Women parking lot

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Sign for a women's parking space in a parking garage in Germany

A woman parking (in Austria, Ladies parking ) is a designated and designated parking space or parking stall for use by women in car parks , underground car parks and parking lots .

background

Studies since the 1990s have documented that many women feel unsafe in public spaces because they fear sexual assault and violence . This restricts their freedom of movement: For fear of being threatened or harassed, many women avoid certain rooms, especially in the evening and at night. The urban planning changes to so-called fearful spaces , such as parks, underpasses, parking spaces on highways and airports, multi-storey car parks and underground garages, led to the establishment of parking spaces for women. These are usually closer to escape routes and exits, lighted brighter or located in the recording area of ​​cameras and are intended to increase women's sense of security and promote their mobility. Women's parking spaces are now standard in many cities.

Dissemination and legal aspects

The women's parking spaces are common in German-speaking countries as well as in Asia.

In contrast to parking spaces for the disabled , gender-specific parking spaces are not provided for in the German road traffic regulations. The landlord of the parking lot can only enforce compliance if the regulations of the StVO do not apply to the parking lot.

In the USA, non-gender-specific “customer with child” and veteran or disabled parking spaces are more widespread than the mother-and-child parking spaces specifically designated for women or mothers in Germany. In the United States, complaints against organizations related to discrimination in company parking lots are more common, but mostly because of access by disabled and war invalids rather than gender-based allegations.

German-speaking area

Germany

In the 1990s, numerous measures were taken to make women feel more secure in public spaces, including parking spaces for women in underground garages.

In some German countries , parking spaces for women are required by the garage regulations. For example, the garage regulations of the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein state that parking spaces for women

In the Baden-Württemberg Garage Ordinance, it is also required that they make up at least 10% in large garages ( Section 4 Garage Ordinance Baden-Württemberg). The Brandenburg Garage Ordinance prescribes a women's parking space of at least 30% for large garages.

The Federal Ministry of Justice, headed by Brigitte Zypries , commented on the reasons for the draft law on the anti-discrimination law on the issue of parking spaces for women. There it took the view that the provision of parking spaces for women was socially desirable and socially accepted. Different treatment based on gender is permissible, provided that a comprehensible reason can be found. In the case of parking spaces for women, this rationale would be that women are more likely than men to be victims of crimes against sexual self-determination . The designation of parking spaces for women can also be justified if it cannot be proven that there is a particular danger in individual cases. This argument was also found on the website of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency in 2008 . In 2011, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Labor Court dismissed the complaint brought by a nurse whose employer prefers women when it comes to assigning parking spaces close to the workplace. The reasoning for the judgment quotes the formulations from the reasons for the law.

According to the Hessian State Criminal Police Office , the provision of well-lit and video-monitored parking spaces for women close to the entrances and exits can be a measure to increase the general feeling of security among women and thus also the attractiveness of parking garages. This has less to do with the actual threat situation. The police crime statistics , on the other hand, show that in Germany harassment, assaults, etc., to which women are victims, do not occur more frequently in parking garages than elsewhere. In Hesse in 2003, only one out of 1,000 crimes committed in parking garages was directed against sexual self-determination.

A study on the question of crime scenes has shown that it is seldom the typical places of fear where women actually experience violence and more often precisely those places where women usually feel as safe as their own home. This observation corresponds with the result that the perpetrators are often partners and ex-partners and much less often unknown and fleetingly known persons.

Austria

Ladies' parking spaces in the multi-storey car park in Bad Gastein in Austria

According to a study by the City of Vienna in 2007, 49 percent of the women surveyed said that they find it uncomfortable when they drive into an underground car park alone. The Gender Mainstreaming Department of the City of Vienna has therefore specified security aspects for underground car parks that should apply to both genders, but are more important for women. Women's parking spaces should be in visual and call contact with the staff as well as in the immediate vicinity of the staircase or lift.

Switzerland

In Switzerland , the women's parking spaces established in the 1990s have been abolished in some cities such as Lucerne and Zurich since 2011. The reason was, among other things, that the parking garages would be brighter, better monitored and generally safer and that a differentiation would therefore no longer make sense.

Asia

China

In the Chinese province of Hebei , parking spaces for women have been set up at shopping centers. These are broader and have different colored and more visible markings. This should make parking easier for women, according to a person in charge of a center.

Korea

In 2009, the city of Seoul marked 4929 parking spaces for women in pink so that they do not have to walk too far to work and shopping destinations.

discourse

In the context of the gender mainstreaming gender equality concept adopted by the federal government, women's parking spaces are seen as an effective instrument in urban planning for realizing security and a feeling of security in public spaces for both genders. The establishment of women's parking spaces is also interpreted as an expression and visibility of women's interests in public space. In the feminist architecture and planning debate, however , the success of the concept of fearful spaces is now viewed rather critically, as it makes the actual problem of male violence against women invisible and supports the generally accepted view that male violence is a socially outlawed act by someone unknown to women. This conceals the extent of violence against women and distracts them from the most common crime scenes, the near field and the home. The actual security is therefore not increased.

In Herbert Glasauer's opinion, specially equipped women's parking spaces tend to distance themselves from an original vision of female conquest of urban space; they tend to perpetuate the image of the fearful, not entirely viable woman.

Margrit Eichler (University of Toronto) sees the gender-specific importance of women's parking spaces in the comparatively more complex and varied ways women take. The establishment of women's parking spaces thus supports women in scheduling and makes it easier to pass various stations quickly.

See also

Web links

Commons : Women's parking space signs  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Frauenparkplatz  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Renate Ruhne: Space Makes Gender: On the sociology of a structure of effects using the example of (in) security in public space. 2nd Edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2012, ISBN 978-3-531-18037-3 , pp. 11, 13, 24.
  2. ^ A b Margrit Eichler: Change of Plans: Towards a Non-Sexist Sustainable City. Garamond Press, 1995, ISBN 0-920059-33-3 .
  3. ↑ Rachel Lewis: Gender-specific parking stalls: A lawsuit waiting to happen? on: ksl.com Contributor September 12, 2012 KSL,
  4. ↑ Brandenburg ordinance on the construction of garages and parking spaces and the operation of garages (Brandenburg Garages and Parking Space Ordinance - BbgGStV) of November 8, 2017, § 4 Paragraph 9.
  5. ↑ Draft law of the federal government for the implementation of European directives for the implementation of the principle of equal treatment, Bundesrat printed matter 329/06, May 18, 2006 .
  6. ↑ FAQ of the anti-discrimination agency ( Memento from January 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) in the version January 25, 2008.
  7. ↑ Decision of the LAG Rhineland-Palatinate of September 29, 2011, file number 10 Sa 314/11 on the subject of "Company parking space - allocation criterion" women before men "" ( memento of the original from November 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatic used and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www3.mjv.rlp.de
  8. ^ Report on the security in parking garages in the police crime statistics. ( Memento of the original from February 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Police press portal.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.presseportal.de
  9. ↑ Acts of violence and victims of violence by women and men. In: Waltraud Cornelißen (Ed.): Gender data report. Annotated data report on equality between women and men in the Federal Republic of Germany. Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, Berlin 2005, p. 664.
  10. ^ Underground car parks - example of gender mainstreaming implementation, City of Vienna website
  11. ↑ Study Life and Quality of Life in Vienna , Workshop Reports of Urban Development Vienna (Number 81) 2007 .
  12. ↑ David Torcasso: Women's associations outraged: “In the ten public parking garages in the city of Zurich, women's parking spaces are being abolished. This is met with incomprehension among women representatives. ”In: 20min.ch, August 17, 2010.
  13. ↑ Un parking pour femme avec des places de stationnement plus larges. (Article on parking spaces for women in China.) In: Le Monde (fr), January 5, 2010.
  14. ↑ Will High-Heel-Friendly Streets Keep Seoul's Women Happy? In: Time (en), 2009.
  15. ↑ Christine Färber, Meike Spitzner, Jochen Geppert, Susanne Römer: Implementation of gender mainstreaming in federal urban development policy. Supplement to the publication Werkstatt-Praxis 4/2002, series of publications by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning "Gender Mainstreaming and Urban Development Policy".
  16. ↑ Renate Ruhne : Space Makes Gender: On the sociology of a structure of effects using the example of (in) security in public space. 2nd Edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2012, ISBN 978-3-531-18037-3 , p. 27.
  17. ↑ Ruth Becker: "Angsträume" - violence against women in public and private space. In: Kortendiek / Becker (Hrsg.): Handbook women and gender research: theory, methods, empiricism. 3. Edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-17170-8 , pp. 810 ff. (Ruth Becker is professor and former head of the department for women's studies and housing in spatial planning at the University of Dortmund ).
  18. ↑ Herbert Glasauer: Violence is not always and everywhere. In: Georg Glasze, Robert Pütz, Manfred Rolfes: Discourse, City, Crime: Urban (in) certainties from the perspective of urban research and critical criminal geography. transcript Verlag, 2005, p. 206ff.