Erfanain Salim M
Quality of life is a broad and complex concept that is influenced by social, cultural, economic, physical, and spatial factors. This article examines the role of women’s management in increasing the quality of urban life. The quality of life is evaluated in two ways: first, based on a person’s subjective and objective perceptions that lead to life satisfaction; And second, the objective facts of life that make sense in the social, economic, and environmental quality environment. This article focuses on the second aspect, namely the quality of life in the urban environment.
In Iran, currently, policy-making has special attention to examining the quality of urban life according to the social, economic, and cultural conditions of the country. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s 20-Year Vision Plan also emphasizes this issue. One of the important challenges in this field is the lack of balance in the enjoyment of urban infrastructure and facilities by all citizens. Available reports show that urban development policies and programs have not been able to satisfy women. In 2016, a study was conducted by the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development to identify women’s issues and challenges in this field. This report, by reviewing more than a hundred written sources and conversations with government officials and non-governmental organizations and activists in the field of women and the city, clearly showed the failure of urban development policies and programs to ensure women’s satisfaction. So, the need to change the approach and review urban policies and laws with a gender-sensitive approach is brought up.
Currently, women’s ability to influence the country’s policies is facing severe limitations due to their low participation in the decision-making system. Undoubtedly, such a situation is not only dependent on the current approaches in the decision-making system, but it is the result of a process that has been formed over the years based on cultural, political, and social backgrounds, and in institutionalized neglect, there has never been a need for change. Today, increasing the knowledge and professional capacities of women, on the one side, the inability of urban development plans and programs for comprehensive social responses, especially in the gender debate, on the other side, promoting the managerial position of women in the field of urban development as a need and The necessity for the city gives attention and importance that its realization will not be possible except with the will and belief of all those involved, especially the top politicians at the national and local levels.
2018, Chief-Editor note, Haftshahr, No.61, Spring 2018