The Illusion of Inclusion: Cities through a gender lens

Transport planning to date remains a heavily male-dominated domain, and the needs and preferences of women are often ignored in the current framework of city planning built primarily around the car. Prioritising walking, cycling, better accessibility to public transport, functioning first- and last-mile connectivity and personal security are some of the basic modules to support inclusive mobility.

Yet too often, these basics are not in place. There is ample evidence of male dominance of the transport sector, both when it comes to decision-making and knowledge production. A 2019 mapping of transport ministers in nine European countries shows that since 1945, only twenty-three out of a total of 245 ministers have been women. Most of them have had limited impact because they have only been in office for shorter periods (Christensen and Breengaard, 2020).

This is echoed by the parliamentary transport committees across Europe where female representation in 2019 varied between 7% and 40%. Even in Sweden with a higher level of gender balance in the transport committees, this does not guarantee a substantial change in policy (Levin and Faith-Ell, 2019; Levin and Thoresson, 2020). At the same time, the discipline is veering towards smart cities and smart mobilities, which often have nothing to do with the semantics of the word ‘smart’ and is primarily focused on digitalisation, automation and sharing.

Imaginations of smart mobility at present are being led by producers and manufactures promoting an optimistic vision of a society in which technological advances will deliver a “benign mobility system that all users can access seamlessly and on demand” (Marsden & Reardon 2017). But the current field of smart transport, not least the dream of driverless cars and other vehicles, is marked by strong (male) fascinations and fantasies, and tends to apply the technological fix as the solution to climate and sustainability challenges (Christensen and Breengaard 2019).

Another challenge is that the knowledge that has so far been created on ‘gender and diversity’ in transport planning does not seem to have had any substantial impact (Transgen, 2007; Priya Uteng and Cresswell, 2008). There is plenty of evidence that policy and planning are still in a circuit of knowledge produced by a neo-classical, growth-oriented, genderless, sustainable paradigm. A critical paradigm, which highlights the structural inequalities in terms of privilege and disadvantages related to gender and other categories in transport and mobility, is weak or absent from political agendas (Kębłowski & Bassens 2018). Climate change has lately become a hot policy topic, partly generated by younger generations and a revitalisation of critical social movements. This seems to be promising for a game change in the circuit of transport and mobility and new knowledge production.

It is thus critically important that we take a pause to reflect on both the logics and implementation of ‘smart’ solutions that are leaving important social issues unattended. While the possibilities, technical detailing and effectiveness of smart solutions are being celebrated, research studies confirm the exclusive nature of the smart solutions. Gender emerges as a strong contender in this broad domain of exclusivity. We fear that gender as a category, once again, will come as an afterthought to the entire (smart) conceptualisation, planning and execution, and it might be too late to make amends.

Gendering Smart Mobilities, our joint publication, attempts to shift the prevailing technical focus to other equally important themes like inclusive solutions, governance and livelihood. We examine the nature of mobility solutions being proposed, the relationship between the so-called smart solutions and societal conditions, their mutual interactions over time, weaving through the macro and micro determinants for individual attitudes and behaviour. For example, how can we steer away from the primacy of time-saving logics over activity participation, and map the social ramifications of spatial (and transport) decisions?

The publication intends to challenge existing power positions both in knowledge production and policy making. It explores the connections between the fields of gender and smart transport including the place of emotions, and power in smart mobilities. Questions like "Will the self-driving car loosen the hierarchical and gendered script of the cars and prevailing strong bonds of men, masculinity and cars?" have also been explored (Balkmar and Mellström, 2020). It is hoped that this volume can both feed and spur new avenues and a stronger sensitivity to diversity, justice and wellbeing in transport and mobility.