Women, urban space and public services: the south São Paulo case

Resumen

Frequently, public makers formulate and implement public policies from "broad outlines" to specific contexts. For that matter, they often create services for a “neutral” citizen, mostly the white heterosexual male citizen, disregarding different needs of minority groups, such as women. We state that when urban planning, transportation system and services distribution do not take into consideration women's needs, the result is the increased vulnerability of this group. In order to understand these specificities, a qualitative research was conducted in a suburban region of São Paulo city. The results show there are much more disconnections than connections between services, and that these disconnections contribute to vulnerability. This study hopes to expand understandings about how social policies work in people’s everyday lives, in order to improve public action in the local level.