Gender, violence and public spaces. The vulnerability of women in question
A work of Marylène Lieber (Presses de Sciences Po, 2008)
“In the street, if you are isolated, take a walk, always with an energetic and assured. Do not give the impression of being afraid. “The ministry of the interior, Your safety. Advice to women
If in many cases, the feeling of fear reported by women is considered as a highlight, an effect of their ” nature “, research in france on the subject presenting, in effect, the sex (and the age) as a criterion of vulnerability self-evident [2], the feeling of insecurity female, however, is not taken into account. If the public space is seen as unsafe for women, this dimension is removed from the field of security, research and public policy. It may be because that the rate of the fears women is often considered a paradox : several books on sociological and criminological demonstrate that women are the ones who feel most exposed to assault in public spaces so that their rate of victimization is relatively low. The public policies concerning the violence in France, organized on the basis of a division of powers between the political so-called “security” and ” policies to end violence against women “. The security policies, the focus is on public space and marginalize the violence against women in the private space. It therefore seems important to study the public safety policies and patterns of investment of public spaces by women and men, as well as the representations that they have. If these two approaches may seem, at first glance, to be two distinct objects, Marylène Lieber is defending the interest of their confrontation. These two angles of analysis are, therefore, the richness of the book.