Equity Planning in Public Facilities	.
Karen L. Becker	Author Info

Abstract

Introduction

Increasing numbers of women pursue public efficacy. They question policies and practices and suggest alternatives for community development. Written accounts abound, albeit rarely in mainstream literature where a "systematic denigration of women's interests and concerns [results in] the splitting off and discarding of one-half of humanity's experiences and interpretations of reality" (Hooper, 1992: 52).

How could we plan and design a nonsexist and "woman friendly" environment? Girls and women, if asked, can describe safety implications of buildings and plazas unrecognized by standard policies. Contemporary changes in and out of hospitals for birthing facilities result from women's efforts. Certainly, all females are familiar with long lines to access a public restroom while seeing traffic for the men's room move smoothly. Yet, planners tend to approach "potty parity" in terms of similar spatial requirements rather than as equal access.

Women have long influenced local grassroots decisions about physical space in their homes and neighborhoods through community involvement; their work typically unrecognized as part of public affairs. They organize to oppose gender inequality in multiple ways as they strive for the "politics of empowerment,"¹ to improve necessary community services such as self-education, housing, employment, child care, street safety, financial aid, transportation, welfare reform, and health services.

Community group stories reveal political methodologies and power in the context of creating social change. This session reviews a subculture of neighborhood organizing defined by women's own experiences, noting a range of the issues and actions. Conscious that we find ourselves in structures that don't work, the women demonstrate alternate forms as they work both outside and inside existing conditions. An explicit attempt is made to include voices from some people least likely to be heard.

The session participants expect to stimulate a lively discussion about women and community development following presentations by Ayse Yonder and Felice Mendell. Ms. Yonder will provide an overview of "Best Practices from Women's Perspectives," an exhibit organized for the Habitat II conference held in 1996. She will discuss her experiences with coordinating the exhibit and ideas about community development that have emerged since the 1995 International Women's Conference and the 1996 Habitat II. Felice Mendell and other participants from the Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development in Boston will describe their Roofless Women's Action Research Mobilization (RWARM), and recommendations they term "Lifting the Voices of Homeless Women."

1. The "politics of empowerment" phrase is from the title of Bookman & Morgen's (1988) book about women's struggles to make their lives better. The organizing tradition is rooted in struggles based on such themes as labor, civil rights, self-help, women's rights, and international women in development.