Exploring Everyday Streets
Chapter 5:
Streets after dark: the experiences of women, girls and gender-diverse people
Gill Matthewson, Nicole Kalms, Jess Berry and Gene Bawden
This chapter examines streets as an often-problematic space for women and gender-diverse people because of gendered perceptions of safety. These perceptions profoundly impact the use of streets – especially at night – by women and gender-diverse people. The chapter uses the results of innovative crowd-sourced mapping surveys in Melbourne and Sydney to develop nuanced understandings of safety perceptions and appropriate responses, such as gender-sensitive lighting and awareness campaigns.
About Gill Matthewson
Gill Matthewson ’s research focus is on connecting research with making a real difference in the daily lives of women: for those using public space with her XYX Lab work and in the lives and careers of women in the built environment professions with the activist collective, Parlour.
About Nicole Kalms
Nicole Kalms is Associate Professor in the Department of Design and founding director of the Monash University XYX Lab, which leads national and international research in Gender and Place. Dr Kalms is author of Hypersexual City: The provocation of soft-core urbanism (Routledge 2017)
About Jess Berry
Jess Berry is Senior Lecturer and Researcher at Monash University XYX Lab. Her research explores how gender identities are articulated and mediated through, and by, spatial practices. She is co-editor of Contentious Cities: Design and the gendered production of space (Routledge 2021) and author of Cinematic Style: Fashion, architecture and interior design on film (Bloomsbury 2022).
About Gene Bawden
Gene Bawden is Associate Professor and Head of Design at Monash University, Faculty of Art Design and Architecture, and co-director of XYX Lab. As a team of researchers, the XYX Lab unites bespoke co-design processes with scholarly research with the aim of mitigating gender inequality in urban spaces.