Informace o publikaci
Safe and Accessible: Reimagining Public Transport for Women's users in Czech Republic and Slovakia
| Autoři | |
|---|---|
| Rok publikování | 2025 |
| Druh | Další prezentace na konferencích |
| Citace | |
| Popis | Enhancing the accessibility of public transport within a city, region, or state presents a difficult challenge. The complexity often arises from the necessity to select a specific group that warrants prioritisation for improved accessibility. In prioritising one group, the requirements of other groups may fall into the background. In the context of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – specifically the Czech Republic and Slovakia – the needs of women using public transport have been overlooked. This paper focuses on the experiences faced by Slovak and Czech women as they navigate public transport, revealing the pervasive inaccessibility. Drawing from qualitatively analysed semi-structured interviews with 14 women, this study seeks to initiate a discussion regarding how the inaccessibility of public transport is both produced and experienced within CEE, considering both material and non-material dimensions. On a material level, the discussion highlights the myriad challenges women encounter in securing comfortable seating across various modes of public transport, alongside necessary amenities such as access to water, heat or cold, menstrual products, and trash bins. On a more discursive level, the inaccessibility of public transport for women is intertwined with the stigmatisation of bodily processes, such as menstruation, which results in the suppression of their needs for more accessible transportation. This suppression manifests in spatial inadequacies such as closed restrooms or open but inappropriately designed, as well as in temporal experiences shaped by societal norms surrounding the expected duration of women’s restroom visits in public transport. By selecting women for discussions on enhancing public transport accessibility, this paper aspires to show how public space is not ready to respond to their experiences, let alone create a safe, accessible space for them. Only through a recognition of the importance of developing public transport that adequately accommodates the experiences of women – encompassing menstruation, ovulation, pregnancy, lactation, menopause, and beyond – can we begin to intertwine these considerations with the existing needs of other groups. This includes all those who do not conform to the archetype of the "normal" white, heterosexual, average man. |