Gender Differences in Evaluative Image Formation of Desirable Environments

Abstract

Since the image formed in people's minds is the result of perceived information from the environment, but these mentalities formed include needs, expectations, values, beliefs, memories and experiences of the place, which affect behavior in the environment. The relationship between "gender" and "urban space" is one of the basic discussions for optimal design in the field of urban planning today and affects the attitude and how to organize living space from various psychological, social, cultural, economic, etc. aspects. is. The changing gender roles of women have also changed the quality and type of their presence in the public sphere and formed a new set of patterns. Therefore, the designer must pay attention to the cognitive stages in identifying how people react based on their gender in what items and how they attract people's attention, how they are remembered, what women's image of the perceived space includes, and all It helps him to identify the optimal spatial environment. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to investigate gender differences in the formation of an evaluative image of the desirable environment with an interpretive phenomenological approach in the experience of desirable/undesirable urban spaces in Tehran, which is of a developmental nature. 15 women and 13 men were purposively sampled. Interviewees expressed their descriptions of 5 desirable and 5 undesirable places. The interviews were recorded and the data obtained from them were written in the form of tables and analyzed with Paul Colaizzi repeatability analysis. Finally, a list of thirty places was prepared, and people evaluated the desirability of each of the urban spaces by ten polar evaluative comparisons, according to the ability to build trust in the study in an intersubjective manner. According to the results of the research, the image of women and men of events and values, with different semantic dimensions, affects the behavior of each. Therefore, different values ​​between women and men can create different purposes and the choice of a place that is evaluated from the window of women's image is desirable, with common meanings related to the concepts of freedom, justice, security, respectability (dignity) of the place, has a face and the class is social-cultural, beautiful, stylish and full of details, quiet and cozy, has privacy and spatial definition while having space, has a happy and healthy spirit. These results therefore return the researchers to the principle that the image of any environment is not only the result of the influence of the external appearances of that environment on the mind of the observer, but also the images of individuals contribute to its creation.