Opinion: Women-only spaces may have unintended consequences

In warmer months, cities come alive. Parks are full, trains are more crowded, and nightlife pulses later into the evening. But for women, this seasonal freedom often comes with an unspoken caveat: Stay vigilant. While in Tokyo recently, I boarded a city train and noticed something familiar: carriages marked “women only.” I smiled in recognition. Trains in India, where I’m from, have had similar carriages for decades. Later that day, during a session at Expo 2025 on “Civic Technology for Women-Friendly Cities,” an audience member shared that his wife had been groped on a train. I told him I wasn’t surprised. I’ve heard that story in Mumbai, Manila, New York, and Nairobi. I carry one myself. At 13, I boarded an evening train in Mumbai with my mother and siblings after my grandfather’s memorial service. We were in a women-only compartment, but two stations before we were due to disembark, it converted to a “general” coach. Men spilled in. In the crush of bodies, one of them groped me. I froze, too shocked to react. That six-minute ride carved a permanent scar: decades later, crowded trains still make me uneasy. My story is not unusual. Globally, nearly 1 in 3 women experience sexual or gender-based violence in their lifetime. Worldwide, the majority of incidents go unreported. In the United States, a poll last year found that 48% of women would prefer women-only subway carriages. In the United Kingdom, women-only music festivals are gaining popularity — not for exclusion, but for freedom. These are not luxuries. They are survival strategies. “The issue is not the spaces themselves. It is that the world still isn’t safe enough.” --— From Japan to Jordan, Brazil to Bangladesh, women-only spaces are becoming more visible, on trains, in clubs, hotels, and offices. They promise relief: to exhale without fear, to connect without caution, to exist without being hypervisible. And they work. For many women, they are the only way to navigate public life with a measure of comfort. But here’s the trap: When protection depends on exclusion, safety can slide into segregation. I have spent the past decade running Safecity, a global platform that crowdsources stories of sexual harassment in public spaces. In city after city, our data show that parks, public transport, markets, and streets remain hotspots. We work with planners and police to co-create solutions. But the deeper issue isn’t just a lack of safety — it is the lack of belonging. When a woman enters a mixed space, subway car, bar, workplace, or market, her presence is still often seen as a provocation. The unspoken rule is: If she didn’t want attention, why didn’t she stay in the “safe” zone? Women-only spaces can be empowering, but only if women choose them. They must never become quiet concessions that the rest of the world is off-limits. Nor should they reinforce the belief that public life is male by default, and female only by exception. As governments debate who belongs in women-only spaces, we risk losing sight of a deeper truth: The very need for these spaces reflects a failure to make the broader public realm safe and inclusive for all women, regardless of identity. Cities can and must do better. In Vienna, gender research showed women navigate cities differently, prompting practical redesigns: wider sidewalks, better lighting, and accessible transit. In Bogotá, women conducted safety audits and helped redesign pedestrian routes. In Seoul, panic buttons and AI-powered safety apps are paired with public campaigns that target men, shifting responsibility away from victims. These cities show what’s possible when the burden moves from individual women to collective systems. They treat gender-based violence not as an individual inconvenience, but as a social and political failure. We also need a cultural shift. In too many places, women’s presence in public is still seen as exceptional. We must normalize seeing women everywhere. The more we see her, the more we believe she belongs. Consider London: Women use the Tube at all hours. That sense of ordinary belonging didn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of sustained investment in infrastructure, messaging, and enforcement. Some argue that women-only spaces are regressive or elitist. Others say we should focus only on systems. But until those systems catch up, women need tools to stay safe, including the right to choose spaces that protect them. The issue is not the spaces themselves. It is that the world still isn’t safe enough. So if you see a woman walking home at night in Paris, standing in a mixed train car in Cairo, or dancing freely at a women-only festival in Bristol, don’t ask why she’s there. Ask why she doesn’t feel safe everywhere. True safety is not about the absence of men. It is about the presence of respect.