Daily Times

Pakistani cities continue to lag behind in gender equity, particularly in terms of accessibility and security for working women. The fact discourages women from stepping out of the house and work. We also see that many cities in the West, although culturally more amenable to the entry of a significant number of women in professions, hitherto an exclusive domain of men, have not advanced in designing transportation systems geared to providing a safe and comfortable environment to females commuting to work on a daily basis.

The first prototype of a crash test dummy designed with a female driver or car passenger did not make it to the testing stage till 2012. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that women’s role as a constant accompanying parent exposes them to severe car crashes. In the last two decades, the movement towards designing women-friendly cities has gained strength due to economic compulsions, fuelled by aggressive gender equality initiatives by the Unied Nations and other organisations.

On an average, women are responsible for significant consumer spending trends, spurring retail corporations to enhance transportation accessibility through locating retail outlets in the modern day labyrinth of public commuting networks. This theory is buoyed by the analysis that working women in the USA earn approximately 80 per cent of their male counterparts, and thus have a residual disposable income after meeting domestic requirements.

The prevailing transit systems worldwide are oriented to transport commuters from a particular destination to another. Here enters the concept of multitasking, as women tend to combine multiple domestic and diverse errands each time they leave the house for their employment. Metro and public transport routes may be associated within the same premises with grocery, pharmacy and household related retail outlets to enable women to manage household chores in a comfortable and accessible manner without impinging on their work demands. This is an obvious inadequacy in the Orange Line of Lahore and Metro routes in Multan, Lahore and Islamabad.

The Global Gender Gap Report of 2017 of the World Economic Forum indicates that gender gaps persist in economic and health domains with perhaps only the education-specific gender space likely to be whittled down over the next decade. Unfortunately, in policy making, gender gap is markedly prominent as male politicians continue to dominate parliamentary politics worldwide. Pakistan has managed to progress with the creation of reserved seats in parliament, and a mandatory minimum female voter participation in polls in every constituency. More needs to be done.

The USA is not a role model for female equity as codes in architectural design and urban planning remain male-centric despite the West having reached a critical point in urban planning as digital innovation and related economic changes do not allow a static approach, be it the convenience of digital transport applications or other steps. Band-aid solutions are visible in exclusive ladies’ compartments in Pakistan, in Dubai’s public Metro and elevated mass public transport systems. Seamless public transport systems catering to half of a city’s population should globally be the next move to facilitate and enhance accessibility. More stops with well lit roads will reduce walking time and alleviate security concerns of female commuters, as presently they remain restricted to daytime activities.

Civic authorities and town planners in Pakistan need to be innovative and encourage pilot projects aimed at removing hurdles to enhance participation of working women in urban centres

Vienna, the Austrian capital, is projected as a success for gender uniformity in commuting, deliberately planned with a brand identity taking into account women and their needs. Gender mainstreaming is the practice of ensuring women and men are accounted for equally in policy, legislation and resource allocation, as enshrined in the UN’s global strategy for gender equality in 1995. This strategy was adopted by Vienna as its future development lay in excessive concentration of housing taking gender into account characterised by a woman’s perspective at every level, ranging from pram storage on every floor, wide stairwells to encourage neighbourly interactions, flexible flat designs, height of building being low for ensuring monitoring commencing from the moment women disembark the bus until they enter their flats.

Noticeable architectural variations in Vienna, capable of replication in other urban centres, was streetlighting enhancement in areas identified in surveys as inducing anxiety by altering traffic lights to prioritise pedestrians, seating arrangements to accommodate mothers accompanied by toddlers, and widening of pavements to adapt to strolling with prams, and children to be deposited at day care centres. Introduction of volleyball and badminton facilities offset boys’ dominance over the caged basketball courts designed exclusively and fitted for girls to relax.

Gender mainstreaming has sometimes been criticized for reinforcing traditional gender by equating childcare with women’s work. There is a thin line between feminist ideals of equality and pragmatics’ benefiting the majority of women that gender mainstreaming uncomfortably spans and the threat perception of males, who perceive gender mainstreaming as challenging their dominance over an assured quality of life and power, although gender mainstreaming is almost procedural in the architectural makeup of a city and entrenched in the municipality mentality.

Civic authorities and town planners in Pakistan need to be innovative and encourage pilot projects aimed at removing hurdles to enhance participation of working women in urban centres. An initial step could be revamping the Metro or public transport services. The slack has been taken up by transport applications such as Uber, but public transport remains safer and more affordable in the long term.

In the cultural ethos of Pakistan, women are burdened with traditional roles. Thus they should be disproportionately facilitated in work-related travel even if it involves subsidising transportation fares or capital expenditure on streetlighting, widening of pavements, ramps for prams, retail outlets in the proximity of Metro stations, greater number of stops to reduce overall travelling time, step in health centres, and wi-fi enabling in buses besides dedicated compartments. It is logical to presume that transportation incentives and facilities will encourage a larger number of women to enter the workforce, expand inclusive education, increase maternal and infant healthcare facilities, and raise household income.

The writer is a researcher in the areas of finance and energy