Public Space Must Listen to Women's Bodies and Voices
Women and cities
have complex and interdependent relationships. However, public spaces are often
built without listening to women's bodies and voices. In many cities, women
face challenges in accessing spaces in a safe, comfortable, and inclusive
way—whether due to masculine design, a lack of gender-friendly amenities, or
even indifference to the unique biological rhythms of the female body.
The female body
undergoes hormonal cycles that affect mobility, comfort, and safety. Unfortunately,
this is rarely accommodated in the design of public spaces. Imagine a waiting
room, a city park, or a bus stop that does not provide comfortable seating
areas, clean toilets, good lighting, or even breastfeeding facilities. Not to
mention when it comes to safe spaces from harassment. It is therefore important
for cities to build empathy through design.
The concept of Hormonal
Cities emphasizes the importance of an architectural and urban design
approach that is sensitive to women's physiological and psychosocial needs. This
is not only about gender justice, but also strategies to improve the quality of
life and social participation of all city citizens.
In urban design,
the body has often been abstracted, neutralized, and standardized — modeled on
the able-bodied, working-age male. However, as feminist urbanism argues, the
city must be reshaped to recognize the different lived realities of all its
citizens, especially women. The notion that “public space must listen to
women’s bodies and voices” is not just poetic — it is a critical call to action
in creating more inclusive, empathetic, and just cities.
Listening to
the Rhythms of Women
Women experience
the city differently. Their interactions with public space are shaped by
multiple rhythms: biological (menstruation, pregnancy, menopause), caregiving
responsibilities, socio-cultural norms, and concerns for safety. Despite these
realities, urban planning remains largely insensitive to these cycles and
needs.
Research shows
that infrastructure and planning policies often overlook women’s bodies, time
use, and movement patterns (Whitzman, 2012). For instance, caregiving trips
involving multiple destinations are still underrepresented in transportation
planning. This invisibility results in infrastructure that fails to address the
realities of women’s everyday life — from inadequate lighting on sidewalks to
the lack of restrooms or breastfeeding facilities in parks and transit hubs.
Cities Built
for Masculine Norms
In her book Invisible
Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado
Perez (2019) illustrates how urban planning is inherently gender-biased. From
snow-clearing routes prioritizing major roads (used more by men) over
pedestrian paths (used more by women), to the design of public transportation
schedules and stops, the male perspective dominates. This systemic oversight
marginalizes women, especially those from low-income and minority backgrounds.
A study by Kern
(2020) also critiques the modern urban space as patriarchal and disciplinary.
The spatial politics of surveillance and control, particularly through
architecture and planning, reproduce gendered hierarchies. Urban form thus
becomes complicit in sustaining a culture where women often feel unsafe or
unwelcome.
Urban Empathy
and Feminist Design
Designing public
spaces with a feminist lens means centering empathy, equity, and bodily
awareness. Urbanist Leslie Kern (2020) emphasizes that feminist cities must be
places of care — spatially and socially. For cities to truly ‘listen’ to
women’s voices and bodies, planners must recognize affective experiences: fear,
comfort, joy, anxiety, and fatigue.
This includes:
- Restorative urban furniture that supports
pregnancy or menstrual discomfort.
- Safe, accessible, and clean public toilets.
- Flexible transportation systems that
accommodate caregiving responsibilities.
- Visible representation and participation of
women in urban governance.
Public space
must not only accommodate but celebrate the diversity of women’s embodied
experiences. This includes designing for trans and non-binary people, elderly
women, and women with disabilities.
Voices from
the Margins
Women have long
organized for spatial justice. From the anti-harassment “Take Back the Night”
marches to feminist planning collectives, voices from the margins have demanded
safer streets, equitable transit, and inclusive parks. Participatory design
methods — such as women-led safety audits and mapping exercises — are powerful
tools to collect these voices and integrate them into policy.
A study in Delhi
(Phadke, 2011) showed how women’s perceptions of safety are deeply tied to the
social and symbolic nature of space, not just its physical design. Thus, urban
justice requires addressing both material and cultural barriers.
Toward
Hormonal Cities
The concept of “Hormonal
Cities,” is Critical thinking that is deliberately promoted to advocate for
an urban environment designed with consideration of women's biological rhythms.
These are not just aesthetic or infrastructural interventions — they call for a
paradigmatic shift in planning logic. Cities should be empathetic organisms,
attuned to care, sensitivity, cycles, and difference.
Hormonal Cities encourage planners to move
past frameworks and address the temporal, emotional, and physiological
dimensions of public spaces. Examples include incorporating rest pods for
menstrual discomfort in parks, employing adaptive lighting based on safety
assessments, and promoting participatory budgeting practices tailored to
gender-responsive infrastructure.
The Role of
City Governments and Women’s Movements
Urban
governments must move beyond tokenism and institutionalize feminist planning.
Gender impact assessments, inclusive zoning regulations, and representative
leadership in planning boards are crucial.
At the same
time, women’s movements must continue to push for rights to the city — the
right to safety, expression, leisure, and rest. Coalitions between planners,
feminists, and communities are essential to making public space truly public.
Conclusion
When public
spaces begin to listen to women’s bodies and voices, the city transforms. It
becomes not just a space of movement and commerce, but of care, equity, and
dignity. We must move away from rigid, masculine paradigms and design cities as
dynamic, inclusive ecosystems. Listening — truly listening — is the first act
of justice.
References:
1. Criado Perez,
C. (2019). Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.
Abrams Press.
2. Kern, L. (2020). Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. Verso Books.
Full
article: Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World
3. Phadke, S.,
Khan, S., & Ranade, S. (2011). Why Loiter?: Women and Risk on Mumbai
Streets. Penguin Books India.
4. Whitzman, C.
(2012). The Handbook of Community Safety, Gender and Violence Prevention:
Practical Planning Tools. Routledge.
The
Handbook of Community Safety Gender and Violence Prevention | Prac
5. United
Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). (2022). Gender-Responsive
Urban Planning and Design. Nairobi:
UN-Habitat.
https://unhabitat.org/gender-responsive-urban-planning-and-design
Gender
Responsive Urban Planning and Design | UN-Habitat
Tags: Urban Design, Public
Space, Feminist City, Women’s Rights, Gender Equity, Urban Architecture,
Inclusive Design, Hormonal Cities.
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