Spaces and places are two very different concepts—not mutually exclusive from each other, yet reinforce one another via constant renegotiations. For instance, the space of a house is transformed into a place called “home" when it is imbued with personal items, and the warmth of the relations between the people who dwell in it.

Both spaces and places are mechanisms which uphold social structures, where phenomena and their meanings are produced, maintained, altered and reproduced. In a similar vein, the spatial capacity of a city is what facilitates the social and gendered performances in our daily lives. A space, when imbued with sex-differentiated dos, don’ts, shoulds and shouldn’ts, become gender-specific barriers.

While the word “city" carries a neutral tone in English, its Hindi counterpart “Sheher" is semantically male—which is a subtle reflection of the spatial male dominance prevalent in our metropolises. For women, public spaces are merely transitways that connect one destination to another—liminal crevices that exist “in-between" male consumption spaces. While men can casually sit on stairways, corners or “addas" and chat, smoke, drink and lounge around freely, women invariably always need to manufacture legitimate reasons for being in a public space. In this manner, women are subjected to spatial subordination in indirect........

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