Abstract
This chapter reflects on the ways in which the concept of the “world class” city, here Delhi, India's national capital, mirrors and generates gendered spaces and discourses (e.g., on independence and safety). These facilitate structural inequalities and concern politics of visualisation and materialisation of single middle-class women. First, restrictions for the access to independent residential living for single upper middle-class women in Delhi are analysed. A focus on public space then draws in the spatial dimension of singleness, linking it to contemporary models of urban development. Second, the interconnections between women’s aspirations of claiming a right to the city are discussed. The chapter highlights the coexistence of urban models, equipped with different and essentially transcultural histories and imaginaries, producing ruptures and tensions in a neoliberal context.
This chapter emerged from a EU-funded research collaboration (HERA Humanities in the European Research Area) entitled “Creating the ‘New Asian Woman’—Entanglements of Urban Space, Cultural Encounters and Gendered Identities in Shanghai and Delhi (SINGLE)” (www.hera-single.de).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The Martin Prosperity Institute is based at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto and has applied the Creativity index to 50 Indian cities, ranking highest the city of Mumbai, followed by Bangalore (Bengaluru) and Delhi. The results are published in the Creative Cities India Report of 2014. URL: http://martinprosperity.org/insight-creative-cities-india/, retrieved on 2.6.2016.
- 2.
See http://smartcities.gov.in/writereaddata/What%20is%20Smart%20City.pdf, retrieved on 2 June 2016.
- 3.
See http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2015/6/lakshmi-puri-safe-cities-statement, retrieved on 2 June 2016.
- 4.
Kumar, Alok P. & Srijoni Sen, in http://thewire.in/2015/06/01/divided-cities-cannot-be-smart-cities-2878/, retrieved on 2 June 2016.
- 5.
Alice Charles for the World Economic Forum 2016 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/india-wants-to-create-100-smart-cities-how-can-it-get-there, retrieved on 2 June 2016.
- 6.
Much research on gender in cities of the Global South has focused on lower-class migrant women, e.g., with a focus on the rapid growth of cities in Asia, leading to an increasing demand for informal female labour migration linked to sectors such as care work, the sex industry, industrial labour, or low-paid domestic services (see Yeoh and Ramdas 2014). Jarvis et al. (2009) place gender and inequality centrally, even if gender is not always ‘clearly visible’. Chant (2016: 12) highlights research on gender-based violence in slums, challenging gender equality—inequality on the basis of health, employment, education.
- 7.
Twenty-one percent (73 millions) of India’s female population is constituted by unmarried, divorced, separated, or widowed women spending power in many cases has attracted attention of businesses. Working power and educational training make this group suitable for new service sectors. There is a 40 % growth of single women between 2001 and 2011 (census data), with women between 20 and 29 years constituting the sharpest rise of 68 percent (Fernandes, Dhar 2015).
- 8.
According to Situmorang (2007), the social pressure on women living alone in Indonesian metropoles is high, and can often only be born if the single is well educated and financially independent.
- 9.
I thank Lucie Bernroider for this information which comes from her research on young middle class women in South Delhi as part of the HERA-Single project.
- 10.
In 2011, circa 3 percent single women invested in real estate (source: National Real Estate Development Council, see Dhamija and Bagchi 2011).
- 11.
See http://www.jagori.org/projects, retrieved on 2 June 2016.
- 12.
See http://www.safedelhi.in/safe_delhi_campaign.html, retrieved on 2 June 2016.
- 13.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002545-the-evolving-urban-form-delhi, retrieved on 9 April 2016.
Bibliography
Aji, Sowmya. 2012. Single Indian Women of Today Can Do Without Chivalry. India Today, 31.3.2012.
Baviskar, Amita, and Raka Ray (ed). 2011. Elite and Everyman: The Cultural Politics of the Indian Middle Class. New Delhi: Routledge.
Benjamin, Solomon. 2008. Occupancy Urbanism: Radicalizing Politics and Economy Beyond Policy and Programs. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(3): 719–729.
Brosius, Christiane. 2014/2010. India’s Middle Class. Urban Leisure, Consumption and Prosperity. New York: Routledge.
Brosius, Christiane, and Tina Schilbach. 2016. “Mind the Gap”. Thinking About in-Between Spaces in Delhi and Shanghai, Introduction to the Special Issue Edited with Schilbach. City, Culture and Society 7(4): 1–6.
Caldeira, Teresa. 2001. City of Walls. Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
———. 2014. Gender Is Still the Battleground. In The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, ed. Susan Parnell, and Sophie Oldfield, 413–428. London: Routledge.
Chant, Sylvia, and Cathy McIlwaine. 2016. Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South: Towards a Feminised Urban Future. Oxon: Routledge.
Datta, Bishakya (ed). 2010. 9 Degrees of Justice. New Perspectives on Violence Against Women. New Delhi: Zubaan.
Dhamija, Anshul, and S. Bagchi. 2011. Single Women in India Are Investing in Real Estate for Stability. The Economic Times, 12.11.
Donner, Henrike. 2014. Gender and Property in Neoliberal Middle-Class Kolkata: Of Untold Riches and Unruly Homes. In Routledge Handbook of Gender in South Asia, ed. Leela Fernandes, 189–203. New York: Routledge.
Fernandes, Joeanna Rebello, and Shobita Dhar. 2015. All the Single Ladies… 73m & Growing. Times of India, 22.11. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/deep-focus/All-the-single-ladies-73m-growing/articleshow/49875130.cms.
Florida, Richard. 2014. “Insight: Creative Cities India”. URL: http://martinprosperity.org/2014/02/27/understanding-india-cities/, retrieved on 6 November 2016.
Gautam, Nishtha. 2014. Unlocking the Half a Billion. Why Staying Indoors Is Not the Solution to Women’s Safety. DNA India, 28.4. http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/standpoint-unlocking-the-half-a-billion-why-staying-indoors-is-not-the-solution-to-women-s-safety-1983043.
Ghertner, D. Asher. 2015. Rule by Aesthetics. World-Class City Making in Delhi. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jagori. 2011. Building Safe and Inclusive Cities for Women. A Practical Guide. New Delhi: UN-Women, UN-Habitat.
Jarvis, Helen, Jonathan Cloke, and Paula Kantor. 2009. Cities and Gender. Oxon: Routledge.
Kumar, Sunalini. 2012. Does Democracy Stop at the Doorstep of the Women’s Hostel? Posted on Kafila, 12.3. http://kafila.org/2012/03/24/does-democracy-stop-at-the-doorstep-of-the-womens-hostel-appeal-from-co-ordination-committee-for-womens-hostels-in-delhi-university/, retrieved on 6.9.2014.
Lahad, Kinneret. 2012. Singlehood, Waiting, and the Sociology of Time. Sociological Forum 27(1): 163–186.
———. 2013. ‘Am I Asking Too Much?’ The Selective Single Woman as a New Social Problem. Women’s Studies International Forum 40: 23–32.
Lau, Lisa. 2010. Literary Representations of the ‘New Indian Woman’: The Single, Working, Urban, Middle Class Indian Woman Seeking Personal Autonomy. Journal of South Asian Development 5(2): 272–292.
MacKenzie, Annah. 2015. Placemaking and the Future of Cities. http://www.pps.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Placemaking-and-the-Future-of-Cities.pdf, retrieved on 9.4.2016.
Munshi, Shoma. 2001. Modern Woman’ in Asia. Global Media, Local Meanings. Surrey: Curzon.
Nisbett, Nicholas. 2010. Growing Up in the Knowledge Society. Living the IT Dream in Bangalore. New Delhi: Routledge.
Oza, Rupal. 2006. The Making of Neoliberal India: Nationalism, Gender, and the Paradoxes of Globalization. New York: Routledge.
Phadke, Shilpa, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade. 2011. Why Loiter?: Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets. New Delhi: Penguin.
Radhakrishnan, Smitha. 2011. Appropriately Indian. Gender and Culture in a New Transnational Class. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Roy, Ananya. 2009. Why India Cannot Plan Its Cities. Informality, Insurgence and the Idiom of Urbanization. Planning Theory 8(1): 76–87.
Safe Cities Free of Violence Against Women and Girls Initiative. 2011. Report of the Baseline Survey Delhi 2010
Schneider, Nadja-Christina, and Fritzi-Marie Titzmann (ed). 2015. Studying Youth, Media and Gender in Post-Liberalisation India. Focus on and Beyond the ‘Delhi Gang Rape’. Berlin: Frank & Timme.
Sharan, Awadhendra. 2014. In the City, Out of Place: Nuisance, Pollution and Urban Dwelling in Modern Delhi, c.1850-2000. New Delhi: Oxford University Press
Singh, Sunny. 2000. Single in the City: The Independent Woman’s Handbook. New Delhi: Penguin.
Singh, Shweta. 2010. Neighborhood: The ‘Outside’ Space for Girls in Urban India. International Journal of Social Welfare 19: 206–214.
Situmorang, Augustina. 2007. Staying Single in a Married World. Asian Population Studies 3(3): 287–304.
Song, Jesook. 2010. ‘A Room of One’s Own’: The Meaning of Spatial Autonomy for Unmarried Women in Neoliberal Korea. Gender, Place & Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography 17(2): 131–149.
Soofi, Mayank A. 2011. City Life—Barsatis, South Delhi. The Delhi Walla, 9.5. http://www.thedelhiwalla.com/2011/05/09/city-life-barsatis-south-delhi/, retrieved on 6.9.2014.
Srivastava, Sanjay. 2012a. Masculinity and Its Role in Gender Based Violence in Public Places. In The Fear That Stalks: Gender Based Violence in Public Spaces, ed. Sarah Pilot, and Lora Prabhu, 13–50. New Delhi: Zubaan Books.
———. 2012b. “National Identity, Bedrooms, and Kitchens: Gated Communities and New Narratives of Space in India”. In The Global Middle Classes. Theorizing Through Ethnography. Edited by Rachel Heiman, Carla Freeman, and Mark Liechty. Sante Fe, NM: SAR Press
———. 2015. Entangled Urbanism. Slum, Gated Community and Shopping Mall in Delhi and Gurgaon. Delhi Oxford University Press.
Sundaram, Ravi. 2012. Danger, Media, and the Urban Experience in Delhi. In Facing Fear. The History of an Emotion in Global Perspective, 162–182. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Swain, Pushpanjali, and Vijayan Pillai. 2005. Living Arrangements Among Single Mothers in India. Canadian Studies in Population 32(1): 53–67.
Tarlo, Emma. 1996. Fashion Fables of an Urban Village. In Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India, ed. H. Hendrickson. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
UN Habitat. 2008. Gender Mainstreaming in Local Authorities. Best Practices. Kenya. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/ianwge/member_publications/gender_mainstreaming_in_local_authorities.pdf, retrieved on 16.6.2016.
Upadhya, Carol. 2013. Return of the ‘Global Indian’: Software Professionals and the Worlding of Bangalore. In Return: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia, ed. Xiang Biao, Brenda Yeah, and Mika Toyota, 141–161. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Venugopal, Vasudha. 2012. “City cold to single women living alone”. The Hindu, 8 March.
Vishwanath, Kalpana, and Surabhi T. Mehrotra. 2007. Shall We Go Out? Women’s Safety in Public Spaces. Economic and Political Weekly, 42(17), 28 April.
Yeoh, Brenda, and Kamalini Ramdas. 2014. The Place of Migrant Women and the Role of Gender in the Cities of Asia. In The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South, ed. Susan Parnell, and Sophie Oldfield, 370–384. London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brosius, C. (2017). Regulating Access and Mobility of Single Women in a “World Class”-city: Gender and Inequality in Delhi, India. In: Gerhard, U., Hoelscher, M., Wilson, D. (eds) Inequalities in Creative Cities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95115-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95115-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95114-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95115-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)