We had another interesting lecture today on gender and urban public spaces; focusing on how men and women use public spaces differently. One of the key points that stood out to me was that women here in India will not go out in public unless they have a specific purpose to be out. Apparently, people here assume the worst when they see a woman loitering in public. And I got the impression that socializing did not count as a valid purpose or reason to be out. Our teacher said that women will go to pick up their children half an hour early from school just so they could socialize with each other. Another point was that men tend to take the most direct or interesting routes to their destinations, while women are very conscientious about taking the safest route. Our class discussed and concluded that we can design safer and more comfortable spaces but ultimately architecture cannot fix larger social issues.
After the class I asked my friend Gunjan if sexual harassment was a big problem here and she said, ‘Yes, less so here in Ahmedabad, but it’s particularly bad in New Dehli.’ I also asked her if there is a lot of social pressure for women to behave properly and again she said ‘yes but that it is far worse in other parts of India.’
In light of my previous post it really concerns me that Indian women can be judged just for going out into public spaces. Ideally public spaces can unite people, teach social respect and tolerance, and give people ownership of their city. But a space is not public when half the population is discouraged from going there. I suppose we can design the space and then pray for courageous women to challenge social constraints and for everyone else to become more tolerant.
