Problem Set 4Due 5pm Friday, Nov. 4, 2016Economics 471, .docx

Problem Set 4
Due 5pm Friday, Nov. 4, 2016
Economics 471, Haskell
Fall Semester 2016
Name:
Directions: Answer all of the following questions on your own
paper and turn them in at the by 5 p.m.
on Friday, Nov. 4th to my office (Miriam Hall 620) or my
mailbox in Miriam Hall 510. You may
discuss the questions with your classmates. However, you must
turn in your own set of answers that
reflect your own work.
1. (12 points) The Affordable Care Act was designed, in part, to
reduce the asymmetric information
and adverse selection problem in health insurance markets.
(a) Briefly explain what the asymmetric information and
adverse selection problems are in the
health insurance market.
(b) Which specific component of the Affordable Care Act was
designed to solve the adverse
selection problem in the health insurance market? (i) Briefly
explain how this component
of the law was intended to solve the adverse selection problem.
And, (ii) briefly discuss one
major flaw that may exist regarding the law’s ability to solve
the adverse selection problem.

(c) The Congressional Budget Office currently predicts that the
Affordable Care Act will re-
duce employment hours in the U.S. by 1-2% from 2017-2024.
However, current empirical
evidence does not yet show any substantial effects of the
Affordable Care Act on employ-
ment. (i) Offer one theoretical explanation behind why the
Congressional Budget Office
expects employment hours to decrease as a result of the law.
And, (ii) offer one explanation
for why current empirical studies have yet to find evidence of
significant effects of the law
on labor markets.
2. (4 points) Current U.S. payroll tax rates are split evenly
between employees and employers (each
party pays 6.2%, for a total payroll tax rate of 12.4%). Suppose
a senator proposes decreasing
the tax burden on working families by changing the payroll tax
such that firms pay the entire
12.4%. Is this policy change likely to achieve the senator’s goal
of increasing after-tax earnings
for workers? Briefly discuss why or why not.
1
3. (12 points) Consider the economic policy issue of minimum
wages.
(a) Briefly explain what a natural experiment is, and discuss its
use in economic research to
determine the labor market effects of minimum wages.

(b) Illustrate and briefly explain the theory behind why an
increase in minimum wages might
not lead to a change in the overall level of employment in a
low-skilled labor market?
(c) Given empirical evidence and your understanding of
economic theory, would you support
a policy to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9
per hour? Briefly justify
your answer. Note that a complete answer should acknowledge
both the pros and cons of
the issue, and then explain why you think one side of the
argument is more compelling than
the other.
4. (12 points) Suppose a firm’s labor demand curve is given by
the following equation where w is
the wage rate and E is the quantity of labor.
Labor Demand: w = 45 − 0.25E
Suppose that the union’s utility function is given by the
fowlling equation, where again w is the
wage and E is the quantity of labor.
Union’s Utility Function: U = w ∗ (E − 20)
Based on these equations, the marginal utility of the wage
(MUw) for the union is (E − 20), and
the marginal utility of employment (MUE) for the union is w.
(a) What wage would a monopoly union demand from the firm?
(b) How many workers will be employed under this monopoly
union contract?

(c) Illustrate and briefly explain a possible Pareto improvement
from this monopoly union con-
tract.
(d) Define the contract curve between the union and the firm.
(e) What additionally must be true at the highest wage possible
along the contract curve?
Briefly explain the economic intuition behind why this is the
case.
(f) What additionally must be true at the lowest wage possible
along the contract curve? Briefly
explain the economic intuition behind why this is the case.
2
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).
PLANNING AND GENDER VIOLENCE 3
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).
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 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).
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,

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).
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
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,
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.
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).
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).

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.
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.
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
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.
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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