Gender gap also in street names

Of 100 streets, only seven are named after women, 50 percent of whom are martyrs or victims. This is why the "Female Toponymy" group was created on Facebook. With many followers,

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gender equality in street names

GENDER GAP IN STREET NAMES

The gender gap affects women even in the naming of streets, squares, and public spaces. Women are forgotten: by discourse, by history, by the collective imagination. Even by street names. A gigantic, unreal erasure, with staggering numbers. In our cities, on average, out of 100 names of streets, squares and alleys, only 7 are named after women.Of which, half are martyrs, or victims of particularly cruel crimes, often feminicides.

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GENDER EQUALITY IN STREET NAMES

The almost complete erasure of hundreds and hundreds of stories of positive, important, and exemplary women: scientists, writers, politicians, journalists, artists, and athletes. The result, the deeply unpleasant experience of walking through profoundly unequal cities, which convey less than half the complexity of history and risk preventing citizens from identifying with models of women other than saints or victims.

From this deep awareness The Female Toponymy group was born in 2012, a collective idea that aims to give voice and visibility to women who have contributed, in every field, to improving society. The research group, born on Facebook, transformed into a full-fledged association in 2014, chaired by a retired geography professor, Maria Pia Ercolini, always attentive to the relationship between women and the city.
The project's three hundred members and ten thousand "supporters" on social media are committed to collecting data and articles on individual areas, and, more actively, they conduct actual field research and censuses. They number, classify, and catalog how many streets in the country are dedicated to women, and to which categories of women.
Not only that: an important part of the project is to urge and raise awareness among institutions so that streets, squares, gardens and urban spaces are dedicated to womenNot just for numerical reasons, but, as Ercolini clarified in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica: "To create cultural models, we need to choose those who have acted and not immediately, so that girls have new role models to follow."

The creation of new cultural models, which redefine the models of the feminine (and, consequently, of the masculine), also passes through work in the media, with a magazine, Wandering Vitamins, with its associated portal, in an effort to bring the topic of female toponymy to the forefront, but also, more generally, the fight against gender inequality and sexism. The periodical magazine hosts insightful contributions, almost all by women, on gender issues.

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FEMALE TOPONYMY PROJECT

The theme, as usual, is the visibility of women in public spaces, even starting with a seemingly "formal" act like naming streets. But naming things means making them real, and that's the goal: to draw back the curtain on women's immense contribution to world history. Since the first toponymic census in 2002, however, some progress seems to have been made, and the number of streets named after women and girls has increased. In Rome, for example,  the association is present in the toponymy commission, and on over 16 thousand streets we are went from 7,7% in 2012 to 8,6% in 2020, which actually represents a significant increase when reading the numbers in an absolute sense.
In Naples, the mayor then secured a resolution requiring that, for each resolution regarding naming, the ratio be changed to two names for women for every one for men, thus reducing a still significant gap.

A peaceful and symbolic yet very important struggle that is gradually allowing citizens to achieve a more equal and equitable representation of history. This also, and above all, involves gender equality education, another goal of the association, which is very active in the area, including conferences, congresses, photography exhibitions, and courses for primary and secondary schools.

Similar experiences of feminine toponymy also exist at a European level: just last year, in April 2019, in Paris, a flash-mob took place Paris He replaced the streets in the third arrondissement (Marais) dedicated to historical events or men with names for women. Here is the gallery:

 

(Featured image and accompanying text taken from the public Facebook group of Female Toponymy. The Parisian photos are by Paola Bortolani)

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