International Women’s Day: Considering women in the built environment
Katie Fowler is RTPI East of England Young Planners Chair and Principal Planner (Major Sites) at East Suffolk Council.
International Women’s Day takes place on Sunday 8 March and provides us with a platform to reflect on the work that has taken place to include women within planning and the work that we still need to be doing. However, it is vital that this topic is continued to be talked about by planners all year round and not just in association with a single day.
In 2023, women made up 51% of the population in the UK. We equate for more than half of society yet face significant barriers to achieving true equity. The UN’s theme for International Women’s Day this year is “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls” which calls for action to dismantle all barriers to equal justice; discriminatory laws, weak legal protections, and harmful practices and social norms that erode the rights of women and girls.
There are many people doing fantastic work in this space already who have produced excellent guidance on how to design places which include women in the built environment. Some of the main tools that I use as a planner are:
- Her City – UN Habitat
- Cities Alive: Designing cities that work for women – Arup
- Make Space for Girls
- This is for the Majority – Tower Hamlets
- Handbook: Creating places that work for women and girls – LLDC
- Women and Girls Safety in the Public Realm – Essex Design Guide
- Women-Friendly Urban Planning Toolkit – Cities Alliance
- Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning and Design
As a planner in a local authority, the main ways in which I use these tools are to examine and consider proposals to understand how inclusive they are for women. Within local authorities, we have the Public Sector Equality Duty to comply with, and it is vital that we are considering how inclusive the places that we are creating, will be.
Whilst these tools provide far more in depth guidance, these are key takeaways that I use as a planner in my day-to-day role:
There are many more ways in which we can and should be including women within planning both in practice and as workplaces and I urge you to use inclusive design tools (those mentioned above as well as many others) in your practice as planners. In whichever form of planning you work in. To achieve equality and equity, it requires all genders to take part in these discussions and it should not only be the responsibility of those experiencing the problem to resolve it. I acknowledge that my focus has been on the challenges faced by women and girls, but the message is relevant for all protected characteristics.
