There was no accounting for unpaid labour such as childcare or shopping, carried out mostly by women, in many short journeys on foot during the day. Like most European cities then and now, Vienna was being designed by male planners for men like them: going between home and work, by car or public transport, at mostly set times. It was a simple concept that showed a side to the city that was rarely considered. Initially called the Frauenburo, the department was established after Kail, then a junior district planner, co-organised a photography exhibition in September 1991 that documented a day in the lives of eight different women and girls – from a young child, to a wheelchair user, to an active retiree. Kail, one of the world’s pre-eminent experts in gender mainstreaming, was previously the head of Vienna’s first women’s office. “As a public administration, to offer good service for the people – to have better quality of life – you have to take care of gender equality.” “The argument is, you get a fairer society,” says Eva Kail of the city’s strategic planning unit. But how do pavement widths and bench design relate to gender? And if mainstreaming aims to promote equality, does Vienna’s example prove that it works? They designed cities like there would be no other people than men going to work in the morning and coming back in the evening Sabina Riss As the city’s deputy mayor, Maria Vassilakou, wrote in 2013, gender mainstreaming ensures “fair shares in the city” for all by forcing planning to be approached from different perspectives.
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