A Study On Public Baby Care Rooms From The Perspective Of Spatial Justice

In the construction of modern Chinese cities,the baby care room’s as gendered public spaces reflect the level of urban construction.By establishing baby care rooms in public spaces,women’s rights to breastfeed and to use urban public space during breastfeeding are upheld and made to play an important role in the production of urban space.Through unstructured interviews with mothers who have used baby care rooms in downtown Shanghai for breastfeeding,the researcher focuses on the experiences and feelings of breastfeeding women who breastfeed in mother and baby rooms in public spaces such as parks,commercial centres,transport hubs and workplaces,and interprets these personalised narratives into broader social and cultural dynamics.This resaearch uses the following framework to discuss the spatial justice of baby care rooms: firstly,analysing mother and baby rooms as a site of spatial action and emotional experience,focusing on spatial justice itself,i.e.justice in the physical sense,including the spatial representation of baby care rooms and the spatial practices of multiple subjects;secondly,discussing the phenomena of social justice and injustice in urbanisation,using the construction of urban space as a vehicle for the outcomes of spatial justice.Critically analysing the allocation of spatial resources such as spatial compartmentalisation due to the purposive allocation of spatial resources by capital;thirdly,introducing relevant studies and theories on the body and public breastfeeding to discuss the construction of meaning of subjectivity,right to the city and gendered spatial practices in the spatial construction of baby care rooms,especially the construction of spatial rights.The paper argues that mother and baby rooms simultaneously possess the complex attributes of family-society,private-public and profit-universal.The construction of public space,represented by mother and baby rooms in Shanghai,reflects the re-empowerment of breastfeeding women’s spatial rights in daily life and work by commercial centres,enterprises and the government,enabling women to produce space on a larger scale as the subjects of gendered space use.The physical space of the city can in turn shape the socio-spatial practices of actors.While breastfeeding rooms in the workplace widen the possibilities for women’s work identities and for ongoing dialogue between formal relationships among employees and informal relationships beyond the workplace,breastfeeding spaces also affect workers’ motivation to negotiate the expansion of labour rights.The use of baby care room spaces is about the inclusivity of public space and the rights of minorities in the city,where women’s activism continues to insert otherwise private matters into the realm of public interaction,transforming traditionally malehegemonic urban spaces into truly urban public spaces.The need for baby care rooms not only goes beyond the convenience of breastfeeding but also supports the space,function and equality they deserve,and play their rightful role as a social public space.Finally,by refocusing on women’s everyday spatial strategies and living practices,considering the multiple rights of urban space and acknowledging the existence of imperfect and controversial spatial planning strategies in cities,this research makes recommendations for the design and construction of baby care rooms from a policy perspective,incorporating more experience into urban planning practice,so as to establish a good system of baby care rooms and their related facilities,creating a space that is conducive to mother and baby travel,facilitates public environment that facilitates breastfeeding at any time and encourages fathers to participate in parenting behaviour.