With the aim to make a city like Cairo more inclusive for all genders and sexualities, regardless of age, abilities, class, religion or economic background, this study was extended from our research project ‘Gender-inclusive Cities’ and investigated Cairo as one of case study cities. The project collaborated with the Cairo Safe City and Safe Public Spaces Programme, and travelled across three neighbourhoods asking the question – who builds our cities and for whom? Which questioned the role of gender in shaping our urban experiences. The research activities were organised by urban researchers from Northumbria University, CLUSTER and UN Women, covering Zamalek, Al Manial and As Sabityyah in the city of Cairo engaging online and on-ground with diverse communities.
The project started with the online cross-cultural exchange between Egyptian and UK students of architecture and urban planning to seek out ways to break out of rigid assumptions about gender inequality. This online mapping workshop paired up students from both countries to map how they navigate their way around the city. ‘What do you think about when you step out at night?’ was a simple question posed but the complexity of gendered experiences and multiplicities of identities filled up the group brainstorm board within a few minutes. While the difference in the student’s personal experiences based on gender were evident as shown in Figure 1, the similarities between the Egyptian and UK students were remarkable to see.
Seemingly simple questions such as – Is my phone charged so I can easily contact my friends and families? Should I tell my family when I am going out? What can I wear? The research team began from very concrete qualitative analyses of daily life in contemporary cities between the UK and Egypt, and then moved in even closer and closer, carefully untangling how each of these ‘local’ problems on gender differences are connected, influenced by and reconstituting the daily experience in the city. Intersectionality became an important point of discussion, following the workshop, the student pairs shared their collaborative reflections on their relationship with their city that were eventually displayed as part of the public exhibition. From here began the on-ground engagement which the participating Egyptian students also joined in the coming months.
Neighbourhood-level interactions and co-planning sessions
The next phase of the project involved onstreet engagement with the public and reach out to people from diverse backgrounds. Over the week in each neighbourhood, the research team along with local partners and students, visited three identified neighbourhoods carrying a map of the city and asked them a very simple question – ‘Where do you like to go in your city?’. From school walls to public parks to temples and mosques, the maps were pinned up at public spaces within each neighbourhood. Over a few hours, passers-by would mark their favourite public spaces where they feel comfortable and like to go again and again, either with their friends and family or by themselves. Every city map also included a ballot chart to ask people to vote for what is important to them in a public space – greenery, safety, seating, street food, shopping, sense of freedom, scenic beauty, entertainment, toilets, accessibility etc.
Through these neighbourhood-level discussions, what started emerging were city-level patterns of how people from diverse backgrounds navigate in their city and what are the most inclusive spaces that work for all. People began sharing their gendered experiences and barriers in mobility physical, social and economic. In As Sabtiyyah, most women shared that, religious spaces or coffee shops were their favoured public space since that’s one place they feel they are “allowed” to go to rather than, say, a mall. While female residents of Zamalek felt that their neighbourhood was safer than most other neighbourhoods in the city, it’s still prone to late-night crime due to the absence of “eyes on street” in its design. Female participants from all four neighbourhoods have shared their recognised gender divisions in access to different spaces within the city “…many things here (Cairo) are difficult for women, I don’t feel safe in public transportation, unless using women-only carriages, I hope to see buses cover all of Cairo and not only the popular spots…”. “We see women struggling in all aspects. Even a simple walk on the street, and they are easily subjected to harassment, whether verbal or even physical.” Unsurprisingly, sexual harassment and violence were the biggest fear for all women due to the gendered power relations reflected in space design in Cairo.
The maps and week-long discussions were shared at a public exhibition on the weekends at a central and open-to-all public venue in Cairo. By placemaking, everyday public spaces such as an underpass, a pavement, the space under a metro line or around the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) stations, and courtyards of cultural spaces were transformed into vibrant public festival places where people from all walks of life came together to participate in the discourse generated by the project as well as cultural performances and artwork put up by local artists. There were several interactive public activities designed to include people’s voices and experiences through their daily life experiences, which entails situational performances of superiority and deference, and senses of belonging and nonbelonging in the urban public space. Particular gender & class performances determine in which parts of the city one can feel at home, and how one is seen and treated in different spaces on Cairo’s segmented map. Visitors were also invited to contribute ideas on what they would do to make their respective cities more gender-inclusive, if they were made the mayor of their city for a day, filling up the festival space with powerful as well as playful ideas. Another activity crowd-sourced different genders’ mobility across the city by asking them what kind of public space they frequent the most, when and through which mode of transport. By tying their responses through different coloured threads/points, the visitors created a city-level pattern of their relationship with the city.