Short Essay: Urbanization and Women

Urbanization is often associated with greater independence and opportunity for women – but also with high risks of violence and constraints on employment, mobility and leadership that reflect deep gender-based inequalities.

Urbanization is a double edged sword for women. While on one hand it brings a bag full of opportunities- economic, political, social, liberty, literacy, equality, it also brings along unwelcome outcomes such as  struggle for rights like ‘Equal pay for equal work’, transport safety, the deep rooted patriarchal outlook of the society, eve-teasing at work front, commodification of  women, etc.

While women make significant contributions to their households, neighbourhoods and the city through their paid and unpaid labour, building and consolidating shelter and compensating for shortfalls in essential services and infrastructure, they face persistent inequalities in terms of access to decent work, physical and financial assets, mobility, personal safety and security, and representation in formal structures of urban governance.

Notable gender gaps in labour and employment, decent work, pay, tenure rights, access to and accumulation of assets, personal security and safety, and representation in formal structures of urban governance show that women are often the last to benefit from the prosperity of cities.The risks that women face with urbanization are related largely due to inadequate infrastructure and services and the lack of personal safety and security.

Urban crime remains a deterrent to women’s development in the wake of urbanization.

Urbanisation in India is unplanned and random. This leads to crowding and development of slums. When it comes to ‘public safety’ especially ‘safety of women’, present infrastructure in urban spaces are extremely inadequate to deal with it.

To overcome this issue, various basic measures can be carried out such as –

enough lighting on the roads, continuous patrol by security forces especially in the secluded areas of the city, installation of CCTV cameras throughout the city especially in public places, office buildings, basement parking areas, proper registration and regulation on city transport operators especially taxi and bus drivers, so that cases such as Delhi rape do not occur again,  regularisation of slum areas and improvement in their condition, sensitization of youth towards women, following holistic approach to impart knowledge in educational institutions, community policing, use of technology to connect public with security forces, such as distress signal applications in smartphones, strict laws and severe punishment against law perpetrators, so as to serve as effective deterrent against such crimes, economic upliftment of weaker sections of society and reducing the gap between the rich and the poor i.e. inclusive development to tackle urban crime.