“When planners fail to account for gender, public spaces become male spaces by default. The reality is that half the global population has a female body. Half the global population has to deal on a daily
basis with the sexualised menace that is visited on that body. The entire global population needs the care that, currently, is mainly carried out, unpaid, by women. These are not niche concerns, and if public spaces are truly to for everyone, we have to start
accounting for the lives of the other half of the world. And, as we've seen, this isn't just a matter of justice: it's also a matter of simple economics.
By accounting for women's care responsibilities in urban planning, we make it easier for women to engage fully in the paid workforce - and as we will see in the next chapter, this is a significant driver of GDP. By accounting for the sexual violence women face and introducing preventative measures - like providing enough single-sex public toilets we save money in the long run by reducing the significant economic cost of violence against women. When we account for female socialisation in the design
of our open spaces and public activities, we again save money in the long run by ensuring women's long-term mental and physical health.
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In short, designing the female half of the world out of our public spaces is not a matter of resources. It's a matter of priorities, and, currently, whether unthinkingly or not, we just aren't prioritising
women. This is manifestly unjust, and economically illiterate. Women have an equal right to public resources: we must stop excluding them by design”