Equitable Mobility: exploring gender, intersectionality, care and urban transport: Masculinities and the public transport: Rethinking power, sexual violence, and care

I want to continue the reflection I began in my previous post, inspired by the book City of Men: Masculinities and Everyday Morality on Public Transport by Romit Chowdhury. This time, I focus on the case of Bogotá and draw from some of the literature I’ve been reviewing as part of a work-related initiative: an upcoming participatory session with citizens to discuss and explore, through qualitative techniques, the theme of non-hegemonic masculinities and co-responsibility in addressing sexual harassment in public transport.

Public transport is one of the most dynamic spaces of social interaction in the urban environment. Yet, for many women and LGBTIQ+ individuals, it remains a contested terrain—marked not just by movement, but by fear, harassment, and exclusion. The 2023 Bogotá Mobility Survey and a 2024 gender-based mobility study found that over 90% of those who reported sexual violence in the system were women. Common incidents include leering, non-consensual body contact, and obscene remarks.

Despite these patterns, institutional responses to harassment in public transit have largely focused on victim protection or punitive action against aggressors. What has often been overlooked is a more transformative question: what role do men play in either perpetuating or challenging these dynamics?

Feminist thinker Bell Hooks (2021) offers a compelling perspective. She argues that patriarchy conditions men to disconnect from their emotions and from others—creating a masculinity of dominance, silence, and denial. In public spaces, this emotional detachment manifests in complicity, indifference, or fear of intervening. Dismantling these norms means reframing masculinity itself—not as an identity rooted in control, but as a relationship based on care, empathy, and ethical responsibility.

This redefinition becomes urgent when we consider how public space is gendered. As explored in City of Men (Chowdhury, 2023), cities in the Global South often reflect a masculine moral order. Streets, buses, and stations are occupied and regulated through social codes of homosociability—networks of male trust, authority, and complicity. The figure of the man who “belongs” in public space is still shaped by the logic of control and surveillance. In such environments, harassment is not simply about individuals acting out, but about a collective tolerance rooted in everyday urban masculinity.

Addressing this requires more than rules or campaigns—it calls for a cultural shift. According to Global Pathways to Men’s Caregiving (Kato-Wallace et al., 2014), men who were raised with caregiving male role models are more likely to engage in egalitarian behaviors. Masculinity, then, is not fixed. It is shaped by context, relationships, and the possibility of unlearning.

Equally important is the recognition that most transport systems are not designed to support caregiving roles—roles that are overwhelmingly carried out by women. The UITP Gender Best Practices Report (2024) found that fewer than 13% of transit authorities plan routes with care-related trips in mind, and only 18% adapt schedules to fit women’s mobility patterns. This structural neglect reinforces gendered burdens of risk, time, and insecurity in transit.

In this context, men’s absence from the debate around safe and inclusive mobility is striking. Their role is often limited to that of aggressors or passive witnesses—rarely are they seen as allies in the transformation of transit spaces. But if masculinity is to be reshaped, it must be done in public, in practice, and in everyday life.

As Hooks (2021) reminds us, “feminist masculinity offers men a way to reconnect with themselves, to rediscover the goodness of being male.” This vision does not demand a rejection of masculinity, but a reimagining of its ethical core—where being a man includes standing up to injustice, supporting others, and contributing to collective safety.

Reframing masculinity in this way isn’t only about preventing harm. It’s about building a more just city—one where all people can move freely, feel safe, and know that care, not control, defines our shared spaces.

References

- Chowdhury, R. (2023). City of Men: Masculinities and Everyday Morality on Public Transport.

- European Investment Bank & UITP. (2024). Gender Best Practices in Public Transport

- Hooks, B. (2021). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love.

- Kato-Wallace, J., Barker, G., Eads, M., & Levtov, R. (2014). Global Pathways to Men’s Caregiving. Promundo-US.

- Secretaría de Movilidad de Bogotá. (2023). Encuesta de Movilidad de Bogotá 2023.

- Sensata, CAF & Secretaría de Movilidad de Bogotá. (2024). Caracterización de los patrones de movilidad en Bogotá con enfoque de género e interseccional.