The Status Of Women In The Urban Space

“Male eye” is the first standard in the construction planning and design of theurban space environment, we always ignore the gender difference between man andwomen using the public spaces, and also the special needs of female whose socialroles are set by their gender.With the awakening of women’s independent consciousness and theacceleration of urbanization, women come to realize that they have the same livingright, and start to look for the breakthrough to break the patriarchal discourse as theleading mechanism. Especially in western countries, western feminist scholars havemade great achievements on the feminism space theory research, and proposedfeminist perspective for the space construction, environmental design and urbanpolicies, even put forward the suggestion to build a "non-sexist city".However, in our country, the research on the theory of urban space, especiallythe theory of feminism space was later than the western cities. And the genderdifferences among urban spaces are very obvious. But after more and more womenparticipate in the public society, they start to pay more attentions to their ownposition in the public space and focus on their needs of the space using.Thus the traditional "man-made environment" really affects their travelling;entertainment and daily life. And also obstacles women’s space development. Thispaper is study on the significant gender differences in the three public spaces: publicwashroom, traffic spaces, and consumption spaces. And I investigated the females’public positions in Shanghai through the questionnaire surveys to find their realsituation and difficulties. I analyzed the “man-made” features hidden in the publicspaces, deconstructed the three public spaces with a female perspective, and putforward relevant suggestions.Through this research and analysis, I hope to change the form of man-madeenvironment and the attitude of urban construction which ignores women’sdemands. Win more opportunities for women’s space development and provide newideas of the construction of a harmonious environment where is really “non-sexist”.