Walking Tour – Downtown Vancouver Through A Gender Lens

One of the #WomenDeliver satellite events I went to was Downtown Vancouver through a Gender Lens with Vancouver Urbanarium Society’s Alicia Medina Laddaga and Scott Hein. The walking tour’s description included this – Selected locations are intended to provoke conversations about context, symbolism, accessibility, ethno-centric narrative, perceived safety and embedded gender bias. Further, it is hoped the shared experience will motivate deeper conversation about shared values, included historical and cultural considerations for an evolving, and compassionate, city.

I wanted to hear and learn about the gender lens. Growing up in this city, as a young girl and a young woman, I was never pulled to see Vancouver through those eyes. Even though I went to an all-girls’ school. Times were different.

We knew what areas to stay out of, especially at night. Always among friends, clubbing, after-parties, and just being out, I never felt unsafe out late. I also don’t want to say that a city beyond a certain population size is automatically unsafe. Big cities like Tokyo and Singapore, I feel, are extremely safe. Sanitized, even. Well, at least Singapore. Canada, in general, has a reputation for being pretty safe, perhaps only in contrast with the gun violence south of us. As we know, though, Canadian indigenous women are more and very vulnerable to violence. So it’s complex. It’s complex because we have asymmetrical privilege. I have asymmetrical privilege.

Asymmetrical Privilege

This asymmetrical privilege means in some sectors of society and the system, I can move with ease, understanding, and support. Invisibility, we must remember, does not equate acceptance. Though being “ignored” can have its benefits.

In other areas, not so much. Of course, it’s all very subjective as well, and this is not to negate or diminish anyone’s experiences, including my own. Never let anyone tell you, “it’s all in your head.”

As a visible minority, no matter what generation, we are not quite as “Canadian” as someone Caucasian. Privilege also works differently. The other day, I overhead a conversation between two newcomers, from Normandy, France and Slovenia. The French lady spoke about her struggles in Vancouver (because of licensing as a foreign-educated doctor) and at some point, in a hushed voice, said “Chinese” in her complaints. She hadn’t long been in our city and was leaving in nine days, “counting every sleep”. It’s okay for her daughter to refuse to speak English, speaking only French because it happens to be one of our national languages. And yet if an Asian person did the same…it’s not quite the same, right? Even though we all may face similar challenges setting roots in new lands.

At another #womendeliver satellite event, Talking about Reconciliation and Decolonization, Sierra Tasi Baker of Sky Consulting spoke about being 869th generation in these lands. These are the people with ancestors in these lands, long before they were colonized. Yet they are still highly discriminated against, even systematically.

On the other hand, because of my skin tone, I’m automatically a member of POC, though often this term means those of African-American and Latino-American descent. A nuanced term, depending on where you are from. One that cannot be extracted from cultural and historical context. From some of the conversations, sometimes I feel like I’m excluded being I’m not white enough and I’m not dark enough. I can see why some people of mixed heritage struggle with identity and belonging.

However, I’m not comfortable uniting based just on my skin tone. I’m not comfortable being anti-people. Division – segregation – along any lines breeds and perpetuates stereotypes and us vs them mentality. A better world for everyone – isn’t that what we’re going for?

So that’s part of my thing about activism. Don’t get me wrong, I am sensitive to the injustices and the skewed systems in the world. And I am vocal about it. I just don’t feel it’s my path. This warrior path is not my path. This “it’s not my job to educate white women” – which I hear so often – isn’t my path. It may be someone’s else path or yours. Just not mine and we all have our role to play. Yes, I’d love to see the systems change.

Is it for me to stand on a soapbox or a podium, to convince other people of another possibility? Maybe. Though I haven’t found the languaging that arises from deep within. I haven’t found that aha for my way forward here. What I know is that I’m not comfortable with the current discourse, the tone, the violence.

Also, it’s not the systems. Underneath it all, though, it’s people.

Are we ready to change?

Are people ready to change? Do they want to? It’s hard for people to really change. It’s so tied up with their identity, or at least that’s what people think.

People get angry and then we acclimate to the situation, until another crisis or disaster enrages us, sickens us, and calls us to action. A lot of this action, frankly, is bitching on social media. Sort of what I’m doing here, I suppose. To be honest.

Real change comes from people themselves. And I am focused on that. I am on that journey myself.

Getting to Know My City

Still, I’m interested in urban design through the gender lens. Because after over 15 years living overseas, I’m new to my city and my city has already changed so much. And as a cis-woman, there is a role for me. As an ally for positive change.

This, the guides told us, is still an emerging field. They shared that their approach is designing for everyone, regardless of gender. The question is, are we at the point where the experiences of all genders are similar and equivalent enough for that approach to be sensitive enough?

It’s not that I disagree about being all-inclusive. The question is how do take into account gendered experiences, without segregating people and defaulting to gender stereotypes.

A Little Digging..

Looking further into this, it seems that Montreal started exploratory walks in the 1990s and if you google this topic, you’ll find a lot of articles about Vienna and the survey there to make the city more inclusive.

Because the guides felt they were not experts in what some call womanability, the reason I signed up for the walk vanished. Still, I stayed to hear what they had to say about this downtown east walking tour.

Probably the closest they came to talking about exploratory walks and gender-led urban design was when we stopped across from Four Sisters Co-op. Scott Hein spoke about how the residents of the co-op were consulted in the building of the pump station across the street.

Opened in 1987, Four Sisters was named for Vancouver’s four sisters – Edinburg, Scotland, Guangzhou, China, Odessa, Ukraine, and Yokohama, Japan. With 153 suites, this co-op houses mixed-income families from diverse cultures. Now kids who grew up here are activists, with pride for their place and community. What they have to say would have been interesting. What are their concerns as mothers, sisters, and daughters?

Although I didn’t learn much about Vancouver from a gender perspective, it did get me thinking. Considering the gender lens in urban planning goes beyond the question of safety. Because of our gendered roles, women and men use and access public spaces and transport differently. Broadly speaking, it is still predominately women who are childminders. Even with careers, women are the ones who tend to take time off to take their children to doctor’s appointments or afterschool activities. Rather than home-work route, divergences come from additional destinations, involving multiple modes of transport.

On the walk, we were asked to look out for what are potential threats and how urban design can improve the environment. To be honest, it wasn’t so easy, especially since we were walking rapidly as a large group in broad daylight. To the untrained eye, design through the gender lens is challenging and it is not an easy field, that’s for sure. There are so many factors in play, a medley of interconnected, cascading factors – historic, cultural, trauma past, systemic gaps…

Thanks to this walk, I’ll be more mindful of these factors as I navigate through my city.