BUILDING SAFE URBAN SPACES FOR WOMEN: WOMEN’S SAFETY AUDIT APPROACH

Abstract

For a long time, disciplines concerned with space have operated under the misnomer that space is primarily objective and thus innocent of the social dynamic that operates in it. The same, termed as ‘Spatial Illusions’ by Lefebvre (Lefebvre et al., 1991), has been critiqued. The “illusion of transparency” being the first, views space as being completely transparent to human comprehension (Lefebvre et al., 1991); the second, “illusion of opaqueness” sees space as objective, material and essentially physical (Soja, 1989). The two together paint space as being neutral.  However, all general spaces, especially urban ones, are characterized by uniformity, differences, contradictions and dialectical relations (Lefebvre et al., 2003). They are constituted by spaces of differences and as differentiated spaces, plural in nature. Urban spaces are thus spaces of power and contestation, anonymity and opportunity, freedom and control – all at once.

Of the many things that give urban spaces their pluralistic character, merely one is that of ‘Gender’. Gender divisions are important structuring elements of urban space and urban processes (McDowell, 1983). Men and women conceive, experience and use space in different ways and it is this difference that also influences and informs the perception of what is safe versus unsafe for them (McDowell, 1983; Valentine, 1990).