Gender and the Built Environment Database
Women Planners in Africa
A myriad of complex conditions contribute to the under-representation, marginalisation, inequality and career detour of women planners in the African urban and regional planning profession. Patriarchy and the unequal status of women within the social system mean that there is unequal access to opportunities, a lack of female mentorship, and sexism, discrimination, exploitation, and exclusion or cursory explanation of gender or issues relating to women in the planning curriculum and discourse.
The personal becomes political for women planners when dealing with these issues entrenched in the various institutions in the public realm (Olufemi 2008). Patriarchal practices, which sometimes relegate women to the private/domestic sphere, continue unabated in the daily encounters of women planners in Africa. Lack of mentorship from women within the profession and appropriate guidance from the profession itself consciously or unconsciously marginalises and renders the planneress invisible. Anecdotal evidence from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe shows that disparities still exist between women’s and men’s access to resources, and women planners experience visible and invisible barriers that stunt their advancement in the planning profession and workplace.
Under-representation
While patriarchal attitudes sustain a social system which often restricts women to the private realm, economic and social boundaries also create barriers that prevent women from occupying certain positions, and limit them to pink collar jobs within the profession. Certain aspects of planning have effectively been feminised – eg community and social planning issues - effectively marginalizing women from ‘hard-core’ planning such transportation and infrastructure planning, as well as from the theoretical debates around planning philosophy and practice. But adequate and equal representation of women planners across the profession is critical, when one considers together how gender-unfriendly African cities have become, and the centrality of women’s experience in society and in urban space as producers, reproducers, and community managers.
Women are great users of space in the African society, but they are the recipients of bad planning. Large numbers of women depend for their livelihood on the informal economy, particularly commerce, where they confront on a daily basis the enormous environmental challenges and risks embodied in public transit, water and sanitation issues, and poor urban infrastructure. Market women will spend up to 16 hours (including commuting time in dilapidated public transit vehicles) on market sites, most of which lack basic infrastructure, are full of rubbish dumps, and pose significant health risks for both traders and shoppers. Women will also spend a large proportion of their time fetching or looking for water for household consumption. But the day-to-day reality of women’s experience of the environment is lost in broad policy statements on national planning issues, while at local and state level development control becomes the focus, and infrastructure planning, maintenance and management is poorly executed.
Patriarchy
Patriarchy, subtly embedded in planning practice, generates inequality in work distribution, and a conscious or unconscious inability to comprehend and separate the roles of women as professionals and domestic executives. Biased perceptions of gender-specific behaviours and stereotypes, often leads to the marginality or exclusion of women in planning matters. Women who have raised their voices against men’s domination and control may be reprimanded and cast as traitors with regard to African cultural values and expectations.
Curriculum failings
The planning curriculum in most sub-Saharan African schools of planning rarely touches on gender issues, and excludes the knowledge, values and experiences of women. Gender discourses are referred to cursorily in Planning Theory, Administration and Practice. It is questionable whether the proportion of women entering planning education and receiving planning degrees has any impact on on curriculum development, while the exclusion of gender issues clearly influences the continuing conceptualization and execution of planning practice.
(Un)equal opportunities
While 51% of students enrolling in South African undergraduate planning programmes are female, only 41% are female on the postgraduate programmes (figures derived from the annual submissions from Planning Schools to the South African Council of Town and Regional Planners, 2003).
Working with Planning students in Alexandra, Johannesburg
Working with Planning students in Social Housing, East Rand, Johannesburg
Across all accredited University programmes, female enrolment for 2003 was about 46%, and the figures for other African countries (e.g. Nigeria, Uganda, Zimbabwe) are similar (though poor record keeping makes it difficult or impossible to obtain accurate statistics). But only about 5%, 10.8% and 27% of women planners are registered members of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, Uganda Institute of Physical Planners and the Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban Planners respectively (though not all planners are registered with their different institutes or planning councils). The South African Council for Planners has about 24% registered female members (table 2) while the Kenya Planning Institute has 35% female membership. As a result, female planners are yet to constitute the critical mass necessary to have a profound impact on planning profession, practice and the enormous planning challenges faced in human settlements in African countries.
Planners and other built environment professionals at a women's block making site in Nairobi, Kenya
Working with women scavengers in Lagos, Nigeria Source
|
Country |
No. of registered planners |
No. of female registered planners |
Percentage of female registered planners |
| Nigeria | 1700 | 85 | 5 |
| Uganda | 46 | 5 | 10.8 |
| Zimbabwe | 150 | 40 | 27 |
| South Africa | 867 | 205 | 23.6 |
| Kenya | 260 | 91 | 35 |
Table 1: Registered Female Planners in selected Sub-Saharan African Countries (Based on author's communication with chairmen and members of the various planning associations in Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Uganda between 2003 and 2005).
Career detour
Women planners are found working mainly in government agencies, particularly at local level, while very few move into the private sector or academia. Male lecturers outnumber their female counterparts in the planning schools. Career detour among African women planners is attributed to the expense and duration of the course, lack of mentorship, societal pressure, the prevalence of sexual harassment and demand for sexual favors, male oppression and godfatherism (Olufemi 2008). Some women planners simply diversify into other careers such as fashion designing, farming, the entertainment industry and hairdressing.
Triple dilemma and conclusion
Women planners everywhere need to be respected professionally by their male colleagues, recognized as achievers in their profession, and able to fulfill their domestic roles at the same time. Throughout Africa, they face specific challenges, and their role and involvement in shaping and reshaping the socio-spatial landscape should be recognized and celebrated. Their knowledge, intuition, experience and values are crucial to the continuing evolution of the planning profession, and this can be achieved if individual and collective action targeting the gender divide is effectively channeled through networks and exchanges promoting intellectual dialogue and communication. The UN’s Millennium Development Goal 3 (United Nations 2000/ 2007) emphasizes the promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, which in turn depends on female emancipation, mentorship and legacy. Releasing women planners from poverty and patriarchy; overhauling the planning curriculum, developing a gender legacy programme to include mentorship, knowledge transfer, and the memoralisation of heroines and female role models through gendered landmarks, is fundamental to achieving equality in the profession, especially within the economic, political, social and cultural context of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Olusola Olufemi
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