Ladies, males and independent thinkers: Do you notice anything in particular in the following sequence of images of a hugely important challenge for our planet, or at least the species? Let’s say, some kind of pattern as you move from scene to scene? Or, better yet, some kind of weird, insistent, let’s go so far as to say sick pattern?
The following set of a handful of images offers a pretty fair overview of the so-called ‘manning table’ for this particular mission, i.e., saving the planet.
Andree Woodcock, a Professor from Coventry University, tells us what we need to know about the H2020 TInnGO (Transport Innovation Gender Observatory) project that concerns the role of women in transport and the need to reduce inequalities in smart mobility. Source: Source: https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/reducing-inequalities-in-smart-mobility/73408/
It has long been recognised that women (and other groups) are significantly marginalised in transport. Without research in this area, the transport revolution produced by smart mobility will continue to exclude women and ‘disadvantaged‘ groups (e.g. the elderly, those from lower-income backgrounds, with mobility, cognitive, sensory and communication difficulties). Commuting journeys are privileged by transport systems, over those related to home and social and healthcare. The complex, multilegged journeys by women and those in lower socio-economic groups are not modelled; therefore, future systems will perpetuate the same inequalities.
Recent analysis conducted by TInnGO shows that around 70% of the transport workforce are male and since 1945, only 7% of the transport ministers in TInnGO countries have been female. Gendered and non-inclusive discourses are already being used to promote smart mobility solutions, despite the fact that women most use and support sustainable transport. Clearly, this situation needs to be urgently addressed if the smart city agenda is to fulfil its promises of improving the quality of life for all people.
# # #
Article continues: – https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/reducing-inequalities-in-smart-mobility/73408/
Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir in an interview of 25 July 2019 with Ciara Nugent of Time Magazine. See https://time.com/5634790/iceland-prime-minister-climate-change-interview/ for full text. (Thank you Ciara and Time for these extracts .)
One of the only government heads from an environmentalist party, Jakobsdottir wants to make the country a leader in climate action too, with an ambitious plan to make Iceland carbon neutral by 2040, 10 years before the target set for Iceland’s neighbors in the E.U. “It can be an advantage to be small,” she says. “You can do things bigger and faster. You can actually change everything in a very short time.”
Notice anything in particular here? Exception, or rule?
Hmm. Let’s think about that? Let’s think of it as not the end of a story, but the beginning of a new story.
Off we go.
1992, UNCED – EARTH SUMMIT, Rio de Janeiro
Introduction: The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as “imperative” by the United Nations and “critical” by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organizationconcluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would “provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Women have made major contributions to climate change research and policy and to broader analysis of global environmental issues. They include many women scientists as well as policy makers and activists.
Benoit Beroud, Mobility Designed for All consultant at Mobiped, attended, the World Cycling Congress, which occurred in Nijmegen (Netherlands) last June. He shares his notes and comments with World Streets after reflection some inspiring thoughts about women and cycling in their day-to-day lives.
“First impression was given by pictures of the website, program (see above), and flyers of the conference: set of various women cycling. And it is not a misleading advertisement.”
To fix Sustainable Transport . . . Ensure Full Gender Parity in all Decision and Investment Fora
And please note this: it is the ONLY way to get this important job done! To get the much needed results we need a hammer, not a paint brush. This leadership function cannot be passively sub-contracted to the other sex. World Streets and the New Mobility Agenda have since 1988 been vigorous proponents of full gender parity in all planning and decision counsel. In this section you will find a number of the articles that we have published arguing in favor of gender parity in recent years.
Many of the key gender issues relating to the transport sector in the Pacific region – different travel needs of women from those of men, safety requirements, access to economic opportunities – are the same experienced by women across the world. Contexts may differ from that of Pacific Island nations beset by geographical, as well as socio-cultural challenges, however many issues are in common. Even within countries, transport needs vary greatly from a rural context to urban or peri-urban environments, as well as intra-national differences within island nations.
– Author: Kim Titcombe. Independent consultant based in Europe and in Australia, specialized in the area of gender and development
The full name of this international collaborative program has today been changed to “Women, Transport and Leadership: Seizing the Lead, Not Waiting for Permission”. For short, just “Women, Transport and Leadership” (or WTL)
Gatnet: Collaborative problem-solving for a world-wide action agenda
Following a discussion on GATNET that took place during November-December 2015 — reference http://wp.me/p1bevG-7d — around why gender has not been mainstreamed into the rural transport sector and why addressing gender issues in rural transport has not been transformative, changing the unequal relations between women and men, UK AID has commissioned seven research programmes in Asia and Africa to explore these issues further. The countries in which the research is taking place are Nepal (in South Asia), Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone,Liberia, Uganda and Ghana (in Africa). (See http://www.research4cap.org/SitePages/Home.aspx or join GATNET (below) for further updates).
The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 5 of the UN says: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. All of the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals sound all-encompassing and too lofty to be pursued in a realistic manner. That, however, is the idea. The SDGs are value-pillars which guide planners while they go about their mundane tasks of drawing up maps and fighting resource crunches. Fortunately, the New Urban Agenda adopted in Habitat III breaks down these goals into sub-topics that people can wrap their heads around and know how to create a path towards achieving that utopian ideal.
Here we go again. Every day is a great day for World Streets to announce publicly, loudly and yet once again our firm belief that the most important single thing that our society, our nations and our cities, could do to increase the fairness and the effectiveness of our transportation arrangements would be to make it a matter of the law that all decisions determining how taxpayer money is invested in the sector should be decided by councils that respect full gender parity. We invite you to join us in this challenge and make it one of the major themes of sustainable transport policy worldwide in the year immediately ahead.
Click HERE for 2 minute video with captions
Dear Gatnet Friends
Before we get to the content of what the eminent Saudi Historian has to say on this relevant topic of women who want to be raped, let me take you quickly to our Gatnet 2.0 site and show you how you can put to work one of the special tools we have developed to support the collaborative work at Gatnet. Happily, these rather simple tools are also more generally to anyone anywhere who happens to share our interest in the complex topic of women, transport and equity in our oh so different societies.
The particular tool I would like to draw to your attention today is our so-call KNOOGLE (yes, an ugly word) combined search engine, to which you can go directly here – – https://gatnet.wordpress.com/links-sources-2/searching-all-links/.
Now, to show you a sample of how this works, this morning I wanted to know more about the site of the local elections in Saudi Arabia where for the first time 130,000 women registered to vote and when the ballots were counted more than a dozen of these heroes have been elected to local office — for the first time.
So I scrolled down on the right menu here where it indicates KNOOLGE, and popped in the single key word “Saudi” which called up a very large number of entries, with coverage of the latest developments in the voting situation right up top. With the eminent Saudi historian’s remarks toward the end of the first page of entries.
And now if you wish, let’s take a look at that article and see if we can understand what the good gentleman has in mind:
WORLD STREETS __ A New Mobility Action Plan for 2022 