Why is the fear that women experience in public space ‘paradoxical’ in many ways? Where does this anxiety come from? An anxiety that stops women from going out at night, forces them to avoid walking along certain streets, and makes them take the long, roundabout route home?

Fear not only reflects an effective danger in our cities, it is also the result of a social construct rooted in a history of patriarchal oppression.

This book examines various aspects of this insecurity – including its exploitation by the media and its tendency to favour the woman-domestic space relationship – in order to clarify the role that urban planning can play in designing cities that can make women and gender minorities feel safer in public space; it focuses in particular on the city of Milan, but broadens the horizon to include positive international examples.

Free, not brave, so that the presence of women in public space, especially in the evening and at night, increasingly becomes a statement of freedom rather than an act of bravery.