Gender and Realisation of Women's Right to the City in Tehran

The right to the city consists of the right to appropriate spaces and participate in processes therein. Appropriation is referred to having share of the space, using it, owning it and valuing it because it has use value. Participation in the city includes decision making, constructing and living in the urban space. Components of right to the city can be approached from three dimensions, namely the politico-economic, physical and socio-anthropological. Based on the three levels of urban analysis introduced by Henry Lefebvre, the three dimensions can be further categorised. The right to the city has not been realised equally for men and women. Structural constraints have limited women's participation and appropriation of the city. By extracting the components of the two dimensions of the right to the city, and by applying a quantitative methodological approach, this article aims to investigate gender differences in realisation of right to the city in the Iranian capital city.