Introduction
In recent years, despite the rapid trend of women's presence in urban public spaces, these places are designed without considering the needs of women, and men have more facilities to use urban spaces (Azimi, 2015: 122). In other words, although public spaces are created for the use of the general public, regardless of gender, ethnicity, etc., women have more limited access to such spaces than men. Even in some cases they are completely excluded from spaces that are generally free for men and their presence. Limiting factors such as danger and fear are among the most important elements in women's experience in the urban space and make their use unsafe, as a result, women limit their access to public space due to the existence of such issues (Rush, 2012: 9).
The city of Shahrekord, as one of the middle cities and the center of Chaharmahal Bakhtiari province, like most cities in Iran, has a male-oriented structure in terms of public and physical spaces; Today, this has created problems for the presence of women in the public spaces of this city, which account for almost half of the population; Therefore, in this research, it has been tried to measure and evaluate the variables and criteria that have a role in the presence of women in the public spaces of Shahrekord. For this purpose and according to the material raised, the main question of the research is whether the urban spaces of Shahrekord are compatible with the needs of women and are responsive to their needs? What is the desirability of these spaces? And how effective are these spaces in the activity and presence of women?
Theoretical Framework
Urban space is an area that is formed through the performance of different human groups, their activities and behaviors, and social and cultural interactions of citizens take place in this space (Beebeejaun, 2017: 326). From the mid-twentieth century to the present, the concept of urban space, with reference to the ideas of Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch and other thinkers of the humanist and culturalist school, relies on the principle that urban space is part of the city structure, which has a continuous and harmonious whole and is physically enclosed. (Parsi, 2002: 44). Until the end of the 20th century, the concept of urban space was summarized in spatial and physical issues. But since 1990, other concepts such as economic, cultural and social concepts in connection with the urban space were taken into consideration (ibid.). Based on this; The urban space is a part of the construction of the city, and its concept is not only a physical identity, but also a functional space that provides opportunities for citizens to communicate and interact. Desirable urban spaces enable the presence of more citizens in the environment and have human and physical dimensions. The characteristics of urban spaces are strongly influenced by the activity and behavioral patterns of their users (Farhadian and Nafti, 2012: 2).
In these urban spaces, women, as half of the human society, need laws and regulations as well as supporting factors and components in order to perform their activities optimally and play their role; (Sadeghi and Pourgholami, 2019: 427). This is despite the fact that feminist thinkers agree that the city is man-made because women have contributed to its planning and construction, and they benefit from being surrounded by a man-made environment. The built environment is a reflection of men's activities, men's values and men's tendencies towards residential space (Gottdiener & Hutchison, 2011: 148).
Since the conditions governing urban spaces are different, the level of satisfaction with these spaces also varies. In order to check the desirability of urban spaces, there must be specific criteria and indicators. Therefore, in the current research, the basis of the study is the concept of women's use of urban spaces and indicators to meet the needs of women, which will lead to an increase in their presence and activity in urban spaces. These indicators and concepts include physical conditions, socio-cultural conditions, the issue of security and also the issue of access, which themselves have sub-criteria.
Methodology
This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive and analytical in terms of nature and method. In the first step, the current situation was identified through exploring various documents related to the subject. Also, the method of collecting information and the indicators required for developing the questionnaire were determined. In the next step, in order to check the validity of the research tool, the questionnaire prepared by several professors and experts related to the subject was studied, and with their approval, its validity was confirmed. The reliability of the tool was checked through pilot testing and Cronbach's alpha test. The value of Cronbach's alpha for different indicators varied between 0.752 and 0.840, and considering that it is above 0.70, its reliability was confirmed. The statistical population of the research is women and girls aged 15 to 55 years of Shahrekord city, and using Cochran's formula, 384 questionnaires were distributed among the sample people who were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. This questionnaire contains 42 questions with general and specialized questions, which are valued and designed as a Likert scale from completely disagree to completely agree. The results of the questionnaire have been analyzed and evaluated using SPSS software and single-sample T-tests and step-by-step regression.
Result and discussion
The study of descriptive statistics shows that among the people of the research sample, approximately 35% of the sample is in the age group of 25-35 years. Also, in terms of marital status, 57.5% are married. 37% of the respondents have bachelor's education and 38.3% of the women of the statistical population declared their occupation as housewives, which has the highest frequency in this statistical sample. The findings from the one-sample t-test indicate that, in relation to the general indicators of the study, none of the indicators of women's presence in urban spaces of Shahrekord have an average higher than the desirable level. Among the four main indicators studied, the socio-cultural activities have a higher score than the other indicators.
In order to examine the impact of urban space indicators (including physical conditions, security, accessibility, and socio-cultural activities) as independent research variables on the presence of women in urban spaces as the dependent variable, a multivariate stepwise regression method was used. The findings of the regression analysis show that the dimensions of security, access, and physical conditions were able to predict the presence of women in urban spaces in three stages. More precisely, in the first stage, only the security dimension with a standard beta coefficient of 0.446 explained 20 percent of the variance in women's presence. In the second stage, access conditions were added to the security dimension with a standard beta coefficient of 0.2, and the ability to explain women's activity and presence reached 23/0. In the third stage, physical dimensions with a standard beta coefficient of 0.134 were added to the security and accessibility dimensions, and the explanatory power of efficiency reached 25/0.
An examination of the results obtained from the sample T-Tech test shows that none of the indicators of women's presence in urban spaces of Shahrekord had an average higher than the desirable level. Also, among the four main indicators examined, the cultural-social activities index was far better than other indicators in the studied area. In general, according to the results of this section, it can be said that the urban spaces of Shahrekord do not meet the needs of women. The results of the study are in line with the research of Pourmohammadi et al. (2014). Cities are designed by men who have little or limited information about the needs of women. The specific physiology of women in many cases keeps them away from urban spaces. The inappropriateness of urban design, streets, sidewalks, etc. causes women to be deprived of access in many cases for reasons that they themselves are not exactly aware of.
Also, the results of the step-by-step regression analysis to investigate the effect of the quality of urban spaces on the activity and presence of women show that the "security" variable has the greatest effect on the criterion variable. The findings of the research are in line with the findings of Beizaei et al.'s research (2017), which showed that the security index is very important in relation to the presence of women in urban spaces. This means that the women of our society still face a sense of insecurity in urban spaces, and this factor is one of the main factors in deterring and limiting the use of urban spaces.
Conclusion
The analysis of the research results shows that women in the studied area have long realized the difficulties and issues they face in urban spaces. The urban life of women is full of experiencing situations and conditions that make them face different issues than men. Planners should put aside their old approaches to the development of the space and understand the existential nature of women and their practical methods of urban space. Misunderstanding of women's urban needs is the first reason for the inequality between men and women's urban space and ultimately results in less presence of women in urban spaces.