p3

  1–19, 2010 

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X  Online   © 2010 Urban Studies Journal Limited

DOI: 10.1177/0042098009357353

Elizabeth L. Sweet is  in  the  Department  of  Urban  and  Regional  Planning,  University  of  Illinois,  111  Temple  Buell  Hall  MC  619,  611  Taft  Drive,  Champaign,  Illinois,  61821,  USA.   E-mail: [email protected].

Sara Ortiz Escalante is in Barcelona, Spain. E-mail: [email protected].

Planning Responds to Gender Violence: Evidence from Spain, Mexico and the United States Elizabeth L. Sweet and Sara Ortiz Escalante

[Paper first received, February 2009; in final form, July 2009]

Abstract

Urban planning has been largely ineffective in addressing urban violence and particularly slow in responding to gender violence. This paper explores the public and private divide, structural inequalities, and issues of ethnicity and citizenship, in terms of their planning implications for gender violence. Drawing on evidence from Spain, Mexico and the United States, it examines how economic and social planning and gender violence intertwine. The three case studies demonstrate that the challenge is not only to break constructed structural inequalities and divisions between public and private spheres, but also to promote changes in the working models of institutions and organisations.

and cities (Wilson, 1991, p. 10; Whitzman, 1995). Insight by feminist planning academics pushed a reformulation of planning agen- das to make gender violence a central issue in social, physical and economic planning (Andrew, 1995; Michaud, 2005; Smaoun, 2000). Women’s safety1 can be incorporated into the design of cities and their parks, in rec- reation planning, in public transport systems and in health care facilities; economic devel- opment initiatives for women and improved access to affordable housing also mitigate gender violence (Andrew, 1995).

Introduction

Urban planning has been largely ineffective in addressing urban violence and particu- larly slow in responding to gender violence. Previous literature has recognised that

much social violence is gender-based, [and] is linked to gendered power relations and construction of masculinities (Moser, 2004, p. 4).

Since fear of crime and violence is endemic among urban dwellers across the world, planners should be confronting this issue in their attempts to build better communities

Urban Stud OnlineFirst, published on March 19, 2010 as doi:10.1177/0042098009357353

2    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

Both physical and social planning must be engaged to address gender violence, but the focus by and large has been on physical plan- ning. Clara Greed proposed the inclusion of women’s concerns and the prioritisation of their safety

Over and above spatial concerns, the aspatial issue of safety features strongly in many women and planning policies, both in relation to transport issues, and as a component of policies on different types of land uses and developments (Greed, 1994, p. 177).

Caroline Andrew pointed out that, since violence against women in particular is cer- tainly among the threats to public safety, its prevention is a legitimate aim for municipal government planning.

U r b a n s a f e t y i s c o m p a t i b l e w i t h , a n d indeed can be seen as part of, the economic development strategies pursued by municipal governments (Andrew, 1995, p. 106).

Hamilton and Jenkins (2000) argued for public transport gender audits, since women have distinctive travel needs, particularly as the main care providers. Examining trans- port from a gender perspective also helps to reduce violence or the fear of it in public spaces. Women may perceive public transport as dangerous for several reasons: the wait at isolated and dark bus stops or in unpopulated stations, the lack of surveillance in buses or subways, or the distances between home and public transport (Loukaitou-Sideris and Flink, 2009). Women on buses or subways can be prey to sexual abuse, such as groping and sexual aggression (Massolo, 2005). Zoning to promote mixed-use developments and diverse activities in a neighbourhood can relive the emptiness of streets at certain times of day—as Jacobs demonstrated, which may contribute to violence or fear of it (Trench and Jones, 1995).

Even though feminists urge a focus on gen- der violence in planning, the consistent sepa- ration of the public and private spheres has stifled planning responses to gender violence.

This separation renders violence that takes place in private spaces outside the planning realm. Moser (2004) acknowledges the signifi- cance of violence in both private and public spaces. The public–private divide is enveloped in multiscaled structural inequalities that also impact women’s safety. A gendered analysis is required to understand and dismantle these interconnected structures.

This paper seeks to make three contributions: first, to establish firmly the significance of gen- der violence prevention in the planning field; secondly, to break down constructed divisions between the public and private spheres as well as other structural inequalities; and, thirdly, to describe how gender violence intersects with planning and policy. Following a review of urban planning literature’s approaches to crime and violence prevention, we use three case studies as our point of departure to understand how gender violence interacts with social and economic development. In all three cases, issues of ethnicity and citizen- ship amplify existing inequalities and restrict the choices of women confronting violence. Finally, we present a discussion of how these three cases demonstrate the complexity of challenging the public–private divide and the dominant power structures that perpetuate gender violence.

Gender Violence in Public and Private Spaces

Gender violence is the worst manifestation of gender discrimination. It is based on unequal relationships between men and women in social, cultural, economic and political spheres. The United Nations defines gender violence as

any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life (United Nations, 1993).

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Gender violence includes intimate partner violence, family violence and social and com- munity violence (rape, genital mutilation), as well as structural forms of violence: the feminisation of poverty, salary discrimina- tion, workplace discrimination and sexual harassment, women-trafficking and rape as a war weapon (Massolo, 2005).

Most policy-oriented and academic lit- erature on violence and the fear of crime has focused on public space and the built envi- ronment and has averted its gaze from the everyday lives of women in private spaces. This focus on the public sphere has contributed to the myth that the private space of home is safe for everyone (Stanko, 1988). We must acknowledge that, in different contexts and cultures—and even for different individuals— public and private space can be understood differently. Private spaces can be liberating for some, frightening and dangerous for others (Whitzman, 2007). Social and political theo- ries, in addition to accentuating the separation of public and private activity, have devalued the private sphere (Yeoh and Huang, 1998) perpetuating women’s exclusion from and marginalisation in public spaces.

The public sphere’s economic and politi- cal activities at the community, state and national levels were linked to production, paid employment—and men. The private sphere, defined as the site for reproduction, was and is still associated with personal and family relations and activities, informal or unpaid employment—and women. While in the past three decades a significant number of women have entered the paid workforce, this dualism continues to perpetuate domination and discrimination, and has limited the ability to attain gender equity (Staeheli and Clarke, 1995). We argue that planners must redefine traditional boundaries that separate the public and private spheres. This conceptual shift is a necessary prerequisite for effective gender planning and the elimination of vio- lence against women. Planners must begin by acknowledging the diversity of spaces: public,

private, semi-private2 and communal, where violence is possible (Pain, 2001).

In government reports, two factors in partic- ular keep gender violence invisible. First, their local and regional crime data are seldom dis- aggregated by sex. Secondly, gender violence, especially violence in private or semi-private spaces, remains under-reported. Planners aim- ing to create safer communities, therefore, face a fundamental challenge: how to connect and bring attention to problems of violence in the home, and in the workplace, as well as in the streets (Whitzman, 2008). Crawley (2000) pro- poses that an analysis of women’s structural inequality would allow planners to begin to reframe public–private distinctions and also begin to address violence against women in the context of structural gendered inequalities rather than as an isolated and individual issue. Structural gendered inequalities are linked to power dynamics, which are shaped by notions of identity, and human agency (Whitzman, 2008, pp. 60–61). Whitzman (2008) describes several ways that power influences women’s vulnerability to violence at different scales. For example, national governments have the power to enact and prosecute relevant laws, or conversely, not to enact or enforce them. At the individual level, in some places violence is not punished because national laws do not recognise certain types of violence as a crime, or because victims do not report it due to fear of retribution. These larger power rela- tionships and the outcomes they produce are inseparable from gender identities. Women’s identities have been fashioned as a relatively powerless group along with immigrants and Other ethnicities, which puts them at higher risk of being victims of violence (Moser, 2004). Finally, limited human agency in the context of unequal power dynamics also makes women more vulnerable to violence. For example, women whose only option for income genera- tion is prostitution would not be thought to have much agency; but the lack of agency is a result of structural inequality not personal inabilities (Whitzman, 2008).

4    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

Gender Violence in the Planning Literature

Since the 1960s, literature and data on crime prevention have excluded violence in the private sphere from their analyses, focusing mostly on break-ins, robbery, vandalism and littering (Wekerle and Whitzman, 1995). Local government crime control and preven- tion measures usually originated from the criminal justice field involving restrictive strategies, such as more police and control- ling access to public spaces. More interactive strategies were also employed, which included ‘people’(ing) public spaces and attacking the ‘root causes’ of crime through training and education in poorer communities (Wekerle and Whitzman, 1995; Pain and Townshend, 2002). Nevertheless, these interventions rarely contemplate gender, ethnicity and citizenship. A study of policing by Fyfe (1995) includes gender and race, but each variable is analysed separately; moreover, gender is considered only in terms of private spaces and domestic violence, while fear of violence is not considered at all.

The planning profession has promoted alter- native approaches to crime prevention. In the 1970s, urban planners espoused ‘crime preven- tion through environmental design’ (CPTED), for the built environment and public spaces. The main elements of CPTED are: natural sur- veillance, fostering territoriality, maintenance of public areas, reducing areas of conflict, control- ling access and promoting alternative routes. These planning strategies have been criticised for addressing only crime in public spaces by strangers, thus ignoring most crimes against women, or any analysis directed to violence against women in private spaces (Whitzman, 1995; Wekerle and Whitzman, 1995).

In the 1990s, cities began to develop ‘safer cities’ programmes that assume fear of crime is as important as crime itself and that citizens are experts on urban violence. ‘Safer cities’ programmes promote partnerships among

national government, cities, neighbour- hoods and citizens, to prevent crime not only through environmental design, but through community development and education (Wekerle and Whitzman, 1995). Nevertheless, they function only in the public sphere and rarely include a gender perspective.

Both approaches fall short of developing long-term violence prevention from a gender perspective. Physical planning measures for the built environment need to be comple- mented by social and economic planning. Women’s experiences of fear arise not only from the physical characteristics of public spaces, but also out of their social role in a society that still discriminates against women (Kallus and Churchman, 2004). The power- ful social connotations of certain environ- ments are sufficient to induce fear in women. Furthermore, adapting the built environment has hardly reduced violence overall, since most gender violence occurs in the private and semi-private spheres. Moreover, strategies applied to the public sphere assume that most crime is opportunistic and that most offenders respond predictably to environmental stimuli. Yet, violence against women is often regular, systematic and fostered by deep-rooted social inequalities (Dobash and Dobash, 1992).

In response to these limitations, beginning in the 1990s, feminist planners have promoted three alternative ways to create safer and inclusive spaces: the adoption of women’s safety audits; the creation of more spaces of refuge, empowerment and discursive free- dom; and, more recently, incorporating gen- der considerations in community safety plans. All three initiatives recognise that women and men often have different definitions of violence and what to do about it (Kallus and Churchman, 2004; Whitzman, 2007).

Women’s Safety Audits

In contrast to ‘safer cities’ programmes, women’s safety audits are an example of

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    5

planning the built environment from a gender perspective. The audits gather women to walk through a physical environment, usually in the evening, evaluating how safe it feels to them and identifying ways to make that space safer. The audit recommendations, which may reach a variety of public and private bodies (for example, municipal or regional govern- ments, landlords, schools), range from physi- cal improvements to social changes (Andrew, 2000). The process of women’s safety audits values the experiences of participants, reflect- ing a commitment to basing policy on local knowledge (Andrew, 2000; Beebeejaun, 2009). The process also visualises women’s right to use urban space: women gain a sense of ownership over public spaces, increase their control over the environment, and expand their social and political influence (Andrew, 2000). Safety audits can be a tool for collective action to resist physical and social boundaries that restrain women’s access to space. While safety audits are concrete actions, they still primarily focus on the physical environment; they need to be complemented with social and economic planning strategies in order to pro- vide a holistic approach to gender violence.

Community Support, Network of Services and Spaces of Discursive Freedom for Women

Community centres and networks of services can provide a safe place in which women can consider how to counter gender violence (Whitzman, 2004). With informational, emotional and practical support, such services help women to make decisions about their future. Moreover, community centres are not only emergency resources; they are meeting- places where women can talk over matters of health, employment and human rights. The spaces of discursive freedom in community centres or resource networks encourage women not only to discuss their safety, but also to organise and advocate for changes in their communities (Whitzman, 2004).

Thus, these centres may train women in leader- ship and community organising as well as help them to achieve economic self-sufficiency.

Limited economic development and pov- erty are cited as a leading cause and result of violence against women (González-López, 2007; Whitzman, 2008). The link between gender violence and economic development has led both public and private planning agencies to fund services for survivors of gen- der violence that focus on long-term recovery (Whitzman, 2004). These services include access to affordable housing, workforce devel- opment, job search advice, legal advocacy, economic support and services for children.

A Gender Perspective in Community Safety

The concept of ‘community safety’ was pro- posed as an alternative view that acknowl- edges the wider spectrum of violence in both the public and private spheres, and the diver- sity of people who might be enlisted to reduce it (Pain and Townshend, 2002; Whitzman, 2008). ‘Community safety’ addresses the boundaries limiting women’s full participa- tion in urban life. Some boundaries are a consequence of the fear of violence and con- strain women’s social and economic activities, increase stress and curtail the use of public resources (Andrew, 2000).

Incorporating a gender perspective in com- munity safety challenges the masculine traits that bolster violent behaviours. A ‘gendered community safety’ model would comprise disaggregated crime and violence data and reports by gender; integration of a gender perspective into the development, implemen- tation and evaluation of violence prevention programmes; education for public officials and decision-makers about gender violence; the inclusion of more women at all decision- making levels; and, research on gendered constructions of behaviour and relationships in order to expose all types of gender violence (Whitzman, 2007).

6    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

Three Case Studies

Through three case studies, we highlight the cultural, economic, gender, class and social diversity of contemporary cities in their attempts to eradicate gender violence. We chose these three case studies because they rep- resent different scales of planning: a legislative top–down approach in Vilafranca del Penedès, a small Spanish city; local comprehensive planning in Ciudad Juárez, a US–Mexico border city, and grassroots citizen-planning in Chicago, a US Midwestern city. Using these examples, we demonstrate the struggles of confronting the public–private divide and multiple structural power relationships. The cases also illustrate the need for social and economic planning to be cognisant of and respond to gender violence. In Vilafranca del Penedès, we see how top–down planning is unable to change historically constructed gender relationships in the context of social planning. In Juárez, we see how planning can actually perpetuate gender violence when it privileges economic privatisation and remains oblivious to widespread gender violence. In Chicago, we observe how a grassroots group has used economic development as a tool for addressing and preventing gender violence.

The three cases reveal the salience of ethnic- ity and citizenship status in gender violence. In all cases, planners (public officials and community organisers) have been confronted by changes in population. Their effectiveness in addressing gender violence can be directly related to the maturity of their understand- ing of how ethnic and citizenship issues have influenced government policies and individual decisions. Failure to appreciate the impor- tance of ethnicity and citizenship status has muffled the effectiveness of gender violence prevention and response. In Vilafranca del Penedès, immigration is a relatively new con- text for planning; in Juárez, femicide affects mostly immigrant women from other parts of Mexico; in Chicago, planning rarely addresses the problems faced by immigrant Latinas.

These three case studies reflect the need to take into account the multiplicity of wom- en’s experiences in space, already reflected in the literature. Feminist planners warn against making generalised statements about all women (Santiago and Morash, 1995; Sandercock, 2000; Whitzman, 2007). Women use public and private spaces in a variety of ways depending on their ethnicity, age, sexual- ity, income, location, household size, citizen- ship status and other, less obvious, factors.

Of course, highlighting the importance of ethnicity and legal status is not entirely new. Research on Latina survivors of gender violence in the US unveils the uncertainty about whether programmes are responsive to their needs (Santiago and Morash, 1995). The authors call on public officials to be sen- sitive to specific needs of women of colour and immigrant women when deciding on policies and programmes. Cities’ services should have staff that understand how dif- ferences in language, culture and tradition shape the response to abuse (Santiago and Morash, 1995). For safer diverse communi- ties, planning should go beyond offering simple ‘multicultural services’ for survivors of violence. Strategies must address how gender violence functions as a tool of racism and economic oppression in different societies and what are the most effective ways to break down these oppressions. Immigrant women of colour suffer abuse both in their identity as women and in their identity as persons of colour. Therefore, the strategies employed to address gender violence must take into account women’s particular histories and the complex dynamics of violence influenced by race, ethnicity and immigration status.

Methodology

The three case studies are analysed using documentation review, interviews, participant observation and focus groups. We were inter- ested in how local and regional urban planning addresses violence against women in public,

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    7

semi-private and private spaces. What are the current strengths and weaknesses of such plan- ning? How can urban planning from a gender perspective improve the safety of women? Do local economic planning and policy develop- ment address gender violence? How do these planning processes take into consideration diverse women’s identities including ethnicity, citizenship and human agency?

The data gathering for each case was specific to the scale of interventions that we intended to examine. While we targeted different informants in each site, they were mandated by the context of gender violence interven- tion in each case. In Vilafranca del Penedès, interviews were conducted with municipal department directors, violence against women commission members and regional repre- sentatives during the summer of 2008 with the objective of understanding the implementa- tion of government support services. In 2003 and 2004, we interviewed women’s organisa- tions in Ciudad Juárez that were responding to the femicide; we evaluated the local com- prehensive plan for Juárez of 2004; and we reviewed local and national media on gender violence in Juárez to understand the violence from different perspectives. In Chicago, we conducted interviews, focus groups and participant observation with organisers and members of an immigrant group from 2004 to 2008 to evaluate their experience as citizen planners responding to gender violence. The comparison of these cases provides a rich spectrum from which to understand the complexity of how planning engages gender violence in different environments.

The Top–Down Approach: Local Government Response to Gender Violence in Vilafranca del Penedès, Spain

Since the 1980s, feminist groups in Spain have advocated adding the problem of gender vio- lence to the public agenda. Mostly prompted by female politicians, local governments

have developed more co-ordinated response to gender violence. They have established commissions comprising members of the institutions that respond directly in a case of gender violence and have developed protocols to improve interinstitutional collaboration. Nevertheless, the problem has persisted. In the past four years, an effort that started at the grassroots level with feminist groups has been transformed to a top–down programme through new regional and national laws seek- ing to eradicate gender violence (Ley Orgánica 1/2004; Llei 2/2004; Ley Orgánica 3/2007; Llei 5/2008).3 Government departments at local, regional and national levels have a greater responsibility to prevent gender violence. This case study—conducted during the summer of 2008 in Vilafranca del Penedès, a small city of 38 000 inhabitants, 30 miles south of Barcelona—reflects how govern- ments of small cities address gender violence. It analyses a top–down approach by a local government to gender violence, specifically noting the different positions taken by social and physical planning agencies.

The Regional Context of Catalonia

Catalonia is a nation within Spain, in the north-east, located on the Mediterranean coast. In the past five years, the regional gov- ernment has introduced sweeping reforms, including laws that incorporate gender equity in urban planning and aim to eradicate gender violence.

In Spain, urban planning has tradition- ally been led by architects and engineers and has focused simply on the physical and technical aspects of cities, leaving out social, environmental and economic development issues. Catalonia’s 2004 Neighbourhood Law exemplifies the policies that establish new gender criteria for municipal planning. The Neighbourhood Law states that rehabilitation projects must promote gender equity in the use of urban spaces and municipal resources (Llei 2/2004).

8    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

The Catalan Law to Eradicate Sexist Violence, passed in May 2008, mandates all government departments to prevent and respond to gender violence of all types: intimate partner violence, family violence, social and community violence (rape, genital mutilation, etc.) and workplace-based sexist discrimination and sexual harassment (Llei 5/2008). The law establishes a regional service network offering comprehensive resources to survivors of gender violence: rights to assist- ance, protection and short- and long-term recovery. A Regional Working Commission of representatives from all Catalan depart- ments is charged with ensuring the depart- ments’ prevention efforts and responses to violence against women. The law also con- templates the creation of a regional research centre on gender violence, and curriculum modifications (Llei 5/2008).

Local Responses to Gender Violence

A range of people and institutions participate directly or indirectly in the response to and prevention of gender violence. This par- ticular case examines how the services for gender violence survivors, developed by the Commission of Violence Against Women and other municipal programmes, respond to and prevent gender violence. The Commission’s 13 members represent local and regional police, health services, social services, pro bono attorneys, the county government, the Red Cross, the municipal Women’s Centre and the Equity Programme. In this case study, we consider the potential influence of growing immigration from North Africa and Latin America on responses to gender violence.

C o m m i s s i o n o f V i o l e n c e A g a i n s t Women. Since the early 1990s, many local governments in Catalonia have responded to gender violence by creating interinstitutional commissions and developing protocols that include a referral process. When a woman accesses a service provider, a professional

evaluates her needs and refers her to other commission services or municipal pro- grammes. During the past 11 years, the protocol has reduced the revictimisation of survivors through their access to health care, personal protection, emotional, legal and economic support, and housing.

The commission identified the need to train each agency’s personnel to serve gender vio- lence survivors effectively and respectfully— one of the elements that the planning literature considers necessary to ‘community safety’ (Whitzman, 2007). Another cited improvement would be to strengthen links with local and regional business associa- tions in order to access job opportunities for women. Improving access to jobs would help to break with the cycle of gender violence and poverty (Whitzman, 2007). The commission also recognises that more outreach to immi- grant women is needed.

The incor por at ion of a gender equit y perspective in city hall’s departments. In 1996, the municipal government created the Equity Programme to ensure that gender implications are considered in policies and programmes at all levels of the municipal government. Nevertheless, not all levels promote gender equity in their policies and programmes.

The municipal departments and pro- grammes fall into three categories: those whose staff adopt a gender perspective; those who do not, but would be willing to if there were more support and networking between departments; and those who are gender-blind or sceptics about gender equity policies. In general, most municipal depart- ments do not employ a gender perspective in programmes. Among the gender-blind is the planning department that usually focuses on land use and physical development. When we asked about the possibility of adopting a gender perspective in the department, a staff member answered

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    9

I guess that it is very difficult in planning to do that, to see how gender influences planning. In departments that work with social issues, even with economic issues, I imagine it is easier. I think we have to understand planning as universal, planning does not have gender, all citizens are equal from a planning perspective. For example, it does not matter that a pedestrian is a man or a woman, the solution that you give them must be the same, there is no difference; it may be a difference with the elderly and children. I think we cannot do any action that can help improve that [gender equity].

Clearly, the planning staff member’s view could preclude the application of policies promoted by feminist planners to achieve safer cities. Even apart from such gender- blind viewpoints, most staff do not consider gender policies because of the lack of political support and co-ordination between pro- grammes. In interviews, many department directors said that the municipal government has to change the bureaucratic structure that has separated departments in isolated silos, keeping them from horizontally co- ordinating their work. Directors often said that the problem in city hall is not a lack of funds, but of collaboration.

The context of gender violence in immigrant communities. In Catalonia and Spain, the immigrant population has risen rapidly in the past five years. In January 2008, immigrants represented 18 per cent of the city’s popula- tion. Of that 18 per cent, 42.6 per cent were from Africa and 36.3 per cent were from Latin America (Ajuntament de Vilafranca 2004, 2008). Immigration patterns differ between North Africa and Latin America. Most North African immigrants are men who migrate without their families and send for them once the men have legal status. In contrast, it is the Latin American women who often come alone, according to the municipal Co-existence and Mediation Programme,

which helps to integrate immigrants at the local level. Latin American women work in the service industry. When North African women arrive, they usually do not participate in the paid labour force.

The differences between women from these two distinct continents and cultures suggest that they may also deal with gender violence in somewhat different ways. Service providers and gender violence advocates, accustomed to working with Spanish women, may need to consider new ways of working with immi- grant women. Municipal governments’ cul- tural mediators can help advocates with that challenge; however, not all cultural mediators are trained on issues of gender violence.

A related problem is the stereotypes that have emerged about immigrant women’s response to gender violence: for example, that they abandon the legal process because they really wanted to use it to scare the abus- ers. This interpretation is unrealistic and insensitive to women’s vulnerabilities; they often do not feel safe in reporting violence or entangling themselves with legal authori- ties. They are often constrained by a lack of economic resources and may lack family or social networks to furnish support.

Greater understanding of these complexi- ties by officials and programme staff would contribute to the safety and recovery of gen- der violence survivors. The case reaffirms a concern raised in the literature about the need of municipal governments to have staff who understand how language and cultural differ- ences influence the response to gender violence and to implement strategies that address racism and economic oppression associated with this issue (Santiago and Morash, 1995). The Spanish and the Catalan governments have moved decisively in the legislature to close the public–private gap for gender violence eradication and prevention. The laws also incorporate elements present in the literature such as the creation of community centres,

10    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

networks of services and spaces of discursive freedom, and a gender-based community s a f e t y a p p r o a c h ( Wh i t z m a n , 2 0 0 7 ) . Nevertheless, this case study suggests that the need remains strong for political com- mitment and the will to pursue institutional co-ordination and collaboration with local organisations (Massolo, 2005). Otherwise, the energy of the governments’ exemplary but top–down efforts for the safety of women will continue to flounder.

The Responses of Different Sectors to Femicide: the Case of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Femicide is an increasingly documented phenomenon in Mexico, Guatemala and Canada (Prieto-Carrón et al., 2007; Gartner and McCarthy, 1991). It is a form of gender violence, defined as the systematic killing of women, with relation to the fact that they are women. Poor and immigrant women are the usual targets. In the case study of Juárez, we inquire how local economic planning and policy development address gender violence, how women’s identities are manifested in planning processes; and how citizen planning groups are responding to gender violence.

Femicide in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Ciudad Juárez, a city in the state of Chihuahua with approximately 1.5 million inhabitants, lies on the border with El Paso, Texas. Pro- business economic policies along the border have attracted assembly plants that rely on cheap labour to put together consumer goods that are shipped across the border, largely for US consumers. In the city’s hundreds of assembly plants (maquiladoras), nearly half of the workers are women who earn US$4–8 a day (Staudt, 2008, pp. 10 and 45). The economic exploitation in Ciudad Juárez has coincided with extraordinary physical violence, of unfathomable proportions, against women.

More than 500 women’s bodies have been found since 1994. Many were raped, tortured and mutilated; breasts and nipples have been cut off, some have been branded like cows; and many have been sodomised (Staudt, 2008, p. ix; Livingston, 2004, p. 59). Public officials and the local police have accused the victims of being prostitutes, of leading double lives and of having provoked their murderers (Livingston, 2004, p. 63). Newspaper accounts and interviews used in the documentary film Señorita Extraviada (2001) explicitly support those assertions and suggest that they justify the murders.4 About one-fifth of the victims had been maquiladora workers with the others being students, danc- ers, homemakers and business owners; and a couple of prostitutes, essentially working- class women (Washington-Valdez, 2006, p. 41). Many of them were immigrants from other Mexican states (Livingston, 2004, p. 59; Vázquez-Castillo, 2006).

Despite several highly publicised arrests and convictions, the femicide continues. From January to June 2009, 32 women have been murdered and 14 others have disappeared (Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, 2009). Families looking for information complain of being harassed by the police. The police have failed to respond to calls for help and, in some cases, police are suspected of being the perpetrators. Piles of documents and other objects that were potential evidence have been burned (Señorita Extraviada, 2001). Under international pressure, federal officials have sent special prosecutors to the region, who have been unsuccessful, spend- ing much of their time investigating whether the victims might have been prostitutes or from ‘bad’ families (Staudt, 2008). Instead of diminishing the public–private divide, the Mexican government has exacerbated it, thereby intensifying the power dynamics and shrinking women’s agency and power.

The case of Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade is one among many shocking examples.

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    11

Her mother told the story. People heard screaming near their house and could see a woman’s legs hanging from the window of a parked car. They called the police. An hour went by; the screams continued. But no police came. The police were called again and still no one came. After a few hours a police car drove by; by then the rapists and their victim were gone. The next day the brutalised and stran- gled body of Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade was found in an empty lot near where she had been heard screaming, not far from her job at a maquiladora.

Grassroots response. Several groups, com- prising mostly women, organised to raise an outcry about the continuing murders. Several international protests resulted. For example, on 14 February 2004, at the annual V-Day march (organised by author Eve Eisner to protest against domestic violence), hundreds of women and men from around the world marched from El Paso, Texas, to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, with signs denouncing the femicide and chants of Ni Una Mas—Not One More. In Juárez, Sally Fields and Jane Fonda spoke. In some respects, even this protest added to the distress of the families: food and drink in a carnival atmosphere ignored the earlier request from several of the moth- ers of victims that the march be silent, out of respect for their daughters and that a memo- rial service for them be included. Some of the marchers did leave to attend a mass for Lilia Alejandra Garcia Andrade and other victims.

The femicide in the media and in academic journals. Much of the popular literature in newspapers and magazines drew connec- tions between the murders, the maquiladoras and the neo-liberal policy-makers’ North American Free Trade Agreement, which was implemented at about the same time as the bodies started to appear. However, there has yet to be a thorough analysis of the various aspects of economic planning policies and their complicity in the continuing femicide.

Recently, several authors (Wright, 2004; Salzinger, 1997; King, 1999) have explored a possible relationship between neo-liberal policies and the femicide in that the low value placed on women workers by the global economy made their annihilation accept- able. Some articles draw analogies between maquiladora workers and prostitutes (for example, Livingston, 2004; Wright, 2004). However, these analogies take a different form from those suggested by the police. In the perspective of some local people, the women maquiladora workers are seen as symbolically selling themselves or their labour capacity (like prostitutes) to the historical enemy—the US (Livingston, 2004, p. 66). The imagery of women workers selling their bod- ies to the enemy also recalls the legend of the Malinche, the diabolical Other of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint. Malinche was the Aztec woman viewed as having sold the Aztecs to Cortez, as his translator and lover. Women maquiladora workers can be excoriated like Malinche for capitulating to the powers that be—the new global economy (Wright, 2001).

The enmeshing of the maquiladora women of a border city in the market economy also has implications for their citizenship. In free trade zones where the maquiladoras operate, Mexican labour and environmental laws are often not enforced, constituting a lawless-like reality (Mittermeyer, 1992). Several articles have suggested that the grey area created around sovereign state borders in the context of globalisation has produced the anarchic environment in which femicide is taking place (Craigie, 2005; Segura, 2007).

Other authors have sought to highlight active responses to the Juárez femicide (Staudt, 2008). Ensalaco (2006) champions the mis- sion of Esther Chavez and of Casa Amiga, the woman’s shelter and crisis centre she started, as an ‘active’ response to the femicide. The work of many of the families of the victims, however, receives little notice (Rojas, 2005).

12    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

To focus on one individual rather than the community in this way misses important actors in the response to violence. For exam- ple, the group Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, made up of mothers of victims, provides advocacy to families of victims, uses multiple tactics to engage people in a dialogue about gender violence, specifically femicide, and pressures government officials to change policies regarding women’s safety. They use theatre to raise community members’ aware- ness of safety issues for women, while chal- lenging gender norms that might contribute to structural inequality. They also hold a summer camp every year for the children of victims to provide a safe place where they use art to express their feelings and receive counselling. They have also taken three cases to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, charging that Mexico has failed in its responsibility to ensure women’s safety.

Economic Development Planning and Femicide

By adopting the term ‘femicide’, women’s groups have reframed the rash of murders and disappearances as a human/women’s- rights/gender-violence issue, not simply mur- ders. The systematic nature of this violence also implies that the state and local govern- ments share responsibility for the violence. Yet does this callousness towards the lives and safety of women lie only in state and local governance, or is the violence the manifesta- tion of an economic structure that devalues women’s labour and favours multinational corporations? In which ways are existing economic policies complicit with systematic violence against women?

The negative international publicity on femicide in Ciudad Juárez and the unsatisfac- tory governmental response have catalysed a group of business leaders, planners and local government officials to take remedial action. In 2004, the Plan Estratégico de Juárez Asociación Civil (Juárez Strategic Plan

Civil Association) developed a strategic plan called Juárez 2015 that outlined specific steps to revitalise the economy and improve the infrastructure of the city.

However, let us note how the business com- munity, the planners and the local officials viewed that link

To confront these problems (violence and insecurity) many of which are not municipal but state and federal issues, Juárez should push an image campaign centred on the positive values and opportunities that the city has to offer. In this sense the press should act with more responsibility in the transmission of the kind of information that would create more hope for the future of the people and demonstrate the possibilities for a better city and the advances that have already been made; the responsibility for the safety of women is federal and state not local and not economic (Plan Estratégico de Juárez Asociación Civil, 2004).

It seems that neither the murderers nor the haplessness of the community’s leaders—but only journalists—bear the shame of Juárez. Nevertheless, the group felt impelled to add later in the document

a polarised economy and society negatively influences the development of human values and results in an augmented level of delinquency and violence in diverse forms (Plan Estratégico de Juárez Asociación Civil, 2004).

Yet even this partial recognition of the link between the choices made by economic devel- opment planning and the violence in the com- munity quickly veers to place the onus not on the exploiters of women, but rather on women themselves, for neglecting their families.

The necessities of the economy force women, the head of the family, to accept in many cases jobs that because of their characteristics (hours or distance to work) place family responsibility in second place (Plan Estratégico de Juárez Asociación Civil, 2004).

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    13

Nowhere is the role of men in dealing with these “necessities” probed. These responses to the issues of gender violence reinforce women’s structural inequality, make them invisible and disregard their agency in the planning process.

The strategic plan calls for housing con- struction, infrastructure development, traffic calming, education, private–public co-operation, more security (human values development), a new production model and developing a sustainable transnational region. No type of gender violence is mentioned, much less addressed, although its horrific presence in Juárez had prompted the plan.

Responses to the femicide reveal a startling disconnection between the efforts of the grassroots women’s organisations and the behaviours of local and federal law enforce- ment and the policy views of local planners and officials. Instead of recognising the links between private and public spheres as they relate to gender violence, the government has exploited these divisions to distance itself from being accountable. This response has widened the structural inequalities already present in the city. On the other hand, the grassroots citizen planners, most of whom are women, have exercised their human and communal agency in their responses to gender violence. Their planning activities have served to raise awareness nationally and internation- ally, despite the obstacles they face.

An Example of Bottom–Up Planning for Economic Development in Chicago

In contemporary US society, the complexities of social inequality, including racism and sexism are increasingly apparent. As a result of ethnicity, gender and perceived ‘illegal’ immigrant status, Brown women, particularly Mexican and Mexican American women living in the US, experience a tangle of difficulties. From 2003 to 2007, the number of deportations

annually rose from 1901 to 30 408, a 16-fold increase in 4 years (US ICE, 2007). As of November 2007, 1562 anti-immigrant local ordinances and state bills have been proposed, of which 244 have passed (Lucero, 2008, p. 48). Many consequences of this post-9/11 racism are gender-specific; for Brown women, these include healthcare problems, sudden reduc- tions or elimination of income streams, and increased vulnerability to violence from the state and intimate partners.

Community Response to Gender Violence: Economic Development

Observations in Latino communities in Chicago revealed a disconnect between addressing gender violence, citizenship efforts and economic development. While Latino- serving organisations were providing services, they were also in many cases reproducing forms of gender violence within the organi- sation, both towards clients and towards their own lower-level workers. Annanya Bhattacharjee (2001) describes the situation

The prioritising of home and individual over community and the demand for more state protection (i.e. more law enforcement) have displaced critical and innovative thinking about alternative community-based strategies for promoting public safety. No one would dispute that women’s safety should be fundamental to the women’s movement; the issue is how this safety is best achieved. The domestic violence work has become a single-issue, specialised area of work that is often quite disconnected from grassroots communities as well as other struggles and movements. DV groups need to re-think their priorities and engage with community institutions and as members in building a collective consensus about the basis of safe and healthy communities.

Additionally, Dasgupta (2009) observes that most mainstream domestic violence organisations focus solely on intimate partner violence, disregarding other forms of gender violence that affect women.

14    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

This situation has given rise to four counter- productive trends with negative consequences for communities of colour, especially immi- grant communities of colour in the US

— Universalising women’s needs in align- ment with a White, middle-class, suburban imaginary: for the sake of safety, all women must leave their communities (i.e. for immigrant women, the only support sys- tem they may have here). This is confirmed by other studies about Latina women in the US (Santiago and Morash, 1995).

— Participation in the criminalisation movement: a few ‘professional’ policy advocates and lobbyists are charged with changing the system. Latino-serving organisations are forced to form part- nerships with the state that criminalises members of their communities.

— Shifting the original goal of ending vio- lence and oppression to a narrower one: women’s organisations have chosen to deal with only one form of violence, such as domestic violence or sexual assault, supporting individual survivors. They have ignored the linkages between other forms of violence and oppression, there- fore becoming permanently absent from the broader social justice movement. This shift mirrors certain planning strategies that often do not recognise the structural power inequalities that shape women’s experiences, also noted by Whitzman (2008) and Moser (2004).

— Instead of mobilising a critical mass, many feminist organisations devote themselves to placing a few women in power through electoral politics. Thus, we have a few women speaking on behalf of many, rather than many speaking for themselves: a silencing of communities of colour and immigrants.

Disturbed by these trends, in 2004, five women co-founded Women for Economic Justice

(WEJ) in Chicago. WEJ is a collective of community activists, advocates and planning academics that addresses economic justice through programmes that enable women of colour, particularly immigrant survivors of gender violence, while acknowledging their cultural diversity and individual contexts. WEJ works with other community-based organi- sations and grassroots women’s groups in Chicago to develop, implement and evaluate economic development opportunities that can lead to women’s financial independence. WEJ also aspires through discussion and action to foster a more uncompromising and inclusive anti-violence movement.

Access to jobs and economic self- sufficiency are essential to escape gender violence (González-López, 2007; Whitzman, 2008). Language-appropr iate t r aining is ke y. Economic development and workforce devel- opment programmes are for the most part in English. Usually programmes insist that immigrants learn the dominant language first, a process that usually takes eight years. How are immigrant women supposed to support themselves in the meantime? These struc- tures limit human agency by minimising the options they have for workforce develop- ment, which could lead to economic self- sufficiency.

WEJ’s Work. WEJ delivers a three-phase, 24-session training programme to help women escape from the cycle of poverty and violence. Each session lasts approximately two hours. The programme trains participants in basic money management, connects them with local legal aid and direct services, and informs them about general wellness and protecting themselves from harm.

The first eight-week phase addresses physi- cal and economic abuse, short- and long-term decision-making, setting personal goals and budgeting. An early session includes an assess- ment of the economic situations and personal safety of the participants.

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    15

Survivors of violence are often forced to make decisions in ‘crisis mode’ and are not given the time to evaluate the pros and cons that affect their own and their children’s wellbeing. Therefore, other early sessions outline practical steps for decision-making and budgeting, and put these skills to work on real-life challenges such as obtaining childcare and creating a family budget.

Phase two of the sessions covers identifying and accumulating personal assets, building personal credit and acting personally to create a healthier community. WEJ’s local partners are invited to present on some of these topics: partners from financial institu- tions can explain the importance of having a good credit score; healthcare providers can explain ways to improve one’s health and reduce stress. In phase two, participants also identify their individual and group skills and assets. They then examine whether these attributes could be put to entrepreneurial use and to challenge structural inequali- ties within their communities. Phase three includes job readiness skills, information and support for starting a small business or co-operative, and options for partnerships with financial institutions.

A fourth, optional but important phase enlists some programme ‘graduates’ as future trainers, building skills that include verbal communication, understanding g roup dynamics and how to be an effective agent of change. As members of the community, these women have more access to community networks and can help to spread valuable information about economic self-sufficiency opportunities and strategies for contesting uneven power relationships, thereby rein- forcing their human agency.

A critical pedagogy is key to WEJ’s process and to raising consciousness not only among participants, but also through conference presentations and training for other advocacy organisations and government agencies.

For example, through this pedagogical approach, participants analyse why they decided to immigrate and how the economy at large influences their trajectory in the US. This effort not only attempts to remediate gender violence through economic develop- ment training, but also serves as a model for larger public and private agencies. In February 2008, WEJ organised in collaboration with the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network a conference called ‘Economics for Survivors’ for over 30 advocates and govern- ment officials. WEJ presented their model and critiqued mainstream service strategies for responding to gender violence. Often, conventional domestic violence and train- ing programmes focus on the individual or the ‘battered women’s syndrome’ using an apolitical and purely individual analysis; this framework loses sight of the structural and often oppressive environment in which we operate.

Discussion

We have presented three cases that demon- strate different approaches for negotiating the relationship between gender violence and planning. They exemplify the struggle to reconcile the public–private divide that is enveloped in multiple structural power relationships. In Spain, we conclude that the top–down process set in motion the possibil- ity for responding to and preventing gender violence through planning, but the slower pace of society changes prevents complete success. While at national and supranational levels, laws were changed to contest the public–private divide and provide avenues to eradicate gender violence, these initiatives were hampered in their implementation at the local level. In three British cities, Beebeejaun (2009) also finds that efforts at securing the city have failed women both in their concep- tion as technical and militarisation solutions

16    ELIZABETH L. SWEET AND SARA ORTIZ ESCALANTE

(excluding social planning) and in their lack of response to specific recommendations by a three-year-long project that included safety audits and workshops. While social planning in Spain responded by providing services such as short- and long-term recovery from gender violence, physical planners were oblivious to this issue in their planning practice.

In Mexico, multiple strategies were invoked to respond to gender violence. However, the startlingly large disconnect pertaining to the mainstream diagnostic and the isola- tion of gender issues from economic policy prevented success. Government planners and police reinforce the public–private divide in a very aggressive manner, focusing their efforts on identifying the women as prostitutes and forcefully making them responsible for their victimisation. In Juárez, while women’s grassroots efforts aim to raise awareness, do social planning and stop gender violence, municipal planners focus on gender-blind, large-size and export-led economic develop- ment. In other Latin American cities such as Rosario (Argentina) and Lima (Peru), there have been efforts by NGOs in collaboration with municipal officials such as printing anti-violence messages on pre-paid trans- port cards, or informing commuters that “Violence against women is a grave viola- tion of human rights”. Municipal plans were revised to include steps to curtail violence, such as better signage and the installation of bus shelters allowing passengers clear visibil- ity of the surrounding area. In Lima (Peru), city officials also took immediate action by improving lighting in streets and parks and fencing off empty lots (UNIFEM, 2007, p. 1). While these endeavours are clearly steps in the right direction, there is yet to be empiri- cal evidence suggesting that the perceptions of fear and instances of gender violence in these cities have been reduced as a result of these actions.

In Chicago, WEJ focuses on economic development in response to gender violence, but they too are stifled by the larger context in which they are operating. There have not been safety audits in Chicago, as in cities like Toronto. Here again, as in Latin America, there is little empirical evidence to suggest that the recommendations from the audits have indeed reduced gender violence, but

they can be effective for bringing about environment changes, empowering women and alerting the public and authorities to the shared responsibility for ensuring the safety of women (Whitzman et al., 2009).

WEJ is deliberately challenging the social public–pr ivate div ide and mainstream gender violence organisations. Traditional responses have privileged legal records and law enforcement, which in effect ignores dif- ferent cultural relationships with authority figures and different interpretations of per- sonal and community safety. For example, an immigrant woman whose legal status is tied to her abuser might be unwilling to take legal action for fear of being deported. Therefore, WEJ’s strategy uses economic development instead of legal recourse as a way to respond and prevent gender violence. In addition, by using a critical pedagogy, WEJ recognises and values women’s diverse and powerful identities.

The three case studies demonstrate that the challenge is not to only break with the constructed divisions between public and private spheres, but also to promote changes in the working models of institutions and organisations. These models embody mul- tiscale structural gender inequalities that identify women as powerless and without human and community agency. We still have a long way to go before planning is able to respond to and prevent gender violence in an equitable manner.

  PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE    17

Notes

1. While the data and focus of this paper are on violence against women in particular, see Doan (2007) for an analysis of transgender people and gender violence.

2. Semi-private refers to a space that is a piece of the urban environment that tends to be private and which a member of the general public only enters if they have a reason— for example, a front garden, yard or home daycare centre (Biddulph, 2007, p. 44).

3. Ley Orgánica 1/2004, de 28 de diciembre, de Medidas de Protección Integral contra la Violencia de Género, Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), Num. 313. Ley Orgánica 3/2007, de 22 de marzo, para la igualdad efectiva de mujeres y hombres, Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE), Num. 71. Llei 2/2004, de 4 de juny, de millora de barris, àrees urbanes i viles que requereixen una atenció especial. Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya (DOGC), Num. 4151. Llei 5/2008, del 24 d’abril, del dret de les dones a eradicar la violència masclista. Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya (DOGC), Num. 5123.

4. This regional misogynism is evident in the Chihuahua state law proposed in 2001 reducing the term of imprisonment for rape from four years to one if there was proof that the woman provoked her attack. Under pressure from the federal government the proposal was retracted (US State Department, 2002).

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