Regulating Access and Mobility of Single Women in a “World Class”-city: Gender and Inequality in Delhi, India

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the ways in which the concept of the “world class” city, here Delhi, India's national capital, mirrors and generates gendered spaces and discourses (e.g., on independence and safety). These facilitate structural inequalities and concern politics of visualisation and materialisation of single middle-class women. First, restrictions for the access to independent residential living for single upper middle-class women in Delhi are analysed. A focus on public space then draws in the spatial dimension of singleness, linking it to contemporary models of urban development. Second, the interconnections between women’s aspirations of claiming a right to the city are discussed. The chapter highlights the coexistence of urban models, equipped with different and essentially transcultural histories and imaginaries, producing ruptures and tensions in a neoliberal context.

This chapter emerged from a EU-funded research collaboration (HERA Humanities in the European Research Area) entitled “Creating the ‘New Asian Woman’—Entanglements of Urban Space, Cultural Encounters and Gendered Identities in Shanghai and Delhi (SINGLE)” (www.hera-single.de).