Transcription

*Transcipt was generated automatically, its accuracy may vary.

1. The Data Gap: Unpacking Invisible Experiences in Urban Design

The Feminist Park Podcast – Designing for Liberation!

0:12

Welcome to the Feminist Park podcast.

I'm Kwame.

And I'm Leilani, it's great to be kicking off this journey with you all today.

Yeah, we're diving into work that's really closely tied to the vision behind the Feminist Park project, which was founded by Hussain Stuck.

That project's goal is pretty ambitious, isn't it?

0:28

Imagining these truly equitable public spaces, starting with the idea for an intersectional feminist park right here in Berlin.

Exactly.

And this podcast, well, it's kind of an extension of that.

We're going to be digging into the academic research that, you know, supports and informs that kind of vision.

0:46

We'll be taking these dense, sometimes quite academic papers and really pulling out the core and insights.

And looking at them through specific lenses.

Things like environmental justice, intersectionality, anti colonial thought, queer theory.

All the stuff that helps us think critically about space.

1:03

So for our first deep dive, we're actually starting with some background research that Hussein came across early on.

And it highlighted something, well, frankly, quite jarring that the benefits we think we all get from urban green spaces, you know, parks and squares and thing like physical and mental well-being, they're often deeply gendered.

1:20

Meaning women and also gender diverse people.

They just don't get the same access or experience those benefits in the same way men do, right?

Less equitable access, fewer benefits.

It seems almost counterintuitive, doesn't it?

A park is just a park open to everyone.

1:37

Today we are pulling the thread on a concept that feels both really simple and, well, incredibly complex at the same time.

Yeah, it kind of shapes everything around us, often in ways we don't even notice.

Exactly.

We're diving deep into this idea of the gender data gap and the kind of startling reality of what's called the default male.

2:01

Our mission here is really to explore how this this lack of comprehensive data, often coming from a very male centric view, makes the experiences and needs of women and you know, others who don't fit that assume mold basically invisible.

2:17

Right across so many areas of life.

Everywhere we'll look at how it plays out and like the language we use, the culture we can.

Sell the way to how our cities are designed.

You have the safety of public spaces, even seemingly small things like while waiting for the loo.

Absolutely.

And we've looked at some some really compelling source material that brings this whole issue into sharp focus.

2:34

It uses specific examples, research, findings.

Show how widespread it is.

Exactly how impactful this phenomenon really is, the core argument presented is that the world well, for the most part, it's been built and understood through the lens of a specific, often kind of unacknowledged, default human.

2:54

Male default.

The male default.

And if you don't fit that default well, your needs often get overlooked.

Your contributions aren't seen.

Your very presence is sometimes just treated as an afterthought.

And it's not just abstract, is it?

No, not at all.

It has tangible, sometimes actually dangerous, real world consequences.

3:12

Sources we looked at, they don't really ease you in gently, they hit you right away with a pretty powerful example.

One piece mentions research findings that it was, and I quote, shocking that the physical and mental benefits arising from urban green spaces are gendered.

Gendered, yeah, meaning women have less access to these benefits than men.

3:31

And that finding, it goes on to explain the reason isn't that women don't want to use parks or green spaces.

You know, it's about the design.

It's the design.

Some parks, because of their specific amenities, their features, the whole layout, they are quote seemingly more oriented to men's needs and preferences, thus being more used by men than women.

3:51

Wow, just think about that for a second.

A park, you know, a space meant for everyone for public benefit, can be unintentionally designed so that it's less accessible or maybe just less appealing to basically half the population.

It really makes you stop and and look around differently, doesn't?

4:09

It it really does.

And that example, the gendered access to parks, it's a perfect, like concrete starting point.

It illustrates the broader issue.

Exactly.

It comes directly from this lack of data, right?

A lack of considering different perspectives in the design process and ultimately a lack of visibility for anyone who isn't the assumed default.

4:26

Yeah.

So let's try and unpack this across a few different areas, starting with something really fundamental, how we use language.

OK, yeah, language and culture.

This is the first area our sources really highlight as being well fundamentally shaped by this default male perspective, and the source material spends quite a bit of time on the concept of the generic masculine.

4:46

Ah yes, this is something we run into constantly, often without even thinking about it.

Like using mankind.

Exactly, using mankind for all people or even just informally saying hey guys to a group of women and men.

Or in languages with grammatical gender, it's even clearer, like Spanish was mentioned.

5:05

Yeah, the example was a group of female teachers is less professoras but add just one male teacher.

And the whole group becomes Las propres.

The masculine form just takes over as the default for the whole group.

And the sources they provide really compelling evidence, you know, backed by research on the cognitive impact, the social impact of this seemingly neutral choice.

5:27

It's not neutral at all, is it?

Apparently not.

Studies show that using the generic masculine consistently makes people think of men like they're significantly more likely to recall famous men over famous women when they see information using those generic masculine terms.

And it's not just recalling names, is it?

5:44

The research cited shows it actually influences how we see professions.

Yeah, people are more likely to guess that a profession is male dominated, even if it's, you know, roughly 5050 or even stereotypically female, like beautician.

We'll get to that one.

But yes, yeah, they see it as more male if it's described using the generic masculine form.

6:03

The implications then spread to real world decisions too.

Absolutely.

Studies show people are more likely to suggest male candidates for jobs, for leadership roles, political appointments.

When the descriptions use these generic masculine forms, it just subtly but powerfully primes your mind towards thinking male.

6:22

And here's where it gets really, really impactful.

I think this bias effects women themselves.

Yes, research cited shows women are actually less likely to even apply for jobs advertised using the generic masculine.

They read it and something just clicks, maybe unconsciously, like this isn't for me.

6:39

Exactly.

And what's even more striking?

Some studies suggest that even if women do apply for those jobs.

They might not do as well in the interview.

Potentially, yes, they might perform less well.

Not about their capability, right, but the subtle psychological effect of being in a situation that's already kind of signaled a male default.

6:59

Some studies from the early 2000s and 20 tens showed this exclusionary effect pretty clearly.

It's fascinating and yeah, bit disturbing how deep this bias runs.

The sources mentioned that beautician example again research from 2008.

Right Gygax and colleagues.

They found the generic masculine is so strongly linked with male that it can even override existing gender stereotypes.

7:21

So beautician usually seen as female.

But present it using generic masculine language and people's perception actually shifts towards picturing a male beautician.

Wow, that study really highlights how powerful this linguistic default is.

It's not just a neutral placeholder, it actively conjures up a male image, even against our usual assumptions.

7:40

And incredibly, this language bias might even be messing with scientific data itself.

Yeah, the source talks about a 2015 paper looking at self report question.

Like in psychology studies, they found that when these questionnaires used generic masculine language, it actually affected how women responded.

7:56

How so?

Well, the authors concluded, it could distort the meaning of the test scores from women it might, quote, portray unreal differences between women and men.

Unreal differences.

Differences that might not even exist if they've used gender neutral language.

Exactly.

So this linguistic default could be accidentally creating like a meta gender data gap right inside the research itself, skewing the findings just because of how the questions were phrased.

8:23

So it becomes this this loop, doesn't it?

The language reflects a male default, which then biases the data we collect or how we read it, right?

And that bias data then reinforces the idea that the male view is the standard, the universal one.

Precisely.

Think back to that Spanish example. 1 male teacher flips the whole group's label.

8:43

The language structure itself just centers the masculine as the default.

The source also mentioned job ads like an Austrian study.

Oh yeah, that was stark.

Thousands of leadership job ads reviewed a 27 to one ratio of masculine forms versus explicitly gender fair forms in titles and descriptions 27 to 1.

9:03

And this wasn't just happening by accident.

People knew it was an issue.

The European Parliament even recommended adding to job titles back in 2008.

Yeah, in gender inflected languages the intention was good, trying to signal inclusivity, but.

And this is a crucial point the sources make.

This policy was put in place without checking if it would actually work.

9:21

Right, no data beforehand.

And when researchers did test the impact?

They found adding made quote no difference to the exclusionary effect.

It didn't counteract the power of the generic masculine term itself, Which.

Really drives home the sources point.

You need to collect data on the real world impact before you make policy.

9:40

Good intentions just aren't enough.

So true, and even though English doesn't have grammatical gender like that, the source points out informal stuff like dude or guys.

Often used as neutral, but still carries that male feel for many.

And look at the pushback against changing terms like fireman to firefighter.

9:58

Yeah, the source mentions Danny Cotton, the first female head of London's fire brigade in 2017.

She got hate mail just for suggesting updating the term to reflect reality that women are firefighters too.

It just shows his deep reluctance sometimes to move away from that male linguistic default.

10:15

Definitely.

OK, so moving beyond just the words themselves, the source argues this male default thinking really permeates culture more broadly.

Yeah, the fundamental issue presented is that the male experience gets treated implicitly as universal, like the human experience.

10:32

Well, the female experience, even though women are half the planet, gets relegated to being niche.

Niche specific, A variation on the norm?

Exactly.

The examples given for this are really, well, illuminating and sometimes shocking.

Like the Georgetown University course?

10:48

Right, The New York Times article from 91 about a course called White Male Writers.

Think about it, courses on female writers or African American writers?

Nobody bats an eye.

They're seen as specific subjects.

But explicitly naming the dominant group white male writers makes headlines because it forces you to admit that white and male are also specific identities, not just the invisible standard.

11:10

Or look at sports history, how it's often framed.

Oh, the Andy Murray example celebrated for ending Britain's 77 year wait for a Wimbledon singles champion in 2013.

Completely erasing Virginia Way's win in 1977.

And then he was called the first person to win 2 Olympic tennis singles golds.

11:28

Ignoring Venus and Serena Williams, who'd already won four each.

Yeah, and US Soccer history often focused on the men's team, even though the women's team has won four World Cups, Way more successful.

It's not just bad reporting, is it?

It's a cultural default that just centers male achievement as the achievement.

11:45

And this bias seeps into fiction pop culture, too.

Yeah, the source brings up Metroid back in the 80s.

Samus Aran being revealed as a woman at the end was a huge shock.

Why?

Because the default assumption for a tough lone sci-fi hero was male.

12:00

Male And more recently, think about the backlash from some male gamers about playing as a female assassin in Assassin's Creed.

Some actually said it would alienate them.

Hang on, As the journalist Sarah Deedam pointed out, people are happy playing as like a blue hedgehog.

12:16

Yeah, or a Space Marine or someone taming Dragons.

Right, the source's point is it's not about realism versus fantasy.

The key difference is Sonic the Hedgehog is male.

He's the standard, the unmarked gender, even as a hedgehog.

Whereas a female protagonist, even a human one, is seen as the atypical choice.

12:34

And you see this hostility with female versions of established male characters.

Female Thor Female leads in Star Wars Female Doctor Who.

The complaints are always PC culture, virtue signaling, loss of a male role model.

As if male role models haven't dominated basically forever.

The mail is the default, and changing that is seen as political.

12:53

This cultural bias even shapes how we organize information like on Wikipedia.

Yeah, the source uses that example.

The main England National Football team page, it's the men's team.

The women's team page has to be specifically labeled England Women's National Football team.

13:09

And that's split American novelists versus American women novelists.

There was also a 2015 study looking across different language.

Wikipedia's articles about women consistently used words like woman, female, lady.

13:25

But articles about men?

Rarely used man, masculine gentlemen.

Why?

Because male is assumed.

It goes without saying.

It's the implicit standard.

And this isn't just a modern digital thing, is it?

The source points to a long history of women's work being erased or misattributed.

13:41

Oh definitely another consequence of the male default.

If male is the norm, achievements by others are just less likely to stick or be credited correctly.

The examples are, well, kind of infuriating.

Felix Mendelssohn publishing his sister Fanny Hensel's music under his name.

13:56

Because opportunities for women composers were basically 0.

Despite her talent, took ages for her work to be credited back to her.

Classical scholars doubting the Roman poet Salpecia because her work was too good or too smutty for a woman.

Judith Leister, the Dutch artist erased after her death her paintings attributed to her husband or France halls, took centuries to rediscover her.

14:18

Caroline Louisa Daly, 19th century artist Sketches attributed to men.

One wasn't even an artist.

Hertha Ayrton, the engineer and inventor.

She nailed it when she said an error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat.

14:35

It still feels true.

Sadly, that bias to credit men.

Especially in science, history textbooks often credit Thomas Hunt Morgan for chromosomal sex determination.

Overlooking Nettie Stevens earlier foundational work with X&Y chromosomes.

Right, or Cecilia Payne Geposhkin discovering stars are mostly hydrogen and helium revolutionary.

14:54

But her supervisor told her it was clearly impossible, discouraged her, then published the same finding himself years later, getting most of the credit initially.

And the most famous one?

Probably Roslyn Franklin's crucial DNA work.

Her photo 51, was key.

Essential for Watson and Crick's model.

15:11

They got the Nobel.

Her contribution was sidelined for a long time.

All this feeds into that idea of a male dominated Canon in music, literature, art.

Yeah, the source mentions Jesse McCabe, the student who found zero female composers on her A Level Music syllabus. 63 works.

15:29

And the exam board's defense?

Female composers were not prominent.

Which just ignores the thousands who existed, like the International Encyclopedia of Human Composers lists over 6000.

The issue is an existence.

It's exclusion from the Canon, which is subjective, based on perceived influence, and perpetuated by education and performance choices.

15:50

The source contrasted Barbara Strassi and Francesco Cavalli.

In the 17th century, Trotzi published tons of music was popular that.

More than most contemporaries, yeah, but Cavalli is the one in the Canon on the syllabi.

Why?

Because he held powerful institutional positions.

Head of music at Saint Mark's in Venice, positions closed to women.

16:08

Exactly.

Those positions gave him resources, infrastructure, ways to preserve his legacy.

Libraries archivists guaranteed performances long after his death.

Stratzy didn't have that institutional backing because she was a woman.

No chance.

So insisting on a male bias Canon based on historical prominence just reinforces the historical injustice that denied women the means to achieve that prominence in the first place.

16:33

It's a cycle.

The data gap, missing work, lack of recognition reinforces the male default in our cultural stories.

Wow, OK, that whole discussion on language and culture is really eye opening.

But it's not just abstract ideas or history, is it?

Let's shift now to how this bias shows up in the physical world.

16:52

Urban planning infrastructure.

This is where the data gap like literally hits the pavement.

And the perfect example to start with, circling back to the intro is that Karlskoga, Sweden snow clearing story.

So simple but reveals so much bias.

Right, the standard policy was clear.

17:07

The major roads first, where the cars are, then get to the sidewalks, bike paths, smaller streets later.

Seems.

Logical on the surface, right?

Keep traffic moving.

But as the source explains really clearly, this policy hits men and women very differently because of how they tend to travel.

Yeah, data from loads of places, places, France, U.S. cities, Sweden itself consistently shows women are way more likely than men to walk or use public transport.

17:32

While men are much more likely to drive even if there's a car in the household, men often have priority use.

So clearing major roads first, that primarily benefits car travel, which is disproportionately male travel.

And it's not just how they travel, but why and how the trips are structured.

17:48

Exactly.

The typical male pattern is often seen as that simple commute home to work, work to home.

But women's travel?

But much more complex.

The source calls it Trip.

Chaining.

Trip chaining, right?

Because women globally do most of the unpaid care work, Maybe 75% according to some sources.

18:05

So their daily travel involves multiple stops.

Drop kids at school, take mom to the doctor, grab groceries, maybe fit in their own paid commute somewhere.

And these trips are often local, on foot or using public transport, using the very paths and local streets cleared last under that old policy.

18:22

So the consequence is the routes most vital for women's daily lives, getting to paid work and doing essential unpaid care become hazardous in winter.

The source mentions a study in Scona County, Sweden, looked at the cost of pedestrian falls needing hospital treatment in winter.

18:39

Just one county 1 winter estimated cost was 36 million kronor.

That's over £3,000,000.

Yeah, covering healthcare lost productivity, and that's probably an underestimate because minor falls often go unreported but still cause problems.

18:54

The source also mentioned the political reaction when this story got out.

Some critics claimed changing the policy prioritizing paths first was a failure because injuries spiked.

But they twisted the data, didn't they?

They failed to mention it was pedestrian injuries spiking under the old system.

19:10

The data actually showed the previous system prioritizing cars was dangerous and costly for pedestrians.

Right, the problem wasn't the new idea, maybe just execution or needing more resources overall, but the data clearly showed the bias in the old way.

And the snow clearing is just one example of a broader transport planning bias.

19:29

Yeah, the source mentions the UN Commission on the Status of Women talking about a male bias in transport design, failing to address gender in how systems are set up.

An EU report said male travel patterns are treated as the standard.

Which leads to this fundamental issue, Care trips get devalued in planning.

19:48

Compulsory mobility is often just defined as travel for work or education.

While essential care trips, getting kids, shopping, elder care are seen as less important, maybe even expendable me time.

Which is ridiculous if you're the one doing it.

And funding often reflects this.

20:05

That World Bank report showed 73% of their transport funding went to roads and highways.

Serving long distance commutes, freight more typically mail patterns, local transit, pedestrian stuff gets much less.

Even where infrastructure goes can be gendered.

That Lesotho village example was powerful.

20:21

Oh right, they collected sex disaggregated data before building a road.

Women wanted it to go towards clinics, schools.

Reflecting their care roles, but the men.

Wanted towards a market they reached on horseback.

Totally different priorities based on different roles.

Shows why you need the data.

And the actual experience of using transport is gendered too.

20:38

Women often travel in comfort, right?

Yeah, pushing prams, carrying shopping, helping kids or elderly relatives.

That London survey found women were significantly less satisfied with streets and pavements after walking.

Probably because they're dealing with rough surfaces, narrow paths, steps, no ramps, things that make it much harder with a buggy one estimate said it could take four times longer.

21:01

These aren't just small inconveniences, they're real barriers.

And the whole structure of transport systems can be biased like radio systems, spokes from the suburbs to the city center.

Great for the classic commuter, often male, but terrible for trip chaining, going between suburbs, accessing local services.

21:18

The source put it bluntly.

The useful not so useful binary falls rather neatly onto the male female binary for those systems yet.

Despite all this, there's this persistent mass massive data gap in transport planning itself.

Authorities see women's patterns as complicated or atypical, one planner quoted said.

21:37

They think everyone has universal needs.

Which the researcher Luke Tusider said is completely untrue.

Women writers raise a whole load of different needs.

Safety access with kids.

Reliable local routes.

Needs that aren't being met, but instead of trying to understand them.

21:54

Transport authorities often just fail to collect data by sex, or even separate the data they already.

Have the source gave examples?

UK stats barely breakdown by gender for bus or rail use.

India same problem.

EU report noted a paucity of data.

22:10

US annual report mentioned women twice apparently, but not even with usable stats.

And there's a subtle gap, too, in how data is categorized.

Paid work?

Travel.

One neat category?

Employment.

But care, Work.

Travel.

Split into tiny bits, shopping, accompanying child personal business, sometimes lumped with leisure, it makes the overall importance of care travel, mostly done by women, seem smaller.

22:32

Like failing to sex disaggregate by proxy.

Exactly, Sanchez de Madariaga's Madrid study did disaggregate properly found air travel was the single main purpose for women, just like employment was for men.

Her argument makes sense.

If authorities had to collect and properly breakdown travel data by sex, they couldn't ignore Care Travel anymore.

22:52

They'd have to take it seriously.

This male biased view extends to housing and zoning too.

Those laws often came from decades ago.

Based on that old model, breadwinning husband commutes out, wife stays home, home is just for leisure.

Which, as Sanchez Dimadariaga noted, reflected the reality of the decision makers then and maybe still now.

23:12

But not the reality for most women, for whom home is also a major workplace for unpaid care.

And the scale of that work is huge.

IMF says women do 3X more unpaid care globally, Twice the child care, four times the housework.

The source had that stark example from Uganda.

23:28

Women nearly 15 hours combined work, care, basically no leisure, men less digging, negligible housework, childcare, 0 fuel, water collecting, about four hours leisure.

Zoning based on the male model ignores this completely.

And the devastating impact of this shows up in things like that Brazilian public housing scheme Mina Casa Mina Vida.

23:46

The source really critiques it.

Or the main problem location right Huge.

Problem built way out on the periphery, far from jobs, services, transport.

Like 60% of units were a 30 plus minute walk just to get to transit.

Meaning commutes of hours each way.

Yeah, 2-3 hours or more and the public transport provided was often terrible.

24:06

And this hit women hardest.

Definitely because men dominate car ownership in Brazil, 71% of cars twice as likely to use them.

Women were stuck with bad public transport for these nightmare commutes.

Plus, they removed miles away from their support networks, like family help with childcare.

24:23

And the new complexes had hardly any childcare facilities provided.

Impossible situation.

There was also a loss of community and safety.

Favelas, for all their problems, often had dense social networks, intergenerational living, people looking out for each other.

These new complexes were designed for privacy separation.

24:40

Big empty car parks, Dodgy playgrounds.

Leading to isolation, fear of crime, kids stuck indoors.

Exactly, which just increased the childcare burden on women at home.

And the result?

Women lost their formal jobs.

The commute was just impossible.

The source mentions Christine Santos.

24:58

Three buses each way.

Another woman had a near fatal accident from exhaustion.

And the final insult?

Women trying to start businesses from home to survive.

Selling food, cutting hair, whatever.

But unlike the favelas, these new places had strict zoning laws from that old male model.

25:15

No businesses in residential areas.

So the program moved women away from work, gave them no transport or childcare, broke their support networks, then made their attempts to cope illegal.

Pretty much force them into illegal home businesses risking eviction.

It shows the terrible human cost of planning based on that male default ignoring women's lives.

25:35

Importantly, the source also shows it doesn't have to be like this.

Vienna is presented as a real alternative.

Yes, starting back in the 90s, Vienna changed its whole approach.

Influenced by gender planning experts like Eva Kale, they flipped the process.

Instead of starting with technical stuff, they started by defining user needs first based on collecting sex disaggregated data, specifically targeting women's needs as key users of public space.

26:01

Then they found technical solutions.

Data-driven?

User centered?

What did that look like in practice?

Projects like the Fraun Verkstott housing complex designed to prioritize community shared space, interconnected buildings, courtyards visible from flats, lots of green areas, play spaces.

26:18

Safety was key.

Transparent stairs, good lighting, secure parking accessed only via the flats.

Like a purpose built favela for community, the source said.

Yeah, in a good way.

Another example, the car free model housing complex.

They actually bypass zoning rules requiring parking spaces.

26:34

And use the money saved for.

Communal rooms, laundry, amazing play areas.

Not explicitly just for women, but the outcome caters much better women and caregivers.

Less likely to drive, more likely to need those shared facilities and kids spaces.

It's such a contrast.

Intentional design based on data about actual needs versus design based on an invisible male default.

26:54

Exactly.

It shows you can do things differently and better.

Which leads nicely into our next section, bringing together public space and safety, starting with something really basic, but again, deeply affected by this data gap.

Public toilets.

Yes, the cue for the loo.

27:10

The source starts with that relatable example from the Barbican in London.

They made some toilets gender neutral with urinals and others gender neutral with cubicles.

And guess what happened?

Predictably, only men use the urinal ones, everyone else piled into the cubicle ones, causing huge queues.

27:27

It highlights that simple design flaw.

Equal floor space isn't equal usability.

Because urinals let men get through much faster.

More people per square foot.

Female toilets with only cubicles just can't match that turnover.

And women take longer anyway, right up to 2.3 times longer.

27:44

Yeah, for loads of reasons.

Biology and social roles.

Women are the majority of elderly and disabled.

Need more time, more likely to be with kids or others needing help.

Periods mean changing products.

Pregnancy reduces bladder capacity and UTI's urinary tract infections.

28:01

Women are 8 times more likely to get them, meaning more frequent urgent trips.

So equal floor space is just formal equality, not substantive equality because the needs are different.

It's designing for a universal user who doesn't exist for women.

And the problem goes way beyond just queues at the Barbican.

28:18

The source highlights a global crisis in toilet access. 1/3 of the world lacks adequate sanitation and 1/3 of women lacks safe access.

Safe access, yeah, Meaning using fields ditches insecure facilities where they're vulnerable.

Water Aid estimated women and girls spend 97 billion hours a year just finding a safe place to go. 97 billion.

28:38

I think of the lost productivity, lost education, the constant stress.

It's a massive public health crisis too, and the example 60% no toilets, 90% surface water contaminated leads to disease.

And it's worse for women.

Not just safety, but the intense shame around public urination for women much more than for men, who can often go anywhere.

28:57

So women wait till dark, increasing risk, or don't drink, risking dehydration like those girls in US tobacco fields.

But.

Crucially, the source makes an economic case for providing toilets that Yale study in South Africa.

Right in Kailicha, they modeled the link between toilet access, walking time and sexual assault risk for women.

29:18

And calculated the costs of assault, tangible costs like medical lost earnings, court costs and intangible ones like pain and suffering.

What they found was amazing.

Doubling the number of toilets cost $12 million, but it halved walking distance cut sexual assaults by 30%.

29:34

And the savings from fewer assaults.

More than offset the cost, it resulted in a $5,000,000 net benefit.

Wow, so failing to provide safe toilets isn't saving money, it's a false economy.

Exactly, the hidden costs, health, economic loss, human suffering are way higher than the investment needed.

29:50

Another clear case where the data gap leads to bad bias decisions.

This safety issue connects right into women's experience of public spaces and transport generally.

The source talks about that constant background threat, that Stew of menace.

Yeah, from low level stuff like Smile love that can escalate right up to assault.

30:08

And a huge issue is under reporting.

Women often don't report, especially the low level stuff, because they don't think they'll be taken seriously.

That Nottingham Police example is key.

They started recording misogynistic behavior as a hate crime incident and.

Reports shot up not because it was happening more.

30:25

But because women finally felt like someone was acknowledging it might take it seriously.

It's compounded because men often don't see it right, harassers don't usually do it when a woman has a male companion, and men experience it far less themselves.

That Brazilian survey 2/3 of women victims on transit versus 18% of men.

30:43

So men might dismiss reports.

I've never seen it because it's not the reality.

Another data gap.

The official stats on transit harassment show massive underreporting DC, NYC, London tiny numbers compared to survey prevalence.

Baku, Azerbaijan. 0 reports filed.

31:00

It shows a systemic failure in reporting, not a lack of incidents.

And when women do report?

The experiences can be awful.

Bus drivers saying what do you expect?

Delhi driver telling a victim to solve it myself.

Shows a total lack of training procedures support.

31:16

Compare that to the clear signs about reporting suspicious packages.

Safety planning exists but often focuses on different threats implicitly male priorities.

And transport authorities themselves resist gender sensitive safety planning.

Lucaito Sedaris's survey found officials dismissing concerns as non gender specific or claiming lack of data data they weren't collecting.

31:38

Only a third felt they should even act.

Only three had done anything.

Lack of incentive, lack of obligation to collect the data.

OK, let's look back to green space is where we started.

Vienna again provides a great example of designing safer, more inclusive spaces using data.

Yeah, that mid 90s research showing girls use of parks plummeted after age 10.

31:57

And instead of shrugging, they investigated why.

Found it was the design.

Big open spaces encouraging competitive boy dominated activities.

Girls felt less confident competing for space, so they just left.

So Vienna changed the spaces, not the girls.

Exactly.

32:13

Subdividing parks into smaller areas, Reverse the drop off for sports areas.

Changing single entrances where boys hung out to multiple wider ones.

Subdividing courts for more informal activities.

Girls preferred.

Subtle changes, big results, more girls staying, more informal activity, and now it's standard practice for new Vienna parks.

32:31

Melmo in Sweden did similar things, asking girls what they wanted.

Right, I got a well lit area with different levels and spaces, followed up with more spaces specifically for girls.

It just underscores the point.

Move away from the default user collect data.

Design intentionally for diverse needs.

32:47

And you get better, safer, more inclusive spaces for everyone.

It shows a data gap isn't just a problem, it has solutions.

All these examples, language, culture, cities, safety, they bring us back to this underlying problem.

The sources discussed near the end the link between the data gap objectivity and that unchallenged male default.

33:07

Yeah, the source notes how debates on identity politics often have figures, usually white men, dismissing gender or race concerns as niche or ideological.

And the source argues it's precisely their own unexamined identity, white male, that leads them to say this.

33:23

What the source calls the logical absurdity that identities exist only for those who happen not to be white or male.

Because if you're used to your group being the silent unmarked standard white and male going without saying, you can forget that white and male are identities too, with their own perspectives.

33:41

The source quotes Bordeaux.

What is essential goes without saying because it comes without saying.

The tradition is silent.

Maleness and whiteness are silent because they're implicit, the default.

And the silence feeds A misguided belief in the objectivity, the point of view, lessness of the white male perspective.

33:57

Because it's the norm.

It's presumed neutral, universal, just common sense.

A presumption the source calls unsound.

And they even link this to politics, citing studies finding Trump support linked to white identity politics and hostile sexism.

Finding this surprising, the source suggests, is only possible because we're so used to the myth of male universality.

34:19

So bringing it all together, the core argument is cyclical, right?

The idea that male is universal is a consequence of the gender data gap.

Because data has historically focused on men, male data dominates, reinforcing male as the norm.

Male universality is also a cause of the gap.

34:36

Because women and others aren't seen as the standard.

Their knees aren't captured.

Their data isn't collected, which reinforces the idea their niche atypical.

It's a vicious cycle.

It positions women, half the population, as a perpetual minority with a subjective, less important viewpoint.

34:52

Their reality becomes a deviation, not a core part of the human experience needing attention.

And the outcome?

As the source powerfully concludes, women are set up to be forgettable, ignorable, dispensable from culture, from history, from data.

And so women become invisible.

35:07

Invisible.

Yeah.

Wow.

We've covered a lot today in this deep dive how this default male idea and the gender data gap aren't just theories, but have real costly, sometimes dangerous impacts.

Across language, culture, city planning, housing, public health with toilets, personal safety.

35:26

We've also seen the resistance people face when trying to challenge these biases, trying to get more inclusive data, whether it's language.

Debates, cultural representation or transport officials dragging their feet on safety.

But crucially, we've also seen positive examples.

Vienna's parks and housing.

35:42

Malmo Consulting girls.

Barcelona's buses.

They proved that when you do collect the data when you intentionally design for all users based on their diverse needs.

You get better results, more equitable, more effective outcomes for everyone, not just the default.

Group, This whole deep dive leaves us with a lot to think about, doesn't it?

35:59

But how our world is built, how we understand it, yeah.

If so many basic things, words, streets are designed around this narrow, often unacknowledged default, it makes you wonder.

What other invisible data gaps are out there shaping our lives in ways we haven't even thought about yet?

36:18

And what opportunities are we missing for innovation, for efficiency, better health, stronger communities, A richer understanding of ourselves just by failing to collect the full picture, by not seeing and designing for everyone?

It really makes you wonder what else is going without saying.

36:34

And the systems all around us.

This knowledge is a tool really, a tool for seeing your city differently and potentially for helping to change it.

It's been a really insightful deep dive.

I think this document provides such a vital framework, especially for projects like the Feminist Park Project that are trying to build something fundamentally different.

36:52

It shows just how interlinked urban design and social justice are.

It really does, but it also shows the scale of the challenge right?

It requires sustained effort, real commitment and a genuine willingness to shift power dynamics in how cities get made and managed.

Definitely see.

37:08

Think about how we ensure those voices, the ones that have been excluded, are actually heard and centered.

There's another quote from Sarah Ahmed in the Handbook that feels relevant here.

Go on, she says.

If you have to shout to be heard, you are heard as shouting.

37:26

That's powerful.

It makes you ponder, doesn't it?

How can the design of public space itself work differently?

How can it amplify the voices of those who've been historically silenced, ensuring their needs are met without them having to shout just to be noticed?

How can design itself listen?

37:41

That's a really provocative thought to end on.

A lot to think about.

Indeed, thanks for joining us for this deep dive.