types of green spaces, these may not be equally distributed.
“The city has nice parks, but not every neighborhood has access to green space” Beth, Houston
This type of urban inequality is even more important when linked to the issue of “green gentrification”49 and urban growth, where the presence and development of green spaces induce soaring real estate prices, to the detriment of poor neighborhoods.
A dispatch from Vienna: How to successfully bring back teen girls to the city.
The city of Vienna is a leader in the design of hybrid public spaces. Since the 1990s, city planners noted that after age 9, girls were no longer using public parks as much as boys their age. A study showed that girls were less assertive than boys and did not “fight” to keep their own space in the park. “In 1999, the city began a redesign of two parks in Vienna’s fifth district. Footpaths were added to make the parks more accessible and volleyball and badminton courts were installed to allow for a wider variety of activities. Landscaping was also used to subdivide large, open areas into semi-enclosed pockets of park space. Almost immediately, city officials noticed a change. Different groups of people -- girls and boys - - began to use the parks without any one group overrunning the other”51.
48. http://www.sarbjohal.com/2017/04/21/mapping-link-biodiversity-wellbeing-naturebuzz/ 49. Karine LE LOËT, Gentrification verte : quand la nature en ville chasse les pauvres, http://www.terraeco.net/Gentrification-verte-quand-la,57152.html, 2014 50. Iain BORDEN, Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body, Berg, 2001 51. Clare FORAN, How to Design a City for Women, Citylab, https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/09/how-design-city-women/6739/, 2013
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
2. A long-term competition for equal use and access
3 80%
1 100% Zurich
2
To reiterate, sport facilities are one of the places with the least gender diversity in the built environment. Among women respondents, only 51% are satisfied with the sports facilities at their disposal in the city. What is the explanation for this situation? Because girls are often pushed to choose extracurricular activities other than sports early on and boys are less restrained in their choices, public sports facilities are almost exclusively frequented by men after puberty starts. Kawasaki © Womenability
Worst cities to exercise in public space
90%
Francistown
38%
Yokohama
30%
Sofia
3
Best cities to exercise in public space
18%
Cape Town
1
Rosario
2
Public sports facilities are seen as an exclusively male territory in the common imaginary52, and consequently, 95% of the allocated budget to public sports facilities benefits men53. This bias is confirmed by data from the exploratory walks.
“They are rare, only for men” Kartikey, Mumbai “It’s difficult to go out running, there are only activities for boys” Matilda, Malmö Moreover, despite a relatively high satisfaction level, many women express their discontent about the low number of public facilities available to them, whether they be sports fields, pools or velodromes/bike lanes. If there are private sports facilities accessible in a city, their cost is often too high for most of the residents. Paris © Womenability
“There aren’t free facilities, only for business.” Masego, Francistown Urban planners have two ways to tackle this issue and reintroduce women to public sports facilities. 1. “Gender-budgeting”: this urban tool promotes the integration The last few years we gender equity in the allocation of the city budget. Such a tool would constructed open fitness involve an analysis of all public spending and revenues in regards to facilities that give women the direct and indirect consequences on access for men and women.
opportunities to work out and maintain good physical condition and good spirit. Malina EDEVRA, Responsible of culture, education, and cultural diversity at Sofia City Hall
2. Positive discrimination based on gender: when developing new public sports facilities, local authorities and private owners can – and should – propose some adjustments to encourage women to practice sports in the space. They can organize reserved schedules like in Umeå (Sweden) or offer activities other than football or basketball through arranging space differently, like in Vienna, Austria.
52. Edith MARUEJOULS, Mixité, parité, genre et lutte contre les discriminations dans les politiques publiques: le cas des espaces et des équipements publics destinés aux loisirs des jeunes, Université Toulouse II – Le Mirail – CERTOP – Région Midi-Pynérées, 2014 53. Yves RAIBAUD, La ville faite par et pour les hommes, Belin, 2015
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3. Hanging out, the public bench dilemma
65% of women respondents are satisfied with the availability of places to hang out in their city. They are especially satisfied with safety and access to semi-private areas such as bars and cafes but, they note a lack of such spaces in suburban areas. However, women find it more difficult to enjoy hanging out outdoors since there are less public spaces designed for meeting with friends or family. In this regard, women highlight the scarcity of benches or tables in public space.
3 88% Sofia
Dakar © Womenability
1
2
100% Zurich
89%
Francistown and Yokohama
Best cities for women to hang out
Worst cities for women to hang out
38%
19%
Cape Town
1
Montevideo
2
Walking with OCAC Uruguay - Montevideo © Womenability
“There are not enough places to hang out in the suburbs” Deniz, Sofia “There are some places to hang out in parks but there’s a lack of women inclusion in these places” Louise, Montevideo
Sociability and security
Data show a relationship between the amount of social “hangout spaces” available to women and a reduction in street harassment. When more women have access to public social areas, less men feel free to verbally or physically harass them. This result emphasizes our recommendation for increased access to public space. The more we create and promote public spaces that women can appropriate for socializing, the safer they will feel in their city; the reduction in victims of street harassment culture is a necessary added benefit. Cities that are the most “social” and have on average one fewer percentage point in the amount of street harassment: Zurich, Francistown and Sofia.
Cities where there are the fewest social spaces, street harassment is above average: Cape Town, Montevideo and Mumbai.
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
4. Proximity is the key for shopping
Shops are perceived as readily available by a majority of the women, but many complain that they are too far from their homes or unequally distributed across the city. Plus, shops are sometimes considered to be too expensive, or do not provide sufficient fresh food, specialized items or adequate services. A lack of accessibility can also be at play; for example, when strollers are not accommodated in accessing a storefront. Some women declare that they sometimes prefer the presence of street vendors or corner shops, which are more accessible in price and location. In total,
72% of the women respondents are satisfied with the shopping possibilities of their city.
1
3 88%
Mumbai and Sofia
Yokohama & Zurich
Cape Town © Womenability
2
100%
Worst cities for shopping
82%
New Haven and Rosario
Best cities for shopping
41%
38%
Houston
1
Cape Town
2
“There are a lot of shops in the city center but there are sometimes missing in some areas” Louise, Montevideo “There are enough shops as well as hawkers on footpaths” Supreet, Mumbai
[Historicaly] “The respectable flaneuse became possible only when shopping emerged as a socially acceptable pastime for middle-class women” (Aitken and Lukinbeal, 1998)54
Shops and corner shops are important components of what make the city lively and safe. Beyond providing critical goods and services, they also increase foot traffic; a busy street can mean more safety than in a deserted one, and can also be a protection against street harassment. Therefore, shops should always be included in urban planning in order to ensure an ecosystem which women and their community can contribute to safely.
Gender diversity in municipal public workforce and the feeling of security
Another interesting finding from the data is the correlation between the gender equality of public workers and the feeling of security. In fact, the presence of female workers in the public workforce is a significant factor that contributes to making women feel at ease in public space. Francistown and New Haven are two examples where the gender parity in the public workforce is high and where the feeling of insecurity in public space is low. We therefore recommend that ciities should reinforce gender parity in their public labour force, promoting more women bus drivers, garbage collectors, post women, police officers, and other public employees.
54. Anastasia LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS and Renia EHRENFEUCHT, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, MIT Press, 2009
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5. Street workers, between safety and representation on the corner
In the formal labor market, few women access public space in their day-to-day activities. Some exceptions include street cleaners, police officers and more rarely, bus and taxi drivers. Apart from those jobs, women workers are often perceived as lacking visibility in the streets, as they most often work inside.
59%
As a result, of the women respondents are dissatisfied with the presence of female street workers in their city.
1 88%
Francistown
2 50%
New Haven
Cities with the highest presence of female street workers
Cape Town © Womenability
Cities with the lowest presence of female street workers
29%
18%
Montevideo
3
14%
Houston
1
Rosario
2
“I did not see many women working outside, only inside businesses” Beth, New Haven
“In the 19th century, in the daytime, only working-class women walked alone, and at night, a women alone was considered a prostitute (Baldwin, 2002).”56
Both women and men express the desire to see more women take on jobs in public space, even if these women are susceptible to hurdles (e.g.- sexism or harassment). It is indeed very important that little girls and boys growing up in cities can see female workers in public space and do not grow up in exclusively male-dominated spaces. More female workers would also provide “role models” for children to avoid furthering gender stereotypes about which jobs are ‘suitable’ for women and men.
Female street workers in the informal economy
During its exploratory walks, the Womenability team also met female workers in the informal economy sector, who in total, make up two-thirds of the informal sector workforce55. Most of them work in public space and play a crucial role in the livelihood of their families and neighborhood as members of cooperatives and sellers of food, goods, and services. However, they are often subjected to street-harassment, gender-based violence and controls from the authorities. Plus, being in the informal economy means they are more financially vulnerable and have less job security. On the specific subject of sex workers, the team chose to not directly mention the subject in the survey so participants could choose whether or not to breech the issue.. Some of the participants had been sex workers or had worked alongside sex workers. They expressed their concern with the objectification of the female body, gender-based violence and an unsafe public environment. To adequately capture the difference between representation and realities, the issue of female sex workers (or illegal prostitution, depending on the country and its local laws) in public space merit a report on its own.
55. OIT, Statistical update on employment in the informal economy, 2012: http://laborsta.ilo.org/applv8/data/INFORMAL_ECONOMY/2012-06-Statistical%20update%20-%20v2.pdf 56. Anastasia LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS and Renia EHRENFEUCHT, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, MIT Press, 2009
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
6. Art for, by and with women
Women often noted the absence of cultural resources in their city.
66%
Despite their overall satisfaction of the women respondents - with institutions such as local theatres and galleries, there is a clear demand for more accessible and community- oriented projects.
“We need a new city that is free from terror and fear, a future city that glorifies human dignity, knowledge, wisdom, equality, solidarity and the diversity of artistic expression and cultural identity.” Gustaff HARIMAN ISKANDAR
1
3
2
100%
New Haven
89%
50%
New Haven
Houston Best cities to patron the arts
Worst cities to patron the arts
50%
6%
Cape Town
1
Montevideo
2
Some women also note that their city could improve public funding or public space for artistic events. As already said, there is an overall demand for more street art across the cities studied.
Wellington © Womenability
More artistic events in public space matter, as it can make cultural resources more available to women and provide original ways of increasing the visibility and representation of women. Such efforts could be achieved through more retrospectives of female artists, publicly accessible photography, local happenings and public street art.
“There are enough malls and theatres but we need more open space art and entertainment, more communityoriented places.” Supreet, Mumbai
We have also made sure that our artworks commemorates a lot of women artists: we have a beautiful statue of Katherine Mansfield, who was born in Wellington, we also have Loris Edmund quotations amongst others, in writer’s walk, and we like to make sure that women artists have good visibility in the city. Celia WADE-BROWN, Mayor of Wellington
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Women’s recommendations
→ Increase the presence and distribution of green spaces: • Encourage citizen-based initiatives to grow flowers and vegetables on the sidewalks (community gardens) • Include more landscaping in urban planning, from tree-planting to an increased number of green areas → Include a more gender equitable perspective in access to sports: • Develop specific programs aimed at girls and women • Increase girls and women’s presence in public sport facilities • Create outdoor sport itineraries aimed at attracting young women → Create more educational programs, job trainings, and facilities targeted specifically for youth and women: • Increase the presence of women in the public workforce • Advocate for equal benefits for girls and boys in the use of youth programs and facilities → Increase the number of female street workers: • Develop, if needed, a quota policy to reach gender parity in the workforce • Implement awareness campaigns on gender-based issues within the public workforce → Increase public funding and projects for street art in cities: • Recognize female artists of both past and present through retrospectives and access to grants • Use murals to brighten up the city, promote professional female streets artists and the positive representation of women
Beijing © Womenability
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
Conclusion
As for daily life in the city, the hardships and issues women can face are many. Some are gender- specific, caused by the lack of gender mainstreaming or adequate representation in urban planning and policies, while others are more general. But women are still too often the first victims of territorial discrimination, urban segregation, or the absence of efficient public services. All these issues have the same impact. They erect “invisible barriers,”57 making the life of a woman in the city, both in regards to her daily obligations and leisure, a constant obstacle course with barriers for equal access to public equipment and public space, safety and recognition. Throughout this chapter, the data has shown that women also want a fulfilling life in their city, where they can loiter but also work without facing unwanted hindrances. A woman’s full appropriation of public space must also be visible in the recreation activities, culture, and occupations that she conducts across the city. It is time for cities to end foul play in regards to women residents and to start playing fair for gender equality.
So the next time you step outside, whether it be to go to work or just to chill out, take the opportunity to appreciate your city: take time to roam in a park, to sit on a bench, and observe how other women loiter (or not) in their city. Allow yourself to enjoy your city. And if there is something you want to change, check the following (but non-exclusive) best practices gathered from across the world. Remember that anyone can contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities – we all have a role to play.
Walking with L-Punkt - Zurich © Womenability
57. Guy DI MEO, Les murs invisibles: femmes, genre et géographie sociale, Paris, France, A. Colin, 2011 (Translation: Invisible walls: women, gender and social geography)
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On nature Best practices increasing the presence and accessibility of nature to women in the city are outlined in Chapter #1.
On sports in the city Reserved timetable for girls and women
Kaifeng-Credit-Womenability
Women-dressed-up-for-the-festival-
Encouraging women to dance
Credit-Womenability
Amanda-skateboard-in-Malmo-
Best practices
= Level of implementation
As in Umeå’s sports arenas, the Bryggeriet’s skate park in Malmö (Sweden) has a reserved timetable for girls. Every Monday evening (6 to 9pm), the manager
While walking on the streets of Kaifeng around 7PM, you can see hundreds of women coming down the streets to rehearse their “square dance” choreogra-
Andrea Andersson Antunes opens the doors to girls only. This initiative encourages young girls to skate by providing them a safe space where they will not feel intimidated by boy skaters, allowing them to safely start and improve their skating skills. After getting started with the basics, girls tend to join the skate park during other times, encouraging gender diversity in what has traditionally been a male dominated sport.
While freely exercising, these women also exercise their right to the city.
phy. Every neighborhood has its own group. The teacher comes with a “boom box” and plays either traditional or modern Chinese songs, and day after day the women repeat their choreography. Then, every year, the municipality of Kaifeng organizes a contest to award one group the best choreography of the city.
Local business, municipality
Citizen’s initiative
On hanging out in the city Mixity in public space In Tevragh-Zeina (Nouakchott, Mauritania), female mayor Fatimetou Mint Abdel Malick has developed several green spaces. Nouakchott is a city without much green room to breathe, so she decided to build the first children’s parks with recyclable materials and... Wi-Fi access! In these areas children and their families, along with other constituents (young and old, male and female) can use public space together.
Fatimetou-Mint-Abdel-Malickinterviewed-by-Womenability
Way to the women
In some neighborhoods, like in Aubervilliers (France), common recreational spaces such as coffee shops, bars, and terraces are often the monopoly of men. Women looking for a place to hang out may feel unwelcome. To reinvest in these convivial spaces, the collective “Place aux femmes”58 leads several initiatives. Among them, the collective organizes women sit-ins to occupy terraces in groups and created a label for “women friendly” coffee shops indicating a safe space for women and girls. local, NGOs, citizen’s initiative 58. Can be translated by “Way to the women” – More info: https://placeauxfemmes.wordpress.com/
Place-aux-femmes-in-Aubervilliers
= Level of implementation
Chapter #5. Activities : A woman’s right to loiter
On street workers in the city More female street workers also mean more ways to increase the number of women in public space and to fight against street harassment. The encouragement of female taxi drivers is one tactic, when it is compatible with a woman’s safety and family life. For this purpose, Zar Aslam introduced the Pink Rickshaw Initiative in Karachi (Pakistan), so women – and men – can visualize that there is no shame in a driving a rickshaw. Moreover, the initiative aims to empower women, helping them to assert themselves by having a job and earning a living, like any other citizen59. Local, municipality, citizen’s initiative Pink-Rickshaw-by-Zar-Aslam
On culture in the city Women’s representation through culture, history, and tourism
Some cities organize guided bus tours through a ‘gendered’ lens. In Budapest (Hungary), those feminist bus tours are a little bit different. We met Andrea Peto, teacher at Central European University in the Department of Gender Studies. She was inspired by the Women’s Studies Center of Novi Sad (Serbia) which organized walking tours and drew a city map spotting the location of women’s organizations and the birth location of important women in the city’s history. As Budapest is more spread out, she rents a bus and starts by introducing the ‘invisible’ women who made and are making the city60.
Feminist-tour-by-Andrea-Peto
Guerilla Girls
Campain-by-The-Guerilla-Girls-Collective
The Guerilla Girls Collective61, funded in 1981, campaigns to highlight and fight gender bias and corruption in politics, arts, films and pop culture. The realm of the arts has long been monopolized by men. This dominance has undoubtedly had an influence on the presence and representation of women in arts. Despite marginal progress, today female artists and workers in the fields of art are starting to gain recognition: but what about the availability of arts to women? We still have work to do.
59. More info: http://myvoiceunheard.com/zar-aslam-pink-rickshaw/ 60. More info: Womenability interview of Andrea Peto, teacher at the Central European University, Budapest (Hungary), http://www.womenability.org/andrea-peto-and-thefeminist-bus-tour/, 2017 61. More info: https://www.guerrillagirls.com/
Chapter #6
Security Women’s b exposed Insecurity is the major factor that women will take into account when navigating in public space. Either out of experience or by feelings, it alters their perception and ownership of public space and their rights to the city. Throughout this chapter, let’s focus on what factors can make public space insecure for women and how we can improve the situation.
bodies
Walking with SJC and Sonke Gender Justice in Khayelitsha - Cape Town Š Womenability
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Street harassment, first factor of insecurity perception According to the exploratory walks’ results, one of the most important factors that leads to feelings of insecurity for women is street harassment. Additional factors also contribute to make cities uncomfortable for women: cleanliness, lighting, freedom of clothing, sociability spaces, gender diversity in street workers... Today, street harassment is being experienced around the world by most women and minorities on different levels and under different forms. The general definition that the survey uses was defined by the NGO Stop Street Harassment:
“Gender-based street harassment is unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent, and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation.“62
Women have interiorized the fact that that they don’t belong in the city at night, while men are. Hélène BIDART gender equality Commissioner at Paris City Hall
Taking back the streets with the Why Loiter movement - Mumbai © Womenability
62. Stop Street Harassment http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
“In the 19th century, men considered women on the street as a spectacle. [...] Cities such as New-York City, San Francisco and New Orleans started passing ordinances against the harassment and insulting of women on public streets; which also suggested that class and gender relationship were negotiated around women’s public appearance.”63 First, two sets of data have been identified by women: their general feeling of insecurity and their actual experiences of harassment. By detailing them both, this study tries to understand their repercussions in the use of public space by women. Again, if street harassment plays a major role in how women experience the city, however it is not the only factor.
63. Anastasia LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS and Renia EHRENFEUCHT, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, MIT Press, 2009
90
Where do women feel insecure street harassment
Harrasment Monthly
Harrasment Weekly Harrasment Annually
Harrasment Annually
Harrasment Monthly
Where are women feeling safe During the exploratory walks, women were asked how they felt about security in their city in general. This grading reflects a general feeling. The average score was calculated on the basis of personal scores.
Zurich (Switzerland) New Haven (U.S.A.) Yokohama (Japan) Houston (U.S.A.) Francistown (Botswana) MalmĂś (Sweden) MumbaĂŻ (India) Rosario (Argentina) Sofia (Bulgaria) Prague (Czech Republic) Cape Town (South Affrica) Montevideo (Uruguay) Paris (France)
3.9 3.8 3.7 3.3 3.0 2.8 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.3 2.4 2.0 2.0
Harrasment Monthly
1
2
3
4
5
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
e VS where do they suffer from
Harrasment Monthly
Harrasment Annually
Harrasment Annually Harrasment Annually
Harrasment Annually
Harrasment Annually
Harrasment Weekly
Cities ranked from the lowest to the highest average of street harassment experienced by women Legend: The calculation is based on the average frequency of all the different kinds of harassment (verbal, physical, being followed, violence) experienced by women. #0 stands for the frequency never, #1 for annually, #2 for monthly and #3 for weekly.
Yokohama (Japan) Zurich (Switzerland) Francistown (Botswana) Houston (U.S.A.) Prague (Czech Republic) Sofia (Bulgaria) Mumbaï (India) Montevideo (Uruguay) Malmö (Sweden) New Haven (U.S.A.) Rosario (Argentina) Paris (France) Cape Town (South Africa)
0.49 0.53 0.63 0.66 0.67 0.81 0.99 1.04 1.10 1.22 1.27 1.31 2.27
92
1. Verbal harassment
Verbal street harassment can be defined as an oral remark (or offense) targeted at a woman while she is in public space (walking, jogging, biking, using public transport, reading on a bench...).
82%
of women respondents have experienced verbal street harassment at least once in their life.In the division of the different kinds of harassment, verbal street harassment is seen as the most common and most experienced kind of harassment by women. On average women experience verbal harassment: → 26% of the time on a weekly basis → 30% on a monthly basis → 25% on a annual basis → And 18% answered that they never experienced verbal street harassment.
“Offensive car drivers shouting at me, calling me bitch, sexist comments from walkers” Jitka, Prague “Literally every time I go out. My reaction: I ignore it” Olivia, New Haven “People singing vulgar songs. We glare or ignore. No one helps” Nadiya, Mumbai “Suggestive catcalling. My reaction: make sure they know it is wrong” Zainab, Mumbai “I was so angry frustrated because it happens every time” Nobathembu, Cape Town Walking with SafeCity - Mumbai © Womenability
Most women report to have been harassed on the street, at night and/or in public transportation or waiting for transportation.
3 60%
1 100%
Yokohama
2 70%
Francistown
Zurich The best cities to not be verbally harassed (low frequency)
The cities where verbal harassment is at its worst on a weekly basis
40%
Houston
3
72%
Montevideo
(women are orally
50%
Cape Town
harassed)
1
2
On average, only 6% of women who were verbally harassed got help. The top 3 cities where verbally harassed women were helped are Francistown (20%), Zurich (14%), Mumbai (13%)
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
2. Physical harassment
Physical harassment can be defined as when a woman’s body is being touched without her consent.
62% of women respondents have experienced physical street harassment at least once in their life time. In the division of the different kinds of harassment, physical street harassment is seen as the second most common and most experienced kind by women. In average women experience physical harassment: → for 37% of women it happens on an annual basis → for 10% on a monthly basis → for 15% on a weekly basis → And 38% answered that they never experienced physical street harassment.
Most of the physical harassment incidents happened in public transportation, while walking in the street or in or near by club/pubs.
When they are physically harassed, most of the women react in this order of frequency: → don’t say anything and wait until it is done → yell and scream → fight back
3
1 0.22
Prague
0.43
2 0.38
Houston
Montevideo 3 best cities where women are the least physically harassed*
3 worst cities where women are the most physically harassed*
1.3
1.5
New Haven
3
2.4
Cape Town
1
Paris
2
*Reminder: The average calculation is done on a 0 to 3 frequency score, where 0=never, 1=annually, 2=monthly and 3=weekly basis.
So making sure the laneway is lit, making sure that we think about having more people on the street... We have run specific campaigns to make sure that people look out for each other and whether it is groups of young people going out on a Friday night or whether it’s more general safety campaigns, we really think it’s important. Celia WADE-BROWN, Mayor of Wellington
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11% of women got helped when they were physically harassed.
“Mostly on the trains when I was young.” Kaori, Yokohama “Normally just when you go out, later at night people are drunk. In this case I can help myself.” Nina, Zurich “Groping of my ass and breasts. I screamed but it was a too crowded area. No one reacted to help though I screamed.” Nadiya, Mumbai “On the train, I was shocked. I didn’t say anything.” Mindy, Mumbai “In public transport, I got mad and pulled myself away, a man reacted and said to the bully to stop!” Deniz, Sofia
It is interesting to note that cities where “verbal street harassment” is high do not necessarily have a high frequency of “physical harassment”. For example, the city of Montevideo is one of the cities with the highest frequency of verbal harassment (2), but has one of the lowest frequency of physical harassment (0,43). It is also interesting to note that some cities have a higher frequency of physical harassment than oral harassment. For example, in Yokohama, where just a few women experienced verbal harassment, physical harassment is very present, especially in trains. It is therefore important to count every different type of street harassment to understand what women live in public space.
Lighting, a tool for more welcoming and comforting cities
The collected data does not enable us to draw a direct and systematic correlation between lighting and security. According to the results, public lighting is not enough to contribute to the feeling of security. For example cities with the best lighting equipment, Paris and Mumbai, are not cities with the lowest insecurities. On the contrary, Yokohama and Houston, where public lighting is not considered satisfactory, are not cities with a high percentage of insecurity either. Other cities such as Rosario and Cape Town demonstrate nonetheless a direct correlation between the lack of lighting and the high percentage of street harassment. But more than the lack of lighting equipment in the city, their unequal distribution is more problematic and often implies a strong factor of territorial discrimination, as noticed in Paris, Cape Town or Yokohama.
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
3. Being followed
57% of women respondents have been followed in public space at least once in their life time, by an unknown (or known) person. It happens: → 29% on an annual basis → 16% on a monthly basis → 12% on weekly basis → 43% answered that they have never been followed.
In average 11.5% of women got help when when they were being followed.
For the majority of women, it happens when they are walking home at night. They also note that it can occur during day time, in public transportation, while biking, in clubs or in their cars. Some women often identify their predators as drunk men, and even sometimes they know each other. Most women feel scared or even terrified while being followed. In response, they mostly: → run → shout → go to a place with better lighting → go to a police officer or into a store to ask for help.
“While walking home from the metro. I was scared. I pretended being on the phone and walked fast.” Mindy, Mumbai “I take another route or wait in lighted space.” Ronell, Houston “I run if I suspect that someone is following me. I get scared of being mugged or raped.” Zandile, Cape Town
Francistown © Womenability
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4. Violence in the street
37 % of women respondents had been victims of violence in public space at
least once in their life time: → 17% of them on an annual basis → 10% on a monthly basis → 10% on a weekly basis → 63% answered that they never were victim of violence in public space yet.
Cape Town, Prague and Paris are the cities with the higher percentage of violence. Most women that have experienced violence in public space were just waiting at night, mugged or robbed, in a club or at a sport event. Most women are feeling sad, angry, disappointed, shocked and frustrated when being victim of violence in public space.
The thing I did specifically for women is that we have a huge human trafficking problem, which primarily affects women and girls. I created a human trafficking task force, a specific police task force. I also focused on sexual assault. Annise PARKER, former Mayor of Houston
13.5% of women got help.
It is interesting to note that more violent the form of harassment is, the more help you might get. Are insults or catcalls too common so nobody would notice anymore? Are hands on buttocks or stolen purses so usual they cannot catch somebody attention anymore?
“I got hit on the head and robbed in front of my building. It was dark, no street lighting, there were no people around.” Nadia, Sofia “I was threatened/blocked by a car, I reacted-stopped.” Sylva, Prague
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
ZOOM in Baltimore: violence towards homeless women Here is Jacquelyne Robarge from Power Inside, a Baltimore NGO, focused on violence towards women and more specially women living in the streets. She agreed to take time to show the team the neighborhood where Power Inside takes actions. Unequal treatment between homeless women and men were significant. Homeless women have to hide in public space to wait for the bus that would take them to the night shelter, while men where able to wait in the “day shelter”. This is discriminatory for two reasons. First, just waiting outside for the bus in this neighborhood is dangerous. All women, but furthermore homeless women, are targets for violence or rape. Secondly, most homeless women escaped from a pimp or a violent partner. So making them wait in public space without a protected shelter puts them more at risk. During the exploratory walks, 54% of people were victims or have witnessed / heard on the news violence towards homeless women in public space. Because homeless women are an extremely vulnerable group, they are often victims of double discrimination and experience even more violence than homeless men in public space. And they should be the ones benefiting for the most care.
Homeless women queuing for the bus Baltimore © Womenability
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5. Reporting street harassment to the police
63% of women respondents would go to the police. But we can note a strong
gap between cities on that issue. Most women say they would go to the police, because they believe that harassment should be reported and punished, and that involving the police and the law is the only way to take actions and change mentalities. The word “justice” comes up the most when asking their motivations.
“Because it is my constitutional right to live with dignity“ Farida, Mumbai
“So it doesn’t happen again“ Marilyne, Paris “Because it is necessary to avoid impunity.” Lourdes, Rosario
But women also noted that when they were able to “handle” the issue themselves they did not involve the local authorities. For the 40% of women who would not report the aggression to the authorities, their reasons are: → The police would not take them seriously: lack of proof to show, police corruption (especially in Mumbai), being blamed for what happened... → They do not know where to start. → They consider that harassment is “part of the life in big cities” and they are “used to it”, so they would only report physical violence.
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
Rosario 90% Houston 86% Francistown 83% Montevideo 83% Cape Town 76% Paris 67% New Haven 60% Yokohama 60% Mumbai 55% Zurich 40% Malmö 33% Prague 20% Sofia 14% Percentage of women who would report street harassment to the police
100
Women’s recommendations
→ Take into account the feeling of security in infrastructures • More and better lights equipments → Increase human presence at night (and especially women police officer) • More police presence (around train station) and better police assistance • Create a patrol for gender violence • More women police officers → Encourage public campains instructing men to stop harassing women in public space • More anti street harassment campaigns • Teach and create awareness for men/perpetrators not to harass women • Public education → Improve women’s rights in general and legal support • Legalize abortion (Argentina) • Encourage women to go to the police to report any type of aggression, physical or verbal, and send testimony to NGOs to promote change and new laws. → Increase the number of women using public space • Encourage more women to bike. When more women are biking, people get used to it and harass them less • Create more pedestrian friendly public spaces • Invent more “playful” infrastructures to create a sense of “community care and trust”
Walking with Houston Tomorrow - Houston © Womenability
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
Conclusion
Feeling safe in the cities where live, work, travel is a right for every human being.
Through 13 exploratory walks, the data enabled us to confirm some correlations which call for global policies to tackle security issues. Adding lights, cameras or police officers to fix the issue is not enough. In order to ensure that public space is safe for women, city planners, architects, politicians, artists, teachers, all have to contribute together. If women can appropriate their city through all the different themes covered in this report, more women will be on the street, enjoying it, not just using it to go to a specific location. By increasing the number of women on the streets, the risk of street harassment and aggression will decrease and the feeling of security will increase. Like Jane Jacobs64 advocated less than half a century ago, “eyes on the streets”, let’s advocate today for “women on the streets”! Next time you go out, pay attention to women, and how they are treated by men especially. Remark on the good and react to the bad. And if there is something you want to change, check the following (but non-exclusive) best practices gathered from across the world. Remember anyone can contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities, we all have a role to play.
Walking with Via Civic - Sofia © Womenability
64. Jane Jacobs, Death and Life of Great American Cities, 1961
Best practices
= Level of implementation
102
Against street harassment While organizing an exploratory walk in Montevideo (Uruguay) with Sol, the founder of the NGO OCAC Uruguay, she explained that street harassment was so common in the streets of Montevideo that she had to do something about it. The NGO decided to equip women with water guns to respond to harassment. When a victim of street harassment, they respond with a little humor and water: “Water dries but harassment leaves the print of a violence that grows”. Individuals, NGOs (LGBT, Feminist...)
Waterguns-against-street-harassmentby-OCAC-Uruguay
“Pin the creeps” mobile app in India The NGO Safe City Pin the Creeps in India is at the initiative of this amazing project mixing digital technology, art and youth participation. The project is divided in 3 steps:
Empowering-girls-mural-by-SafecitySource-City-Scope
1) “Pin the creeps” using a mobile app to geo-localize where in the city women are being the most harassed. The women report on their phone the kind of street harassment they have experienced (verbal, physical, picture being taken...) and where exactly it occurred in the city. 2) The NGO works with a group a women to find the appropriate message to write on the mural. 3) The volunteers paint their message on a wall in the location where harassment has been experienced. These messages empower women with strong messages blaming men for street harassment and helping women to voice their discontent, and remind men that it is forbidden by the law to take pictures of women without their approval.
Teaching self-defense to increase self-empowerment The AXIS Jiu Jitsu academy based in Yokohama offers free “Gracie Jiu Jitsu” classes to women who have been the victims of gender-based violence67. Jiu Jitsu as a martial art is particularly adapted to women’s needs as it is practiced on the floor, using specific techniques which do not necessarily require a lot of strength. The practice of Martial Arts, as a self-defense mechanism can be an empowering process for women, as it can diminish their feeling of insecurity in public space, making them feel more confident if ever attacked. It is nonetheless not a sufficient solution to make streets safer for women. Men have to be part of the solution. A reduction in the number of acts of violence committed by men against women can only happen through the engagement of men, via training and awareness campaigns.
Jiu Jitsu in Yokohama (Japan)
AXIS-Jiu-Jitsu-academy-Credit-Womenability
The Red Brigrade (India) The Red brigades are female groups fighting against sexual crimes. Created by Usha Vishwakarma, a former rape victim, the brigades patrol streets looking for men harassing women and provide female self-defense classes. The brigades empower them to fight back by tracking down men who attacked women and humiliating them in public68. The-Red-Brigade-by-Usha-Vishwakarma
65. Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade, Why Loiter?: Women And Risk On Mumbai Streets, Paperback, 2011 – The book explains “the exclusions and negotiations that women from different classes and communities encounter in the nation’s urban public spaces” 66. More info: http://whyloiter.blogspot.fr/
Chapter #6. Security : Women’s bodies exposed
The Why Loiter movement taking back the streets in Mumbai After reading the amazing book “Why Loiter Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets” by Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade65, Neha Singh decided to act and take the matter into her own hands by creating the movement Why Loiter66. The principle is simple: a group of women walk the streets of Mumbai (India) at night. It seems pretty “normal” for many women to do so, but in Mumbai this is an act of feminism and resistance. It is very rare to see women after dark, and even rarer to see women walking at night. The goal: raising awareness and reclaiming women’s rights to the city. During their walks women are harassed by rickshaw drivers, passersby and also by the police who often reproach them for being out at this time, without the company of a man. Their courage and motivation, reminded us of the civil rights movement, when African-Americans sat on the “white” side of the dining counters. Why-Loiter-cover
Lights serving well being Lights are an important factor which contributes directly to the wellbeing of women in public space. Lights can improve issues but it can also help make the city more welcoming and attractive to women at night. Lighting project, using innovation and art can transform “scary spaces” into fun, interesting and welcoming ones. Who likes to cross scaffoldings alone, at night, where sound and vision are obstructed? The city of Vienna has found a solution to make those ephemeral obstacles fun and cool. The only thing they did was to change the colors of the neon, from white to Pink/Yellow/Orange... or any warm colors.Same idea in Saint-Denis (France), a dark tunnel under highway is improved by shifting colors neon bulbs.
Shifting-colors-neon-bulbs-in-Saint-Denis Credit-Womenability
Intervene to help
Campain-to-support-muslim-residents-in-Boston
This example written and illustrated by Maeril69 is about islamophobic harassment but can be used in any harassment situation to help a woman. The city of Boston even use this illustration as a campaign to support Muslim residents and visitors70.
67. More info: http://www.axisjj-yokohama.com/ 68. More info: http://red-brigades.blogspot.fr/ 69. http://maeril.tumblr.com/ 70. New PSA campaign to support Muslim residents, visitors, https://www.boston.gov/news/new-psa-campaign- support-muslim-residents-visitors, 2017
Chapter #7
Sex (and love) in
Love could be a simple matter: freely sharing moments with a loved one. But for women, loving in the city means a permanent fight to retain their rights, to be and express who they are and how they feel. Why? Because women who want to express their love in public space are submitted to the power of the outside gaze. Their body is also often reduced to an object of desire, to be controlled by others. Their behavior is scrutinized mainly under the lens of respectability... So, let’s discover how and if women can or cannot express their love on the streets.
n the city
Sleeveless dress by feminist designer Mari Kumoro - Tokyo Š Womenability
106
Reclaiming women’s bodies in public space: a path paved with hardships The objectification of a woman’s body may be due to the commodified representation of women and their behaviors. In public space, ads are often the only urban elements promoting women’s bodies, through an idealized representation. Empowering role models in public space are missing. These representations can have an impact on self-esteem, and can make loving oneself as a woman difficult in the city. In The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body, (Journal of International Women’s Studies, 2004) Angela King71, reminds us that “turning a woman into an ornamented surface requires an enormous amount of discipline and can cause discomfort, not to mention untold feelings of inadequacy. It cements woman’s status as body, confirming her role as primarily decorative”. Today’s increasingly mediatized, “panoptic” society has only increased the issue of women’s “disciplined bodies”72. But the disciplining of women’s bodies also affects women’s behaviors, which are subjected to objectification and socio-cultural expectations. In the field of love, these expected behaviors are linked to the idea of respectability, and are implicitly linked to safety. A “respectable” woman will need to adopt coded behaviors when on her own or when displaying signs of affections to prevent herself from the potential harassment and violence an “improper” women could receive. These behaviors are too often internalized in which what Shilpa Padkhe, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade call an act of “self-surveillance”73. So, ultimately, loving in the city is a matter which has been robbed from women: it subverts their autonomy and pervades the other fields of their everyday life. Exploratory walks are a way to reclaim the agenda and the voices of women on their ability to love in the city. They can express love and themselves through their freedom to wear what they want, to express their feelings and sexual orientation in public, but also to buy contraceptives in public space. The more women can love and be loved and have relationships in the city, the more they would want to use and enjoy public space. Here is to the hope that kinder, more loving cities could, through its public spaces, create kinder and safer private spaces in return.
71. Angela King, The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 5(2), 29-39, 2004 - Available at: http://vc.bridgew. edu/jiws/vol5/iss2/4 72. Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir, 1975 (Translation: Discipline and Punish) 73. Shilpa Padkhe, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade, Why Loiter, 2011
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
Kaifeng Š Womenability
108
Where can women love around the world
During the exploratory walk, women were asked how they felt about love in their city in general. The highest score was 5 and the lowest 1. This grading reflects a general feeling.
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
1
2
3
4
5
Sofia (Bulgaria) MalmĂś (Sweden) New Haven (U.S.A) Zurich (Switzerland) Houston (U.S.A) Yokohama (Japan) Rosario (Argentina) Paris (France) Cape Town (South Africa) MumbaĂŻ (India) Francistown (Botswana) Montevideo (Uruguay)
5.0 4.0 4.0 3.7 3.6 3.5 3.3 3.0 2.8 2.4 2.0 1.5
110
1. Women’s wear, the heart of the matter
Studying the level of freedom for chosing their own clothing style in public space is essential to this issue as it affects many parts of women’s life in their city.
55 % of women respondents feel comfortable to wear anything they want.
The main reason which is given to explain why most women do not feel free to wear what they want is the risk of street harassment (or worse, sexual assault).
“Maybe we can wear short skirts but you have to be brave to deal with the reactions” Deiana, Sofia “I feel like the clothes I wear will influence the amount of street harassment I will receive” Lena, Montevideo “I care about people’s eyes, neighborhood, colleague etc...” Mari, Yokohama
3 70%
1 100%
Houston
2 75% Sofia
Zurich Cities where women feel the freest to wear what they want
Cities where women feel the least free to wear what they want
20%
38%
Paris
3
14%
Montevideo
1
Mumbai
2
A strong relation between the percentage of street harassment and the freedom of choosing clothes can be noticed. The cities where women feel the freest to wear any kind of clothing (day and night) are the cities that have the lower percentage of street harassment: Houston, Sofia, Zurich and Francistown.
The main challenge women faces in Latin American countries is freedom. We cannot decide what to do with our own body. [...] The first territory that we occupy is our own body, and this is our priority today, because women are dying due to the lack of rights. And in that way we also question our right to public space, which hold many important values.
Gabriela SOUSA, Undersecretary of Gender Policy of the Prefecture of Santa Fe On the other hand, Cape Town, Rosario, Mumbai, Paris and Montevideo are cities where women feel less comfortable wearing certain clothes and where street harassment’s rates are high.
“People” will start judging you: the shorter the clothes, the more insults and questionning you’ll get” Sheetal, Mumbai ”I feel like people (men) would harass me, and women judge me” New Tatiana, Haven “I can (wear what ever I want) but only if I’m with someone else” Cecilia, Rosario
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
It is a current (and recurring) debate to decide what a woman should or should not wear. Is that skirt too short or too long? Is that veil allowed? Are those shoulders not too bare? Are those shoes feminine enough? Is this swimsuit enough or too covering? Some countries (Bhutan, Brazil, Canada, France, North Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, USA74...) even legislate about what women can or cannot wear in public space. Women should feel free to wear anything they want in their city. As such, they will feel accepted, comfortable and safe in their city. Choosing an outfit is simply a question of freedom and a right to not be asked about it, like any man is entitled to.
Walking with refugees and Via Civic - Sofia Š Womenability
74. Source : http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Clothing_laws_by_country & http://gadling.com/2011/04/13/strictest-dress-codes-5-countries-with-fashion-police/
112
2. Holding hands and kissing her/his partner, gestures under pressure
Holding hands is generally perceived as a gesture that is well accepted in public space in the cities visited by the Womenability team. of women respondents say they can hold hands in public space. Kissing her/his partner is more controversial. feel free to kiss freely in public space.
88%
59%
While it seems natural and completely normal in several cities, it is not culturally accepted in others, as in Japan, and is even illegal in some places, like India. Tradition and “decency” are still taken into account depending on the urban environment, especially if it is a “same sex” couple holding hands or kissing.
“You can see a lot of people hug, kiss and holding hands in the streets, I do it too” Nadya, Sofia “Same sex couples only in certain areas/neighborhoods” Ginny, Houston “You can kiss a woman as a woman, but sometimes people say things at you or comment” Eva, Zurich
3 88%
Houston
1 100%
Malmö, Sofia
2 91%
New Haven
Cities where women feel the most at ease kissing in the open
Cities where women feel the least at ease kissing in the open
38%
19%
Yokohama
3
7%
Mumbai
1
Cape Town
2
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
Three factors make kissing a sensitive issue: 1) On a social scale, the cultural environment and peer pressure from the neighborhood and family can make kissing in public space neither accepted nor possible. However, it does not stop couples from kissing each other in more secluded public spaces, such as parks, or at nightfall. Fear of judgment, aggressive behavior or judiciary actions can also play a role, especially in countries where such gestures of affections are deemed illegal and/or not decent.
“I can’t because of my culture, for the respect for older people” Zandile, Cape Town 2) Aggressive behavior or judiciary actions can also play a role, especially in countries where such gestures of affections are deemed illegal and/or not decent.
“You are not allowed to and can end up in jail or attacked by a mob” Sheetal, Mumbai 3) Finally, in more tolerant societies, reticence to kiss happens at a personal level, depending on the self-consciousness and personal openness of each individual.
“I don’t feel comfortable kissing in public, but don’t mind others doing it.” Kaori, Yokohama
Kaifeng © Womenability
114
3. Showing one’s sexual orientation, a costly freedom
52%
of women respondents do not feel comfortable expressing their non-heterosexual sexual orientation (or do not feel other women could do so). If global support of non-heterosexual people has gradually increased in the last ten years, as shown by the growing legislation on LGBTQ+ unions, the cases of violence based on sexual orientation are also unfortunately increasing, as shown by reports75 of national LGBTQ+ NGOs worldwide or the recent purge of sexual minorities in Chechnya76.
3
1 100%
Malmö
73%
2 89%
Zurich, Houston
New Haven Cities where women feel the most at ease showing their sexual orientation in public
Cities where women feel the least at ease showing their sexual orientation in public
14%
13%
Sofia
3
0%
Paris
1
Yokohama
2
Interview with a feminist group - Beijing © Womenability
75. More info : http://ilga.org/what-we-do/annual-report/ 76. Gay men in Chechnya are being tortured and killed. More will suffer if we don’t act, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/13/gay-men-targeted-chechnyarussia, 2017
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
10% Lesbianism 5% Bisexuality 2% Asexuality 3% Other/Non declared 80%
Heterosexuality
Three factors orientation:
have
an
influence
on
the
Through their gender and their sexual orientation, lesbians and bisexuals are doubly marginalized. This study would have liked to analyze specific matters through non-heterosexuality angles, however, due to the intimate aspect of sexual identity, the data collected per group was not sufficient for an in-depth analysis.
possibility
of
openly
showing
one’s
sexual
1) Like gestures of affection, openly showing one’s sexual orientation is globally found to be restrained by fear of judgment and peer pressure. Even if sexuality other than heterosexuality can be generally accepted, women respondents highlight the uncomfortable comments and behaviors they can suffer when they are on the street with another woman, which does not happen when they are with a man.
“There’s a lot of homophobia, the people with different sexual orientation do not show it on the street” Deiana, Sofia 2) In some contexts, publicly showing one’s sexual orientation, other than heterosexuality, can also lead to a heightened risk of violence, from individual aggression to mob beatings and murders. Also, transgender people suffer from the same treatment.
“The LGBT community isn’t supported as a minority in India and they can be shunned or in extreme cases killed” Jessica, Mumbai 3) But in several visited cities, all neighborhoods are not equal when it comes to provide safe space for non-heterosexual people: location plays a major role in making possible to display one’s sexual orientation.
“It depends on the area” Nomthetho, Cape Town Openness level about every kind of sexual orientation and gender identity depends on local cultural environment. But increasing this open-mindedness is the key to the freedom of expression about gender and sexuality.
“I think that in general “love” is something private here, it is not expressed publicly. Also, everything that is not “normal” is not so much accepted, society is not open and very conservative” Rike, Yokohama
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4. Buying contraceptives, a basic right hard to access
3 78%
1 100%
Malmö, Zurich
Access to contraceptives in public space is an indicator of how freely women have the choice over their own body and their own sexuality. of women respondents declare to have access to some kind contraception in public space (vending machines, near pharmacies...). Unfortunately, access to contraceptives is not equally distributed in the city, and suffer from other restraining factors.
60%
2 82%
New Haven
Houston Cities where women have the easiest access to contraceptives in public spaces
Cities where women have the hardest access to contraceptives in public spaces
43%
42%
Cape Town
3
21%
Mumbai
1
Montevideo
2
Different factors influence the access of contraceptives to women. Firstly, the cost and lack of availability of contraceptives are major restraints on equal access to safe sexuality and birth control. And, when available, the access to contraceptives can be restricted to specific places (clinics, hospitals pharmacies) with limited timetables, which makes obtaining them difficult. Women ask for automatic distributors, for condoms but also sanitary pads. They need to be easily accessible in the city but not too exposed, so women can buy it safely and without fearing the judgment from outsiders.
“Only in pharmacies, most of which are not open during the night” Nadya, Sofia “People will judge me” Zingisa, Cape Town “If a woman buys contraceptives her character is questioned” Sheetal, Mumbai
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
Women’s recommendations
→ To raise awareness against harassment, develop education campaigns → Increase accessibility of contraceptives in public space → Advocate for a normalization of public displays of affection, develop events such as walks, flashmobs or meetings where women and minorities can freely show affection → Fight against gender related violence, develop safe places for all sexual orientations and gender identities. → Reclaim the streets, organize both educational campaigns on sexuality, identity and representation which can take the form of posters, street art, or any demonstration.
Loving in the city, meaning being able to freely share moments and gestures of affection, safely display one’s sexual orientation and gender identity and easily access contraceptives should be a right accessible to every gender identity (woman, men, non-binary) and every sexual orientation (homo-, hetero-, bi-, pan-, a- sexuality).
Conclusion
But today, this is not the case. Public space is not yet the safe and welcoming space it could become for women to express themselves and their love. As seen, women have to constantly mind their bodies and behaviors according to the outside gaze and internalized expectations. They’ve been robbed of their autonomy when it comes to loving in the city. The matter of love in the city is therefore at the heart of the advocacy for a fairer and safer urban environment for women. The results of this study show the multitude of experiences for women trying to love in the city, each of them influenced by socio-economic contexts and personal sensitivities. The open sexuality of women seems to be more and more accepted. However, true progress cannot be achieved without global legislative, social and behavioral changes. Next time you go out, alone or with your lover, show some love to your city and advocate for more peace and love. And if there is something you want to change, check the following (but non- exclusive) best practices gathered from across the world. Remember anyone one contribute to a more inclusive city – citizens, NGOs or local authorities, we all have a role to play.
Philadelphia © Womenability
Best practices
= Level of implementation
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Public awareness campaign Flyers against street harassment in Paris (France)
The city of Paris created, printed and distributed thousands of posters/flyers all over Paris to remind citizens that a woman’s skirt is “not an invitation”77. Local authorities
“Same sex” kiss-ins flashmob, in London (UK)
Campain-Ma-jupe-nest-pas-une-invitation-by-Paris-City-Hall
Sensibilization Ad Campaign on TV and YouTube in Australia Flashmob-Same-sex-kiss-ins-in-London-Source-PinkNews
In 2005, a flashmob was organized in the city of London to encourage more kissing amongst same sex couples in public space79. Campain-Holdtight-in-Australia
Local NGOs, collectives
To encourage same sex couples to keep holding hands in public space, this ad campaign was financed by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) in support of the Auckland Pride Festival and the Sydney LGBT Mardi Gras. The hashtag for this awareness campaign is #HoldTight78. Private companies, foundations
Education campaign about gender and sexuality in India
An education campaign « Saathiya Resource Kits » was recently launched for Indian adolescents for a better knowledge of their health and rights, including sexual health, contraception, homosexuality rights, and gender based violence80. The Health Ministry hired over 160 000 peer educators and used a mobile app for adolescents to promote the program. Education on the LGBT rights is a crucial factor in order for societies to change and accept sexual orientation diversity in public space. Public authorities
Saathiya-Resource-Kits-in-India-Source-The-Indian-Express
77. More info: https://www.paris.fr/actualites/stop-au-harcelement-de-rue-4276 78. Watch the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=93&v=kE8YLs-_SR8 79. More info: http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/02/14/mass-gay-kiss-in-marks-valentines-day-in-london/ 80. More info: http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2017/02/21/homosexuality-and-periods-on-the-govts-mind-as-it- launches-saa_a_21718162/ 81. Get your sticker: http://www.cafepress.com/+safe-zone+stickers 82. More info: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/uc-davis-vending-machine-offering-plan-b- doesn-t-give-n753846
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city
Visual identification of places considered SAFE for the LGBTQ community Stickers are placed in front of bars / restaurants that welcome anyone from the LGBTQ community. Those stickers can be found in the US, France, and many other countries81. The movement appeared to have started in the 90s in American universities. NGOs
Safe-zone-stricker-Source-www.cafepress.com
Condoms vending machines In Paris’ streets, condoms vending machines are accessible 24/7. In the same way, some American universities propose plan B vending machines to make contraceptives easily accessible. Installed by students themselves, it is open 18 hours a day and sells plan B for $30 (which is quite less expensive than in a pharmacy), pregnancy tests, condoms and UTI kits82. Local NGOs, universities
Condoms-vending-machine-in-Paris-Source-Unknown
Chapter #8
Men’s vo
To encourage a better mutual understanding between women and men, Womenability organized gender mixed exploratory walks. Men walked next to women, listened to them, to their experiences, to their feelings, and hopefully some learnt and realized women do not experience cities like men do. Here is what they experienced and had to say about the issue.
oices
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1. Awareness of gender discrimination in public space
75% of male respondents think there is some kind of discrimination based on gender in public space. Among them: → 83% declare, after the walk, that they understand better that some women do not feel at ease in public space, and → 94% feel concerned about the question of gender and public space.
More important, after the walk, among men who do not believe in gender discrimination in public space: → 100% admit that they now understand better some women’s discomfort in their city, and → 83% feel concerned about the question of gender and public space. Male walkers appreciate learning about women’s experiences in public space, some things they know, some things they do not realize.
“I worked on sexual harassment for a video game, but I didn’t pay attention to some things like street names” Francisco, Montevideo
But if we leave everything to men, they will not know what we need and what we don’t need, and how we can make our own livelihoods. Ma MUZILA, Mayor of Francistown
Chapter #8. Men’s voices
2. Acting on men’s behavior
75% of male respondents answer that they will change their behavior to
hopefully offer a safer space for women. Some hope there will be more tangible discussions about how men can change their behavior or encourage other men to.
“I think at the moment I respect the women’s rights and fight for better environment for them” Sifiso, Cape Town For the 25% who will not change their behavior, they mostly claim that they are already respectful, especially men who are already engaged in women’s cause.
Filling out the men part of the survey with Sonke and SJC - Montevideo © Womenability
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Conclusion
Here are four recommendations made by men for men to improve solidarity with women in public space.
For example, a man with a hood and headphones is walking at night. A woman is walking just a few step further. The man did only notice the woman when she started to glance at him and move faster. He realized that he scared her, even he did not want to interact with her.
→ To be aware : Even for the most respectful men, some of their behaviors can unconsciously influence public space atmosphere and the way women use it.
“[The walk] made me think about things I haven’t noticed before (light at night, etc.)” Kizil, Sofia
→ To talk to their peers : Once men are aware of their potential impact, they need to share it with their peers to raise their awareness so they can stop perpetuating bad behaviors.
“Raise awareness about this issue in work spaces to avoid harassment” Daniel, Montevideo
→ To intervene : As said, women do not need a male savior but when it comes to an aggression, everyone needs help. It does not mean that men have to fight against the abuser, but a man can intervene simply by talking to the woman, making a barrier with his body and bringing her out the situation or by calling any authorities which will be able to intervene.
“Interact with people who harass women” Marcus, Montevideo
→ To support any action encouraging women’s appropriation of public space: family, sport, culture, mobility, security, love... Remind that actions on behalf of women are not only for women. A women friendly city is a city where mobility is accessible, families are welcome, recreation is a priority, love is a mantra and security is natural.
“Unique and memorable experience for me, though we covered just a small area a lot of things were discovered which need to be improved” Roshan, Mumbai
Chapter #8. Men’s voices
“We focus on who is doing the abuse. So for us it makes sense to engage men and boys in the process. So men instead of becoming perpetratore, they are becoming allies, and role models for society.” Quentin WALCOTT, Co-Executive Director at CONNECT NYC
Walking with SafeCity - Mumbai © Womenability
Chapter #9
Recommen for a fair sh Improving gender equality in cities is a shared concern and everyone has a part to play. Institutions and NGOs are often seen as the primary actors in this regard, as they can implement policies and collective action with an appropriate budget. However, this report seeks to advocate for the participation of everyone in the fight for fairer cities, where both women and men can feel at ease. This is why this section details what can women, men, NGO’s and public authorities can do to improve cities for everyone. Women are best placed to raise awareness, improve policies and act, as they are most directly impacted by gender discrimination. As the feminist slogan says: “do not free me, I am handling it�. The right to the city, the freedom to move, to hang out, to love, needs to be claimed by women who experience violence and exclusion. However, we cannot place the entire burden on the shoulders of women. They cannot provide all the solutions. The actions of men are therefore central to achieving gender equality in public space. While men should not act as paternalistic saviors, they can serve as partners who care about equality between women and men, about the equal right of everyone to the city.
ndations hared city
Methodological insert: At the end of each exploratory walk, participants were asked what could be done to achieve gender equality in cities; what can women, men, NGOs and local authorities do to improve the situation of women in public space? Here are their recommendations.
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1. Women’s empowerment from the individual to the collective 1. Women’s Empowerment
In this section, women answered what they themselves could do to improve gender equality in public space. Two main topics emerged: women’s empowerment and women’s solidarity.
The process of empowerment is often divided into three distinct phases – learning, hoping and acting. These phases can be recognized in the women’s responses.
1. Knowing your rights (empowerment phase 1) In most cities, women respondents suggested that it is essential for women to be aware of their rights. Is street harassment illegal in their city? Can they have free legal advice if they are victims of violence? Whom can they turn to? What legal or administrative actions can they initiate in a case of gender discrimination? What are the obligations of cities regarding people with reduced mobility, cleaning streets, providing security for all? Knowing her/his rights is a way to act, as well as a way to raise awareness about the law, so women do not have to silently suffer from something they have internalized as “normal”.
“It is so easy to be silenced or not even be aware in the first place. Educate our female friends.” Julia, Houston
Women are more tolerant toward gender violence, because they do not know their rights. But more laws are now securing them and they are more aware of their rights. Shraddha JADHAV, Former Mayor of Mumbai
2. Wanting to act (empowerment phase 2) It is one thing to know your rights, but it is another thing to act upon them. The gap between these two steps is willingness. It is not always easy to get involved, but every step, even the tiniest ones, counts. Thus, when it comes to the right to the city, women need to want it and claim it. Luckily, they do not have to claim it alone. Some women respondents also stated that women have rights but also responsibilities, including the responsibility to make sure that all women can profit from their rights.
“Women should stand up for themselves, know there are responsible for future changes” Deniz, Sofia “If you see something say something, get involved!” Colette, New Haven
We cannot talk about full democracy if there is not participation of women in politics. [...] To participate in the political life, women have to be trained and empowered.
Ana Maria OLIVERA, former Mayor of Montevideo, now Minister of Social Development
3. Standing up for yourself and other women (empowerment phase 3) For themselves, but also for every woman, women need to act and stand up for their rights, including their right to the city. In every urban field, women have a role to play: questioning public administrations, joining feminist NGOs, raising awareness, debating about gender equality, talking back to an aggressor in the street, loitering in their cities, creating and enjoying feminist street art... Remember, small steps count, so anything you can do is better than doing nothing.
Chapter #9 Recommendations for a fair shared city
“Japanese women should raise their voices and fight for their rights openly and say that it is everyone’s problem.” Rike, Yokohama “Be involved in the debates about the city.” Ulrike, Malmö
Gender-mainstreaming is both top-down and bottomup. The locals and their experiences contribute to new knowledge and topics but it also needs top-down support and the political will is really essential. Eva KAIL, CEO at Vienna City Hall
2. Women’s solidarity
The participants generally expressed a desire for a stronger, collective voice to emerge. The need for an increased sense of solidarity between women was unanimously highlighted, with a special emphasis on solidarity with victims of gender-based violence and on the collective appropriation of public space.
“This is why feminist concepts of empowerment, women’s consciousness and the intersection of boundaries need to be brought to the forefront.”83 1. Women call for a stronger collective voice and the appropriation of public space. Trust, support and collaboration are the key words here.
“Women can speak out..., come together, team work, trust each other” Keitumetse, Francistown “Unite and speak with one voice to have a vision on our views” Zandile, Cape Town 2. More solidarity with women victims of gender-based violence. Make sure to be on the lookout if you think another woman might be in danger, and give her the support she needs after an act of aggression. This could simply mean walking side by side with a solitary woman so she will not be alone anymore. It also includes not judging other women for how they dress or behave in public space.
“Help street harassment victims, don’t hesitate to speak, go out with groups of girls to re-appropriate public spaces which are often occupied by men” Louise, Montevideo “We shouldn’t slut shame other women and we have to reclaim places by going in groups” Minna, Malmö 3. Solidary amongst women in the political arena was also mentioned. A better representation of women in politics often leads to a better representation of women more generally. Women should not hesitate to get involved to speak up for other women.
“Get involved. Get engaged and speak up loud for what women want- more representation in policy making bodies, getting together for a collective voice. Groom them.” Caitlin, Houston
83. Kristine B. MIRANNE and Alma H. YOUNG (Eds.), Gendering the City: Women, Boundaries, and Visions of Urban Life, Oxford, Rowman & Liteerfield Publishers Inc., 2000
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2. The need for more male feminists
1. Be more understanding, sensitive and accepting on the issue of gender equality
Women respondents are clear: if change is going to happen, it cannot happen without men. Men are the key to a transition to a more gender-equal world. Recommendations towards men were divided into a three process steps: awareness, solidarity and action.
By being aware of gender discrimination, men can contribute to gender equality. They have to listen more so they can try to put themselves in women’s shoes and so understand how they feel in their city. Realizing that women experience the city differently but do not deserve a restricted right to their city is the first step towards empathy, solidarity and action.
“They should accept us as equal! We can do the same work, know the same... They should listen and imagine how we feel. They take their rights for granted.” Rike, Yokohama “Be more conscious that women have a different but equally valid point of view and needs. Let women determine for themselves what their needs are and don’t tell them they are wrong” Julia, Houston 2. Promote solidarity between men and women
Women want men on their side. The achievement of gender equality in public space, in the private sphere or in politics can only be accomplished if men team up with women for a better future. Women also need encouragement, support and mentoring from men. Men will also benefit from these partnerships, which contribute to fight against injustices towards men.
“Team up with women, stop paternalism, building gender mutual trust, as fathers, raise children and boys with respect for women in the street” LM, Yokohama “They should understand that women do not want to hear their opinions and comment all the time. They should also encourage us” Jitka, Prague “Be more vigilant, careful, pay attention to what’s going on around you and help harassment victims and discrimination victims.” Louise, Montevideo 3. Take action, change mentalities
Improving urban planning in public space is not the only answer to gender equality in the city. The way men behave around women (street harassment, manspreading, urination...) also needs to change. Men have to be more aware of women’s sensitivities and their experience of the city. Sharing a city do not mean imagining what women could think or how they could live in their city. It means opening men’s minds to women’s and really listening to them. Then men have to act, taking these experiences into account, and raise awareness among their peers.
“Stop street harassment and rape, be role models and push men to stop urinating in the streets” Minna, Malmö
“Solidarity, be more aware of the safety of women, getting men involved in stopping rape (see Jackson Katz), like bystander programs, education is not enough...” Olivia, New Haven
Walking with Indeso Mujer - Rosario © Womenability
Chapter #9 Recommendations for a fair shared city
3. For more collective and visible NGO actions
Women respondents have high expectations for the roles of NGOs in combatting gender discriminations in public space. The most important action women want to see emerge is generating awareness about gender discrimination, especially through education, lobbying and transformational actions (such as exploratory walks).
“Team up with media to raise awareness” LM, Francistown “Education about gender, more articles, radio, coming out day, violence against women” Olivia, Zurich
“It doesn’t matter so much what circumstances or mechanics are involved, once inclusiveness is achieved, participants believe that their inclusion gives them access not to just one position or vantage point, but to many.” Abdoumaliq SIMONE
NGOs are perceived as important representatives of women’s voices and experiences. Women support the idea of more gender-based studies and demonstrations to reinforce awareness on gender issues. They also call for NGOs to work together and expand their mobilization techniques to target a more diverse audience.
“Be involved in the debate on the city and make demands; be active, get and share knowledge” Ulrika, Malmö “Be more visible by organizing actions (protests, ad...) to show women they are not alone. Also make studies, statistics, because it’s easier to defend a cause with data” Louise, Montevideo “Bring NGOs to work together, not fight for funding” Olivia, New Haven
“Better awareness, better community organization and mobilization” Supreet, Mumbai Regarding the tools and resources at the disposal of NGOs, exploratory walks were warmly praised as a mean to raise awareness on gender issues.
Walking with Connecticut Women Consortium New Haven © Womenability
“Arrange walks like this, collect experiences and raise awareness about the issues” Minna, Malmö
It is incumbent upon us as the policy makers and implementers to consider the challenges that are faced by women specifically when we make governance decisions. To fight gender inequalities you need partnership with other spheres of government, civil society and religious organizations to ensure that women are treated equally in society, in government and in the private sector. Patricia DE LILLE, Mayor of Cape Town
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4. Institutions with more inclusive politics and more female representation
1. More general use of gender planning
Last but not least, public institutions are at the forefront for making fairer cities where the well-being of women and men are equally prioritized. The recommendations towards institutions were divided into three types of actions: gender planning, women representation in decision-making processes and increasing public actions.
Women respondents asked for a better general use of gender planning, gender mainstreaming and gender-budgeting in the organization of public space. On this matter, the role and the duties of public institutions are very important, as they can mostly be done exclusively by them. Women globally asked for public institutions to better cate to their needs in public space, in terms of public facilities and services.
“Provide more public facilities, plant flowers, provide toilets, walk way, lights...” Francistown, LM “Access for spaces, services for women changing children and breastfeeding, better access to contraceptives” New Haven, Olivia “Listen to the people, make cities more physically inclusive, participation in democratic process needs to be more inclusive” Malmö, Minna
We have been through a phase where we have educated all our staff on gender- equality issues, and we’re now going to evaluate this process.
Nils KARLSONN, head of human’s rights, democracy and gender equality office at Malmö City Hall
Deconstructing that environment reveals aspects of urban life that would considerably different if the needs of all women and other marginalized groups were taken into account. By arguing for a change in the agenda of cities, the authors challenge traditional patterns and the institutions that create and sustain them.84
2. Better political representation of women in institutions
Participants also called for the better integration of women in public and private institutions and in the decision-making process. This is important in order to make gender equality real. As women represent at least 50% of the population, cities need more of them in politics to foster a better inclusion of women’s needs. After interviewing many female mayors across the globe, we found that they also lobby in order to accelerate and create sustainable change in cities.
“We need more women in government on all levels, start with grassroots at community activism, groom them...” Houston, Beth “Be aware that more than half of the population of the city is feminine, put women who are sensitive to these problems on higher positions in order to change the «status quo»” Sofia, Deniz
84. Kristine B. MIRANNE and Alma H. YOUNG (Eds.), Gendering the City: Women, Boundaries, and Visions of Urban Life, Oxford, Rowman & Liteerfield Publishers Inc., 2000
Chapter #9 Recommendations for a fair shared city
As the first woman to ever serve as Mayor of New Haven I have made it a point to have women serve in senior positions throughout my administration. These strong, capable women serve as role models and help inspire younger women in New Haven to work hard to overcome gender-based bias and disparate opportunities. Toni HARP, Mayor of New Haven
3. More concrete social and safety actions
There is a strong demand for more initiatives for public safety, which can be achieved through legislation, police or CCTV.
“Spread, promote and develop socio-economical programs for a city more equalitarian” Rosario, Liza “Make it easy to file a complaint/report. A public sign about what is harassment. Describing what is not accepted to do against women and where to report this crime” Malmö, Erika “Be open to the problem, more money for the office of equality; more street lights in some dark areas” Zurich, Nadia
Conclu
usion
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Improving gender mainstreaming in public space requires four distinct yet related steps. First, it requires awareness to make sure the subject is taken into account beyond urban planning and safety preoccupations. It requires education to change mentalities to accept inclusiveness and gender equality in the long run. It also desperately requires solidarity between women, between women and men, between any gender identity people can claim for themselves. Finally, gender mainstreaming in public space requires representativeness, especially in planning and politics so women’s point of view can be heard and so female role models can be brought to light.
Women’s double penalty
Awareness, education, solidarity and representativeness should apply to all women, in all their diversity. As stressed, being a woman in a city is challenging. But being a poor, elderly, racialized, non-heterosexual or transsexual woman is even more so. Those distinctions are also exacerbated when it implies living in the “wrong neighborhood”, hanging out at the “wrong time”, wearing the “wrong clothes” or loving the “wrong person”. A lot of women suffer from this double penalty. Intersectionality is the key to gender mainstreaming, including in public space. Elected representatives, urban planners and every policy makers have to take into account the diversity of all women in all their public policies in order to plan cities where everyone can feel good.
It is due to the previous generation of women who fought for gender equality that we’re here, and I think that at least, we can do the same for the next generation of women. Hélène BIDART gender equality Commissioner at Paris City Hall
“Although it is difficult to develop feminist ideologies that bring in all the complexities of women and their lives. It is precisely for this reason that we should undertake the effort (Barett and McIntosh 1985, King 1988).”85
Improvements for all
A city where everyone feels good includes men of course, in all their diversity too. If the highlighted Best practices are firstly aimed at improving the urban lives of women, it is important to notice that several of them could or would improve the lives of men, for example, by boosting their experiences as fathers or even reducing perceptions that they are “predatory figures” Moreover, without gender distinction, improvements to accessibility can benefit people with permanent or temporarily reduced mobility.
Even if men are not directly impacted or do not feel concerned by these suggested enhancements, they need to think about their wife, daughters, mother, sisters, nieces, cousins, friends – all the women they care about who could benefit from these Best practices. These practices would also benefit future generations, children, girls or boys, who do not have to grow up experiencing gender discrimination – or any discrimination – anymore.
85. Kristine B. MIRANNE and Alma H. YOUNG (Eds.), Gendering the City: Women, Boundaries, and Visions of Urban Life, Oxford, Rowman & Liteerfield Publishers Inc., 2000
Conclusion
The most important things for cities is cooperation, because we know that in 2025, 70% of the world population will be living in major cities. That means big responsibilities are transferred to local authorities and cities should address the needs of the women. Malina EDEVRA, Responsible of culture, education, and cultural diversity at Sofia City Hall
“When a city’s design provided everyone with what they need people will give the city what it needs” Mehred MANDEFRO
Everyone can play their part
Like a mantra, this report repeats again and again “everyone can play their part”. For every theme, we highlight some Best practices created by amazing women, men, NGOs and cities, committed to gender mainstreaming. If they can do it, anyone can do it, and therefore contribute to well-being in their city. So sooner rather than later, women will not have to develop coping strategies, will not have to stay discrete, will not have to fear aggression, because there will be so many of them loitering, practicing sports and hanging out in their city. Together, let’s face the challenge: to make gender equality a reality in a place where more than half of the world’s population lives – cities.
And you? What does your dream city looks like?
References
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Bibliography • Iain BORDEN, Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture and the Body, Berg, 2001 • Guy DI MEO, Les murs invisibles: femmes, genre et géographie sociale, Paris, France, A. Colin, 2011 • Anne-Charlotte HUSSON and Thomas MATHIEU, Le féminisme en sept slogans et citations, La petite bédéthèque des savoirs, Le Lombard, 2015 • Anastasia LOUKAITOU-SIDERIS and Renia EHRENFEUCHT, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, MIT Press, 2009 • Edith MARUEJOULS, Mixité, parité, genre et lutte contre les discriminations dans les politiques publiques: le cas des espaces et des équipements publics destinés aux loisirs des jeunes, Université Toulouse II – Le Mirail – CERTOP – Région Midi-Pynérées, 2014 • Andrew Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, 2013 • Peter NOEVER and Kimberli MEYER, Urban Future Manifestos, MAK Los Angeles, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010 • Kristine B. MIRANNE and Alma H. YOUNG (Eds.), Gendering the City: Women, Boundaries, and Visions of Urban Life, Oxford, Rowman & Liteerfield Publishers Inc., 2000 • Shilpa PHADKE, Sameera KHAN and Shilpa RANADE, Why Loiter?: Women And Risk On Mumbai Streets, Paperback, 2011 • Yves RAIBAUD, La ville faite par et pour les hommes, Belin, 2015
Webography • Collectif “Stop Harcèlement de rue” http://www.stopharcelementderue.org/ • Genre ! Je m’interroge, tu t’interroges, interrogez-vous https://cafaitgenre.org/ • Genre et ville, “Plateforme de réflexion et d’action sur identités et territorialités” http://www.genre-et-ville.org/ • Gender mainstreaming in Vienna, city webpage about its gender equality actions https:// www.wien.gv.at/english/administration/gendermainstreaming/ • Observatory of the European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local life http:// www.charter-equality.eu/ • NGO “Stop Street Harassment” http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/
Appendices
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Full contents
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Preface
2
Contents
5
Thank you
6
Methodology
8
Who are we? What is an exploratory walk? [Map] Our itinerary and partners How should I read this report? The action-research in key figures
Introduction
8 9 10 12 13 14
An inclusive approach A renewed approach, based on well-being A grassroots approach
14 14 15
Chapter #1. How do women experience the city? – The five senses in focus
16
The city, a touchy subject 1.1 Seeing in the city, between a smile and a flower 1.2 Listening in the city, a dissonant symphony 1.3 Tasting in the city: the street’s many delights 1.4 Smelling in the city: a necessary balance between authenticity and safety 1.5 Touching in the city, a delicate matter Conclusion Best practices
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Chapter #2. Women on the move - Mobility Taking women’s mobility into account 2.1 Walking and public transportation are the most common ways of moving around for women 2.2 Women wish for more freedom on the road 2.3 What are the main challenges that women face in their commutes? 2.4 A few lessons from our walks 2.5 We need more female role models in our cities Women’s recommendations Conclusion Best practices
Chapter #3. Women: wives, mothers, daughters - Family Public spaces: A reflection of gender roles in the house? 3.1 Limited mobility of mothers 3.2 Breastfeeding and changing a baby, the big challenge 3.3 Hide and seek, recreation with children 3.4 The needs of older people:, between accessibility and intergenerational interaction Women’s recommendations Conclusion Best practices
Chapter #4. The city, “so fresh and so clean”? - Cleanliness More than a clean urban environment 4.1 The desperate need for public bathrooms 4.2 For a better waste management
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4.3 “Who let the dogs out?”, animals in the city 4.4 Graffiti and street art to embellish the city Women’s recommendations Conclusion Best practices
Chapter #5. A woman’s right to loiter - Activities The right to more than safety 5.1 Unequally distributed green spaces 5.2 A long-term competition for equal use and access 5.3 Hanging out, the public bench dilemma 5.4 Proximity is the key for shopping 5.5 Street workers, between safety and representation on the corner 5.6 Art for, by and with women Women’s recommendations Conclusion Best practices
Chapter #6. Women’s bodies exposed - Security Street harassment, first factor of insecurity perception 6.1 Oral harassment 6.2 Physical harassment 6.3 Being followed 6.4 Violence in the street 6.5 Reporting street harassment to the police Women’s recommendations Conclusion Best practices
Chapter #7. Sex (and love) in the city Reclaiming women’s body in public space: a path paved with hardships 7.1 Women’s wear, the heart of the matter 7.2 Holding hands and kissing her/his partner, gestures under pressure 7.3 Showing one’s sexual orientation, a costly freedom 7.4 Buying contraceptives, a basic right hard to access Women’s recommendations Conclusion Best practices
Chapter #8. Men’s voice 8.1 Awareness of gender discrimination in public space 8.2 Acting on men’s behavior Conclusion
Chapter #9. Recommendations for a fair shared city 9.1 Women’s empowerment from the individual to the collective 9.2 The need for more male feminists 9.3 For more collective and visible NGO actions 9.4 Institutions with more inclusive politics and more female representation
Conclusion
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Women’s double penalty Improvements for all Everyone can play their part
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Full contents
References
139 Bibliography Webography
Appendices
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Full contents Short presentation of our NGOs partners
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Short presentation of our NGOs partners • EDL Porte de la Chapelle is a section of the Paris Municipality in charge of local development in the 18th district. The team offers help in cultural, social, planning matters... at the local level. • Founded in 2012, Malmo Jamstallhedtsbyra (malmojamstalldhetsbyra.se) is a feminist association which supports women’s full participation and inclusion. The bureau conducts workshops and trainings and offers lectures on gender equality in and around Malmo. • Gender Studies (en.genderstudies.cz) is an information, education and consulting center on gender equality and the position of men and women in the society, which advocates equal opportunities for men and women through trainings, awareness campaigns and publications. • Founded in 2009, VIA CIVIC (www.viacivic.org) supports the active inclusion of young people in different areas of public life and their development, and promotes citizenship through activities, advocacy campaigns and implementation of strategies at different levels. • L-punkt (www.l-punkt.uzh.ch) is an association of the University of Zurich open to lesbian, queer and bisexual women and which promotes the LGBT culture through various events and activities. • The Connecticut Women’s Consortium (www.womensconsortium.org) located in New Haven focuses on mental health and trauma issues in a gender-responsive manner through the provision of training and assistance. • Houston Tomorrow (www.houstontomorrow.org) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people in the Houston region, particularly through advocacy for better planning and transportation. • Indeso Mujer in Rosario (Argentina), is a civil organization which works towards the eradication of all forms of discrimination against women through awareness campaigns, policy analysis and advocacy work. • Originating from Guatemala, OCAC Uruguay (ocacgt.org/ocac-uruguay/) [Observatory Against Street Harassment] raises awareness about the street harassment of which women are victims. • SafeCity (www.safecity.in) is a platform that crowdsources personal stories of sexual harassment and abuse in public spaces. The platform has collected over 10,000 stories from over 50 cities in India, Kenya, Cameroon and Nepal, since its inception in 2012. • The YWCA Botswana (www.ywca.org.bw) provides socio-economic opportunities, education and health services to women and girls in Botswana. The organization is also active in gender issues such the high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, low status of women, teen pregnancies etc. • Social Justice Coalition (www.sjc.org.za) is a South African NGO working towards the advancement of the living conditions and constitutional rights of residents in informal settlements in South Africa in particular. It is based in the neighborhood of Khayelitsha.
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Solutions for gender fair cities An international action-research report
Womenability was founded on the idea that seemingly small actions can have big results. Born out of a conversation between friends on the outskirts of Paris, Womenability is a unique NGO with a simple yet radical mission: to make gender equality a reality in the world’s cities. Using exploratory walks to gather both qualitative and quantitative data regarding the experiences of women in public space, Womenability traveled to 25 cities across six continents over the course of six months. This report is the product of this research-action project. It reveals the numerous, and sometimes unexpected, obstacles to the equal access and enjoyment of public spaces by women, from a lack of green spaces, accessible public transportation, and public toilets, to persistent harassment and outright violence. Building on these experiences and observations, the report offers a series of recommendations and best practices, many developed by women themselves, for creating the gender equal cities of the future. Womenability believes that it is up to all of us to make this vision a reality.