Beyond ‘women and transport’: towards new geographies of gender and daily mobility

Abstract

Over the last two decades, a feminist critique of gender-blind transportation research and planning has generated a spate of research into 'women and transport'. This article critically reviews this literature, and argues that it has come to focus on a relatively limited range of research problems (notably journey-to-work travel) at the expense of other relevant issues. An alternative approach is suggested which redefines the topic as 'gender and daily mobility' and incorporates it within a larger theoretical project investigating social and cultural geographies of mobility. Some areas of scholarship associated with the 'cultural turn' are explored to illustrate the potential for new approaches. The article then argues that future research on the topic must be based on a more systematic treatment of gender as a theoretical concept. A framework of analysis is outlined which identifies aspects of gender as a social category and symbolic code, and links it to aspects of daily mobility. The article outlines potential research questions identified through this analysis, and draws attention to a wide range of literature which may be brought to bear on the redefined topic area.

Caracterización de la movilidad en bicicleta en el Campus Universitario Rodrigo Facio, Universidad de Costa Rica

“…La promoción del uso de medios de transporte no motorizado debe tomar en cuenta el tema del género, ya que estudios demuestran que ha sido identificado como un importante indicador en los patrones de viaje (Law, 1999). Las mujeres, además de realizar viajes con distancias más cortas que los hombres, utilizan menos la bicicleta.…”

Gender and mobility: new approaches for informing sustainability

“…How does gender affect mobility? Posing this question starkly reveals that most studies in this research tradition have not delved very deeply into the gender processes (power relations, identity formation and transformation, and the meanings of various aspects of mobility) that shape varied mobility patterns -Robin Law (1999) has made this critique as well. At the outset of this essay I mentioned that, in conceptualizing gender and mobility, it is essential to see the individual as embedded in household, neighborhood, region and larger society; all of these contextual elements matter in understanding how and why gender influences mobility.…”

A different glimpse into mobilities: On the interrelations between daily spatial mobility and social mobility

“…They are able to move more easily and to greater distances, while children have less freedom to move about and explore places-increased complexity of cities and safety issues make parents cautious (Boyd 2014). Women, like the elderly, have also earned more mobility, reducing the gap in comparison to men (Law 1999).…”