Sex and the city park: The role of gender and sex in psychological restoration in urban greenspaces

Abstract

Exposure to urban greenspaces such as parks, forests, and gardens can support psychological restoration. However, restorative environments research currently lacks theory and empirical evidence on gendered restorative processes. Literature on epidemiology has studied gender differences in greenspaces and mental health outcomes but results are unclear so far. In parallel, social psychology of gender and feminist urbanism suggest that gender-related socio-cultural norms, attitudes, and behaviours; roles and relations; stereotypes, expressions; identity and sexual orientation, as well as certain sex-related factors, can have profound influences on women's (and gender minorities') experiences in public space. Drawing from these disciplines, we address this key knowledge gap of restorative environments research by reviewing the role of gender and sex in psychological restoration and wider psychological experiences in urban greenspaces. The findings reveal that gender-related and certain sex-related factors can affect aspects of person-greenspaces interactions, including when greenspaces are accessed and where; why they are visited and with whom; and how greenspaces are experienced. Several potential barriers to women's and gender minorities' experiences in urban greenspaces are identified. These relate to visit characteristics (transport accessibility and mobility patterns, frequency, time, social context and purpose of visits), experiences of contextual features (perceived and objective safety, the quality and maintenance of urban greenspace, infrastructure features), and several top-down person and group-based experiences (personal meanings, majority dynamics and group belonging, intersecting sociodemographic and personal characteristics). Overall, the person-environment fit in urban greenspaces might be lower for women and gender minorities than for men. This might translate into lower perceptions of compatibility and being away and, simultaneously, higher attentional demands. Overall, this might reduce the restorative and psychological benefits of urban greenspaces for women and gender minorities. Future research is encouraged to assess empirically the effects of the identified gender- and sex-related factors in restorative experiences of urban greenspaces, as well as to explore restorative experiences among specific socio-demographic groups in which gender intersects with other personal and social features.