Essentialism Rears its Ugly Head: Chinese Shopping Centre Builds “Women-Only” Parking
Photo via BBC
The women-only car park in Shijiazhuang city is also painted in pink and light purple to appeal to female tastes.
Official Wang Zheng told AFP news agency the car park was meant to cater to women’s “strong sense of colour and different sense of distance”.
The parking bays are one metre (3ft) wider than normal spaces, he said.
The Wanxiang-Tiancheng shopping centre had also “installed signs and security monitoring equipment that corresponded more to women’s needs”, he said.
The Global Times website says female parking attendants have been trained to help guide women drivers into their parking spaces. The bays also have extra lighting.
Driving in China is a dangerous activity, with more than 200 deaths in road accidents each day last year, AFP reports, citing police statistics.
Ridiculous, I know. Even the thought that women and men need to be segregated because of so-called physical and mental differences is outrageous. It comes from the age-old essentialist belief that women and men’s desires, interests, beliefs, morals, values, etc. – are all somehow biologically determined by the bits between our legs. It perpetuates a hetero-patriarchal culture that continues to thrive on the bankrupt view of women and men as binary opposites. I don’t think I need to remind any of the readers here of what that binary does in terms of women’s subordination and oppression. It is especially problematic when those perceived differences manifest themselves in viewing women as mentally incapable of parking a fucking car.
1Christine
wrote on 28 December 2009 at 18:01
…is there ANY evidence to back up this claim that women have a “different sense of distance?”
2aj
wrote on 29 December 2009 at 12:41
I highly doubt evidence exists to prove that women have a different sense of distance. I think it’s more likely that it comes from a sexist stereotype about women. Additionally, even if there was evidence to indicate such a statement — I would consider that so-called “proof” a bias piece of information that adheres to a bankrupt gender binary.
3Mrs. Mastro
wrote on 4 January 2010 at 11:18
Actually, given insurance industry statistics, men are typically the bad drivers. But that aside, the woman’s parking lot idea is just gross on so many levels.