Gender Neutral Urbanism

Urban planning is not gender-neutral, and the time has come to overturn major guidelines that have prioritized the needs of men. This is the goal of those in Spain who promote "inclusive urbanism."

Steven Meisel

To whom does urban space belong? Are the cities we inhabit man-sized or woman-sized? Or, to put it better, are cities responsive to the needs and requirements of all the people in them? Urban planning certainly has never been neutral. When mobility guidelines were set in large Spanish cities 30 years ago, more thought was given to satisfying a standard citizenry that was male, white, and middle-class. Thus, streets and public spaces were associated with productive activities, which were once carried out mainly by men, and the cars that were used to travel to workplaces.

This initiated a male-descended urban narrative that led to a design of cities where women were thought of in homes, devoted only to family life.

Via “Master Emergency Architecture”, 2020.

Even today, despite the massive entry of women into the workforce, the urban planning area of Spain's major cities is struggling to come up with a solution to women's difficulties in combining their professional and family lives, that role of caregiving that they are often forced to play that involves not just linear mobility with one starting point and one ending point but many more. It is mostly women who, on the way from home to the workplace, have to drive their sons and daughters to school, then when they leave work, they have to remember to go to the bakery or the grocery store to buy what they will turn into lunch or dinner, they have to drive back from school to pick up their sons and daughters, they also have to find a way and time to go to the doctor to accompany an elderly parent or dependent relative. Then, when they can, they also reach the nearest park or garden to walk the dog.

Via “Modern Times”, 2023.

In Madrid, as in Barcelona, Valencia, or Seville, the urban form is often the result and evidence of the close link between patriarchy and capital. In the different spaces we inhabit - the houses, the streets, or the squares - the urban model responds mainly to the experiences and needs of a male subject considered more profitable and to an economic model based on exploitation. Thus, little by little, following this logic, urban planning and architecture have favored the exclusion from urban space of women and other non-hegemonic subjectivities, such as racialized people, the elderly, children, or people with functional diversity.

In the face of this conception of the city, which forces the people who inhabit it to deal with large daily displacements, prioritizing the use of private vehicles, and conceives the streets as places of transit rather than meeting places, the idea of feminist urbanism and inclusive urbanism has emerged, encompassing contributions from various fields of urban planning and architecture on the projection of sustainable cities suited to daily life and centered on people's needs. In recent times, there has been a growing demand for projects that claim the need to plan cities by prioritizing the mobility necessary for care, primarily the responsibility of women and precisely for this reason often invisible, as opposed to the supremacy of linear mobility, i.e., that from home to work, which focuses on the productive and remunerative aspects, traditionally linked to men.

Is Europe asking us to do this when it talks about ecological transition and sustainability? Cities such as Vienna or Paris have gone beyond planning and have already implemented "15-minute" urban zones based on the concept of proximity, where work, shopping, health care, education, wellness, culture, shopping, and entertainment can all be within fifteen minutes of one's home, on foot or by bicycle. The recent COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and many other challenges facing the world, need solidarity, collective action, and the capacity for interdisciplinary work. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated inequalities for vulnerable people, including women and girls, but has enhanced their predominant role in the pandemic response. It has made them aware of the gap between the built city and the city that daily life requires to perform all its tasks. In contrast to what has been achieved so far, putting care and socialization at the center of design would encourage everyone, perhaps even men, to participate in these tasks.

Via “Treehugger”, 2020.

In Spain, collectives of feminist urbanists such as Dunak Taldea in the north of the country, or Col·lectiu Punt 6, formed by female architects and sociologists united in a Barcelona-based cooperative, or UrbanIn+, for inclusive urbanism, have for years been demanding the reclamation of public space, to guarantee the right to the city and to build inclusive and socially emancipated cities that incorporate the experiences and needs of the place and of the people who use and live in their spaces. In urban planning, the feminist vision of Spanish cities is making its way into institutions after more than two decades of struggle in academic and professional circles. The analysis starts with the realization that urban planning is not gender-neutral and that the time has come to overturn the main urban planning guidelines that have prioritized the needs of the male gender. It is about putting people's lives at the center of urban decisions, considering a gender perspective not just as an analytical tool to highlight the differences in the use of spaces by women and men, along with the tasks, stereotypes, and roles attributed to each, but to go a step further and analyze how these gender roles influence and have direct implications on urban decisions.

In urban planning, the feminist vision of Spanish cities is making its way into institutions after more than two decades of struggle in academic and professional circles. The analysis starts with the realization that urban planning is not gender-neutral and that the time has come to overturn the main urban planning guidelines that have prioritized the needs of the male gender. It is about putting people's lives at the center of urban decisions. Gender urbanism or a gender perspective because although it is generally an analytical tool to make visible the differences in the uses of spaces due to being women and men, and the tasks, stereotypes, and roles attributed to each, we want to go a step further and analyze how these gender roles influence and have direct implications in urban decisions.

Col·lectiu Punt 6 Via “Katakrak”, 2023.

The commitment is to transform society by rethinking spaces, because spaces also help shape realities. Cities designed by feminist urbanism do not think only about women; there is no design that is reduced to "things that affect women," but seeks to incorporate an intersectional vision that speaks to universal issues. The challenge is to consider gender diversity crossed with other identity variables, such as age, origin, sexual identity, the type of unit of cohabitation in which one lives, social class, functional diversity, and so on. And how these variables intersect and materialize in the form of privileges and oppressions in the city and the spaces that are used. There is no choice but to reinvent cities and introduce diversity of experiences and needs into any urban planning project, because it is not the same thing to live and experience the city for a young, foreign-born homosexual teenager as it is for an elderly woman, almost 80 years old, who lives alone and has to move with a walker in public spaces or needs a bench to sit on every 200 meters.