Women on Mumbai’s traffic lights: a sign of India’s long road to gender equality

The little stick figures will now be seen in dresses instead of trousers to communicate that public places also belong to women, the city authorities say

But critics and experts say that without real structural and policy changes to address violence against women, it is merely a token gesture

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The Mumbai authorities have replaced the traditional male stick figures with female silhouettes on more than 100 traffic lights. Photo: Twitter

Published: 11:00am, 23 Aug 2020Updated: 8:42pm, 26 Aug 2020

This month, some of Mumbai’s 12 million people will see something different when they cross the road – at certain traffic lights, the little red and green figures will now be in dresses instead of trousers.

The authorities of one of India’s largest metropolises have replaced the traditional male stick figures with female silhouettes on more than 100 traffic lights on a stretch of road, becoming the first city to do so in what it calls a step towards gender equality.

“The idea behind this is to communicate to people that public places also belong to women,” says Vijayshree Pednekar, an urban planner in Mumbai. She suggested the initiative to the city’s municipal corporation as part of a broader project called Culture Spine, which is headed by Aaditya Thackeray, the tourism and environment minister of the western start of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located.

“This is a small step and it’s very symbolic but I think you have to start somewhere,” Pednekar says. “It is important to put the message out there in a busy neighbourhood like this.”

Various polls have named India as one of the world’s most dangerous countries for women. A 2016 survey by charity ActionAid UK found that nearly four out of five women in India had faced public harassment, which can range from staring and wolf-whistling to stalking, groping and even rape.

“Men harass us on roads; they click our pictures in metro trains, and when the government reserves seats for us on public transport, they taunt us over that,” says Meera Bhilwara, who is part of a group of young women in New Delhi called Khadar ki Ladkiyan, or Khadar Girls, who created a rap song in 2018 based on their experiences of sexual harassment.

“Once a few men accosted me on a bus and forced me to vacate a seat because they were upset the Delhi government had made public transport free for women,” she says. “I don’t think these traffic lights are going to change any of that.”