Class notes: Week 1.
Introduction: an overview.
The purpose of this week's lecture is to provide an overview of the course and to provide a broad outline of the current gaps in policy thinking on gender, transport and information communication technology.
As we shall see across the duration of this course,
We shall see the consequences of such disattention to gender issues within and around
The development of information communication technologies plays two important parts in the story which will unfold through this lecture series:
. Each week there will be links provided in the class notes to on line case study evidence and to on line supporting literature which demonstrate the validity of the arguments made within the lecture course.
Three online documents provide a basis for this course - they are:
Transport is a social policy issue. Gaps in both social policy thinking and transport policy thinking have contributed to the poor relationship between gender and transport: this course over the following weeks will point out processes, protocols and procedures for a healthier interaction between gender and transport within the new contemporary context of information communication technologies.
We will start our substantive investigation of these propositions next week with a lecture entitled: Gendered time, travel constraints: the emergence of a gendered literature on transport. This lecture introduces the literature on women�s time constraints and the impact of such constraints on travel. It tracks the emergence of a gendered literature on transport. The development of a literature on gender and transport creates new challenges for transport planning. We will see through the literature covered by this course that the gender and transport challenge has begun to be taken up in planning practice, most particularly of the international development agencies. But next week, we will simply trace how this literature has developed.
Our third lecture in this series has as its title: Poor female representation/ bad transport design: gender and transport. This lecture charts the inadequate relationship between gender and transport design. Historically women have been underrepresented both in the transport planning profession, and associated professional arenas, and in public participation around transport design. The consequence is that their needs have been badly met by transport organisation and transport services and indeed by land use planning and design. This lecture indicates the changes which are now taking place in major transport policy forums and explores the prospects for further change.
Our fourth lecture takes us to the heart of the agenda for change in gender and transport relationships, it is titled: New information communication technologies, new relationships in gender and transport. This lecture explores the range of new information communication technologies which are or can be aligned with transport and explores their implications for traditional gender and transport relationships. How can the use of cell phones enable women to better meet their household and travel responsibilities and taskloads? In this lecture we begin to explore this very important and highly neglected issue.
In our fifth lecture, we view the issues of gender, transport and communication from a slightly different perspective - that of land use patterns. The lecture is titled: Gender, land use patterns and transport: redesigning space. The thrust of this lecture is that to date land use patterns have been developed, designed and emerged without specific reference to gender when in fact it is readily observed that there are distinct gender patterns both within travel and the use of space. This lecture explores the relationship between land use patterns and gendered travel patterns. It investigates the case for redesigning urban space in the context of new information communication technologies and issues of congestion and environmental sustainability.
One way of thinking about the issues presented in our fifth lecture is in terms of the accessibility of services and activity locations. We follow on from the accessibility issues presented in that lecture to the accessibility of maternal care services within Africa. This sixth lecture is titled: Women�s transport needs: emergency obstetric transport services in Africa . Whereas maternal mortality levels in the rest of the world are falling in Africa they are on the rise. This lecture explores the relationship between transport and maternal mortality in Africa. It explores the way in which information communication technologies can be aligned with transport to significantly reduce maternal mortality in Africa. Emergency obstetric services are an area in which the interlinking of communication technology and high speed transport technologies is particularly important.
Our seventh lecture also takes us to Africa and focuses upon the importance of social infrastructure for highway development within a gendered planning framework. It is titled: Social infrastructure and highway development: adapting the Michinoeki to combat AIDS in Africa. This lecture will explore the concept of social infrastructure in highway development and consider how best practice in one location may be modified and adapted in another. The Michinoeki is a Japanese concept � it refers to the development of roadside service stations which have the purpose of providing high quality rest for travellers through the provision of services by local communities. This development planning tool is being investigated by the World Bank in the African context as a mechanism which could also provide health services at such roadside stations necessary to the combat of AIDS. Truck drivers are a key source of AIDS infection and developing social infrastructure in combination with highway construction is now on the development agenda. The lecture will explore the potential of this development in relation to other possible gender related needs such as maternal health. One aspect of Japanese road side stations which is particularly important to our narrative on this course is that they typically make use of high levels of information technology in the provision of road side station services: this aspect of michinoeki development could be of great importance in the meeting of gender health needs in Africa.
The eighth lecture returns us to the west and concerns about policy pressures to reduce car use. It is titled: Gender, transport and environmental sustainability: role demands and equity issues The policy arguments about road user charging, for example, have largely taken place without reference to issues of gender equity and where gender issues have been identified the thrust has largely been to reduce the scale of the school run - the school run is the term used for mothers dropping of their children at the schoolgates from their automobiles. This lecture, therefore, explores the pressures to reduce car use and the consequence of such pressures for transportation justice or equity in terms of women�s needs and access to the car. Within this lecture, we will also explore the operation of the walking bus and examine its implications for women�s time. Road user charging is likely to increasingly make use of information communication technologies in its routine operation and has therefore the potential to gender monitor the performance of any particular road user charging scheme. We will investigate the new gender evaluative dimensions available to planners for rebalancing equity issues.
The ninth lecture follows on from the realisation of the emergence of new tools for planning gender equity in transport which the new information communication technologies afford. It is titled: Gender planning in transport: the gap between policy and operations.This lecture will explore the tools, both technology based and process based, which are now available within the policy environment to undertake gender planning. It will also provide a discussion of the existing gap between policy statements and enactment of those statements. As we shall see, the gap remains a very significant one.
The tenth lecture follows on with the natural link between existing gaps in gender planning practice in transport and retraining needs within the transport profession. It is titled: Gender awareness and gender representativeness: the retraining of the transport profession? This lecture investigates the gender representativeness and gender awareness of the transport profession and explores the potential for and probability of the retraining of this profession. It reinforces the messages and evidence recently presented to the British government on retraining needs within the transport profession. Evidence from Austria will also be presented which makes the same arguments.
I think that you can see from this first lecture that we have a pretty full programme before us in the coming weeks. Everything that has been said to you today is available for you to read and interact with on the web. You will find these materials and others on http://www.geocities.com/gender_and_transport. Each week before evening before the lecture the materials for that week's lecture will appear in detail on the web site. This is a course under development and it will develop in interaction with you. You may find it useful to start building your own websites around this theme and if you wish I am willing to help you do so!.
Our last lecture will be a wrap up session where we discuss what else might be done within this important but relatively new area of the social infrastructure of transport. We will pull together the various strands of arguments and inquiry visited within the course of the lecture course and will provide a set of conclusions which emerge from the analysis of the literature and provide a forward view of the relationship between gender, transport and information communication technology. Whatever we decide in terms of the subject matter for further research and discussion the issue of gender and transport is clearly now on the radar of the institutions of governance and service provision.
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