The Night City and Female Existence Gendered Spatial Inequality and the Question of Spatial Justice in Urban India

Abstract: Urban public space is conventionally imagined as democratic, open, and equally accessible to all citizens. However, this conception does not fully correspond with lived urban realities. Particularly in the night city, women’s presence is markedly limited—and this limitation is not merely the result of crime or fear of insecurity; rather, it reflects deeply embedded structural and spatial inequalities. This paper analyzes the night city in the context of urban India as a theoretical and political terrain. Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre’s “Right to the City,” Edward Soja’s concept of spatial justice, Doreen Massey’s feminist geography, and Michel Foucault’s theory of surveillance, the study demonstrates that urban space is socially produced and regulated through configurations of power. Through an examination of reports from the National Crime Records Bureau, the post2012 security landscape in Delhi, and the 2024 incident at R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, the paper argues that women’s absence from the night city is not merely a statistical indicator of insecurity; rather, it signifies the incompleteness of spatial citizenship. Genuine spatial justice will only be realized when women can freely inhabit and use urban and institutional spaces without temporal, moral, or structural constraints.