Gendered spatial mobilities in urban neighbourhoods: Women’s and men’s victimisation, perceptions of risk, and gendered threat in their neighbourhood activity space

An individual’s activity space reflects their physical movement through and exposure to environments, including potentially risky settings. Historically, women’s and men’s activity spaces differed as a function of gendered household responsibilities. There are also gendered dynamics of place including experiences of victimisation, women’s heightened perceptions of victimisation risk, and perceived gendered threat for women that influence gendered spatial mobility patterns. Victimisation, risk and threat are known to have distinct spatial and temporal rhythms, which may lead women to withdraw from public spaces. This paper considers the intersection of all these factors and their relationship to women’s and men’s neighbourhood activity spaces. Drawing on individual global positioning system data for 365 participants living in Brisbane Australia over a seven-day period and using structural equation modelling, we seek to understand the predictors of activity space characteristics for women and men across day and night. We operationalise activity spaces through potential neighbourhood street networks (potential entropy), users’ actual movement (user entropy), and duration of time spent in the neighbourhood. Our findings reveal that women’s victimisation experiences and perceptions of community action are important predictors of time spent in the neighbourhood. Furthermore, street network configuration (potential entropy) is associated with actual user movement (user entropy). The findings have implications for gender-sensitive design in urban neighbourhood settings, in highlighting the interaction between social environments and physical environments in women’s and men’s daily mobility.