World Habitat Day sends message that habitat is a gender issue
World Habitat Day sends message that habitat is a gender issue
By Inge Komardjaja
BANDUNG (JP): This year's World Habitat Day on Oct. 4 carries
the message "Cities for All". It reminds urban planners and
managers that women and men, girls and boys, from all walks of
life and different backgrounds have equal rights to enjoy the
access and use of a city's infrastructure and public buildings.
The theme is self-explanatory and implies the notion that the
access and use of a city should not discriminate against any
segment of the population. This ideal is far from reality,
particularly when the user of the habitat, the living environment
of human beings, becomes a gender issue.
Planners and designers seem to ignore or do not consider the
fact that men and women use and experience habitat in different
ways according to the roles and tasks they perform. This
difference, along with the complexities of social, economic and
political overtones, is reflected in the spatial organization of
the city.
At the outset, it must be made clear about the difference
between women and gender as the interchangeable use of the terms
produce great confusion. Physical features make women different
from men, so the term women and men bear a biological meaning.
The concept of gender is not based on sex and biology, but has
a social meaning. It refers to the social relations between women
and men that are constructed by aspects of history, economy,
social class, ethnicity and culture of the region where they come
from. A gender perspective recognizes the different roles,
interests, needs and relations between women and men. As such, it
is essential to integrate a gender perspective into the planning
and architectural design of a city.
Historically, human habitat has been divided into two parts,
private and public, on a basis of a traditional segregation of
women's reproductive work and men's productive work.
The private sphere was the cave, shelter or later, the
physical building of a house, the site for protection from
natural phenomena and human intruders and also the place for
family life and domestic chores.
As reproductive workers, women have been caregivers and
householders, and thus the house and its immediate surroundings
become their domain. Beyond the house, the environment provides
wider social and economic opportunities and is more open for
natural and human invasion.
These challenges are to be faced appropriately by men who are
considered more rational and physically stronger than women are.
Men have been the productive worker and are used to being the
prime breadwinner of the family. Opportunities for paid
employment, extending job relations and socializing occur in the
public sphere. It is, therefore, acceptable if men spend a lot of
time outside the house without their family.
The public environment has been a vital part of a man's life.
The public formal sector of work becomes more significant than
private informal household work. This principle has made an
impact on the creation of the built environment, where the public
environment due to its economic value was assumed more
significant than the private domain.
In a patriarchal society, urban planners and designers tend to
use the standard of the physical capabilities of an average young
and healthy male adult to build the habitat. Those who do not fit
this standard have to adjust or avoid the use of an environment
that is not easy to negotiate.
Examples can be noticed from a city's roads that are
constructed to accommodate the mechanical mobility of motor
vehicles, which are mostly driven by men. Not much is done
considerably to facilitate pedestrians.
City planners are more concerned with the smooth flow of
traffic than the safety and comfort of walking. In traditional
markets, vendors rent small spaces to display and sell items.
They remain stationary in their stalls, whereas women, who are
the buyers and need to move around, have to cope with density,
while carrying bags or baskets full of shopping.
With the passage of time and growth of industries, economic,
cultural and social advantages bring about changes in the
conventional norms of homebound women. Nowadays many women enter
higher education, graduate from overseas universities and pursue
a career.
The boundary between private and public spheres is dissolving
and women and men are taking the liberty of having a preference
toward household chores or paid employment. Despite the growing
number of women in the paid work force, they continue to perform
the roles of nurturer and housekeeper.
The double function in reproductive and productive work
renders women as users of a wider spectrum of the habitat and
they are more affected by physical impediments than men (Parker
1999).
For women, the high pavement along the thoroughfares and the
staircases without handrails at the entrance of modern buildings
may impede their physical mobility.
We might see a woman holding the hand of a toddler and
carrying the shopping with her other arm while crossing a
congested road and stepping up and down along the pavement. Men,
such as hawkers, face the same privation.
In conventional trade, a hawker carries vegetables, fruit,
knick-knacks, food or beverage in bamboo containers and tins on
shoulder poles. Another common scene is a man who pushes and
pulls his cart of goods along the streets. Women and men have to
deal with high, narrow, uneven and cracked pavement.
Eventually, they are forced to walk on the road as jaywalkers,
without taking precautions to potential dangers from traffic
accidents.
Public transportation and street lighting are services offered
by the city, but they do not give priority to the convenience and
safety of women and men. Public buses and minibuses are too often
overflowing with passengers who put their life at risk in order
to reach their destination. In the evening, women, who for
various reasons are on the road, run the risk of becoming a
victim of crime due to poorly designed street lighting.
Prior to the economic turmoil that hit Indonesia in 1997, the
country was intensely engaged in the construction of buildings
and infrastructure in large cities.
To build high-rise buildings, flyovers, asphalted
thoroughfares, footbridges, pavement improvements and vast
parking lots was the target of city planning and development
officials, who aimed to help the quality of life for women and
men.
With the dramatic transformation of a city's physical
appearance by modern buildings and infrastructures, and the
blending of the private and public spheres, the question is does
the extent to which the physical success of the city produce a
habitat support and enrich the lives of its citizens.
The answer is perhaps yes for the financially secure. The
poor, the elderly, the disabled and small children remain limited
from accessing and using the physical facilities of the improved
habitat.
The city of today cannot claim to be nondiscriminatory. The
process of gendered habitat is attained and strengthened by the
growing trend towards decentralization, where each local region
governs or controls itself rather than being controlled by the
central government.
It gives hope for creating cities that are up to the standard
women and men require for safety and comfort, thereby easing
their hectic life. Decentralization paves the way for city
planners and managers to rely less on top-down government
policies and to pay more heed to underprivileged inhabitants.
They are poorly represented in the formulation of policies,
and they are excluded from the city's agenda on physical
development. They need to be included from the beginning of the
development process. By stressing the significance of gender-
sensitive planning, a habitat attuned to people's needs is likely
to be created, leading ultimately to the accomplishment of
"Cities for All".
The writer is a researcher at the Research Institute for Human
Settlements (Puslitbang Permukiman), Ministry of Public Works,
Bandung regency.