Metropolis from a gendered perspective
Innovative and inclusive economy
Adequate income levels
Environmental and climate emergency
Sustainable and safe mobility
Healthy food
Territorial cohesion
Proper housing
Cultural vitality
Cities are spaces that generate and reproduce inequalities, including gender inequalities. With the project known as the Metropolis from a gendered perspective, the PEMB wants to keep highlighting how this gender inequality operates in order to collaboratively rethink about the metropolis and how to inhabit it in a more equitable way. To achieve this, the PEMB applies the perspective of gender in a cross-cutting manner throughout in all its areas of action, both internally within the association and the office, as well as in external initiatives to promote reflection and transformation.
Objectives
- Contributing to social reflection on the gender inequalities that occur in metropolises due to their design and social functions, based on the principle that the city is not gender neutral.
- Collaborating in extending the gender perspective in a cross-cutting manner in all urban policies and social initiatives related to the metropolis.
Cities and metropolises are not neutral spaces. The way they are designed and operate often reflect and perpetuate gender inequalities and other diverse sensitivities. Historically, urban planning has been conceived prioritising the needs of the people in power, without taking other realities into account.
Designing and managing cities with a gender perspective entails considering the needs of everyone who lives in and travels through them in order to identify inequalities and barriers that limit equal access to and the enjoyment of urban spaces, facilities and services. This vision seeks to create more inclusive, safe and accessible environments for everyone, with special attention to women, the LGTBIQ+ community and other often overlooked groups, such as the elderly, children and immigrants.
The PEMB’s Metropolis from a Gendered Perspective project is framed within the perspective of gender. It aims to reconceptualise cities and the metropolis in a collaborative way, in order to incorporate gender equity into all dimensions of urban life: from mobility and public space to housing, governance, citizen participation, economic relations and the fight against the climate crisis.
Current challenges in the design and operations of the metropolis
The following are just some examples of how gender inequalities are reflected in cities and metropolises:
- Housing prices are experiencing extreme pressure, especially in the case of the central city (Barcelona) and the closest or most well-connected cities (the metropolitan area), but these rising costs are spreading like an oil slick to the rest of the cities in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. At present, women have a significantly lower average income level due to the well-known wage gap and other factors, while they are also more at risk of poverty, all of which makes them more vulnerable to real estate pressure, according to the Barcelona City Council report Gender in figures. Women’s living conditions and gender inequalities in the city of Barcelona (2024).
- As the numerous Working Day Mobility and Everyday Mobility Surveys of the Metropolis Institute show, both the urban design with specialised urban use areas (which create seasonal timetables) and the associated mobility system (which leads to peak hours and long commutes in terms of distance and time) create inefficiencies in how the city functions and, above all, do not address the needs of caregiving work or the reproductive economy. Due to the persistence of gender stereotypes, these tasks fall mostly on women, which means that the prevailing urban design and mobility system are factors that reproduce gender iniquities.
- The current design of cities also fails to address safety issues in many spaces, with a lack of lighting, poor visibility, corners and more, which generates perceptions of insecurity among women, especially younger women, according to the survey and subsequent report entitled Barcelona through women’s eyes; a feminist city?, produced in 2020 by Àmbit Prevenció, Col·lectiu Punt 6 and Creación Positiva.
- The schedules and formats of citizen engagement at various levels are often not compatible with responsibilities of care, excluding many caregivers today, most of whom are women. Reports such as Gender in Participation. The road ahead, published by Cuadernos Bakeaz 67 in 2005 by Mireia Espiau et al., and Analysis of women’s participation in mixed institutional and social spaces in the city of Barcelona, published by the Barcelona City Council, highlight this fact.
- The needs of caregiving activities and gender equity are often not taken into account in large-scale planning, nor are they present in a cross-cutting manner in the design of public policies, as shown by the various reports published by the Gender Equality Observatory of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
The PEMB’s lines of work
In order to mainstream and promote the perspective of gender, the PEMB works along three main lines:
- Ensuring the perspective of gender internally within the PEMB, with the voluntary drafting of the Equality Plan and all related tools and protocols, or the review from a perspective of gender of both the labour framework and the onboarding manuals for employees and trainees and other internal documentation.
- Raising awareness about the perspective of gender and its more practical implications among all the professionals and entities that follow us. Creation of the section “The metropolis from a gendered perspective” in the PEMB bulletin, to publish related projects, studies and policies. Analysis of women’s participation in PEMB events and actions to encourage further engagement.
- Ensuring that a perspective of gender is applied to all projects that come about from the Metropolitan Commitment 2030 measures, the PEMB develops specific tools and integrates them into its action toolbox.
