Public Space for ‘All’ Women

Development approaches envisioned by ‘West’ influence policies and practices in third world societies. Similarly, trends of developed countries are mimicked in developing countries without understanding the ground realities of these marginalised societies. ‘Gendered-public-spaces’ - public spaces which ensure inclusivity and visibility of women in society- is one of such concepts.

Although this concept was originated in neoliberal developed countries to encourage urban women for their participation in economic activities; nevertheless, the idea has started gaining popularity in developing nations. Recently, Pakistani urbanists, women activists, and legal specialists, have begun to discuss implementation of this concept in Pakistan. Ladies parks, pink transportation, safe streets, and bike lanes are some of the ideas floated by these experts. No doubt, these facilities are supportive to empower modern, working, independent and urban women who belong to middle and upper middle classes. However, the advantages of these amenities will not be evident for Pakistani women with traditional, non-working, dependent, and/or rural background, even if she belongs to middle or upper middle class.

Women of lower-middle-class and lower-class, on the other hand, would either have least interest in gendered facilities, like bike lanes, because of their cultural orientation; or these services, like pink transportation, may be financially unreachable for them. Likewise, other free of cost gendered-public-space facilities, like ladies only park, may get sabotaged by socio-economic and class divides evident at multiple levels in Post-colonial countries like Pakistan. It is conspicuous in our society that people belonging to different castes, classes and religions avoid any aspect of socialization and intermingling. Therefore, the gendered-public-spaces may emerge as a platform of expressing social division. For example, it is very much likely that upper-middle-class and middle-class women would avoid travelling in any transportation which is accessible to women with lower economic background. Hence, the explanations offered by Pakistani experts to develop gendered public-spaces depict their insufficient grasp over the knowledge of local culture, post-colonial social complications, and the issues faced by indigenous women of Pakistan. Their discussions undertake the gender issues, vis-à-vis public spaces, the way these issues are perceived by International Development Organisations. These solutions are drawn from the explanations to gender issues related to urban societies of developed neoliberal countries. For this reason, the proposals, to have safe public spaces for every gender of any age, are generally irrelevant to local developing post-colonial societies, like of Pakistan.

This article does not undermine the problems confronted by working women in urban public spaces. At the same time, it is not intended to reduce importance of protected public places for them. However, purpose is to draw the attention towards the genuine concerns while addressing these problems. Ignoring society specific issues only provide superficial solution which focus only small fraction of women with specific class background. On the contrary, the needs and wants of rural women, economically deprived women, women devoted to child-rearing and women involved in house chores are bound to be disregarded. Hence, it is important to decipher the cultural and contextual needs of postcolonial society, like Pakistan, so that relevant connotations of ‘public-spaces’ can be applied. We need to understand that post-colonial developing countries are mostly agricultural in nature with majority of population living in villages. The notion of ‘gendered public-spaces’ generally overlooks the lower-class and large rural feminine population. In order to make it truly inclusive for all women, it is essential to adjust this global idea as per ground realities of local societies. With such an approach, we can move beyond internationally designed notion of ‘gendered-public-spaces’ to make public spaces available for all women of Pakistan - urban and rural, working and house-working, rich and poor.

Saima Khan is a scholar of gender, postcolonial societies, and global studies. She can be reached at sk_saimakhan@outlook.com