Men's parking space is an

antonym In lexical semantics, opposites are words lying in an inherently incompatible binary relationship. For example, something that is ''even'' entails that it is not ''odd''. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members i ...

women's parking space Women's parking spaces are only in certain cities globally. They are specially designated and identified parking spaces in parking garages and parking lots to be used by women. They are usually much larger than normal parking spots to reduce ac ...

. Normally mentioned only in satire, in July 2012 two men's parking spaces were opened in

Triberg Triberg im Schwarzwald is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located in the Schwarzwald-Baar district in the Black Forest. Triberg lies in the middle of the Black Forest between 500 and 1038 metres above sea level. Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaf ...

in the

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Planned as a practical joke presenting a specific challenge to unskilled drivers, they produced worldwide media interest in the combination of humour to lampoon the idea of

political correctness "Political correctness" (adjectivally "politically correct"; commonly abbreviated to P.C.) is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. ...

and of successful

city marketing City marketing (related to city branding) or Place Marketing is the promotion of a city, or a district within it, with the aim of encouraging certain activities to take place there (such as tourism and attraction of foreign direct investments). P ...

Technical and local background

Triberg, a small city of five thousand inhabitants, has an extremely steep topography. It has waterfalls. In 2010, Triberg was reportedly visited by about 250,000 tourists per year,Millionenprojekt Erlebniswelt Triberg steht vor dem Aus
Mo, 8. March 2010 00:04

Badische Zeitung The ''Badische Zeitung'' (''Baden Newspaper'') is a German newspaper based in Freiburg im Breisgau, covering the South Western part of Germany and the Black Forest region. It has a circulation of 145,825 and a readership of 409,000. The paper was ...

most of whom came to see the waterfalls on a day-tour basis. After the

9/11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, Americans, who had been frequent visitors, became less likely to visit. That and the decline of the local

watchmaking A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their par ...

industry have caused problems for Triberg's economy. In 2007 Max-Dieter Mack presented preliminary plans for a €90 million

Amusement park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, and events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central theme, often fea ...

, ''Erlebniswelt Triberg,'' on a former industrial site in the municipality. Mack, an architect, is a Triberg native and relative of leisure park mogul

Roland Mack Roland Mack (born 12 October 1949) is a German entrepreneur. Mack grew up as a son of the entrepreneur Franz Mack, in Waldkirch. In 1975, he became the founder of Europa-Park in Germany. Personal life Mack was born in Freiburg. He married M ...

. The parking garage at Kreuzstraße is the only planned building constructed so far. Mack was not commissioned for this. Instead of the theme park, a smaller shopping mall and some comparably humble attractions are now on schedule."Triberg Parkhaus statt Erlebniswelt"
suedkurier.de, 9 June 2012. (in German) The back of the parking garage is angled to follow the course of the River Gutach. Therefore, two parking bays, one on each level, have a peculiar shape and can be reached only by a complicated parking maneuver. Mayor Strobel and the architects, Judith Haas and Mattias Huismanns, deliberated about excluding those two bays from the garage of 220 bays, which was built for €2 million. Strobel decided to declare them ''men's parking spaces''. Per the state garage regulations in force in Baden-Wuerttemberg, ten per cent of all stalls (numbering twelve and of the standard shape and size) had to be declared for women in any event, but their misuse by men is not punishable according to the StVO (the federal ''Straßenverkehrsordnung'', or Highway Code of

). Accordingly, the only recourse available to property owners is to eject the misuser for trespassing or to tow his (or her) car; the operator of this particular garage (i.e. the government of the city of Triberg) declines to take either of these actions and instead appeals to the

honour system An honor system, trust system or honesty system is a way of running a variety of endeavors based on trust, honor, and honesty. The honor system is also a system granting freedom from customary surveillance (as to students or prisoners) with ...

in the case of the women's spaces and to the skill of the driver, whatsoever his or her sex, for the 'men's'.

General background

According to Ruth Becker's research about risk zones in town planning, women have more to fear in personal surroundings and at home, while men are the object (and dominantly subject) of attacks in the outside world.Ruth Becker Zeitschrift für Frauenforschung und Geschlechterstudien, Jg. 18, H. 4, 2000, p. 49-65 (5 Tab.); Standort: USB Köln(38)-FHM XG6137 Becker refers to U.S. author Elizabeth Wilson's ''Sphinx in the city'' and assume that women overestimate the dangers of urban surroundings. Herbert Glasauer doubts that women's parking spaces have a positive effect, and sees them as a sort of backlash perpetuating a

damsel in distress The damsel in distress is a narrative device in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has been kidnapped or placed in other peril. The "damsel" is often portrayed as beautiful, popular, and of high social status; she is usually depicted ...

perspective instead of addressing actual violence.Herbert Glasauer Gewalt ist nicht immer und überall, Georg Glasze, Robert Pütz, Manfred Rolfes: ''Diskurs, Stadt, Kriminalität: Städtische(Un-)Sicherheiten aus der Perspektive von Stadtforschung und kritischer Kriminalgeographie.'' transcript Verlag, 2005. S.206ff Men's parking spaces, as in the Triberg example, are ''for the brave''''

Focus Online ''Focus'' (stylized in all caps) is a German-language news magazine published by Hubert Burda Media. Established in 1993 as an alternative to the ''Der Spiegel'' weekly news magazine, since 2015 the editorial staff has been headquartered in Germ ...

''
"Deutschlands erste Männerparkplätze: Ist das sexistisch? Hier rangieren nur echte Kerle"
focus.de retrieved 15 July 2012. (in German) and ask their users to cope with risk, darkness, wilderness, and skill. Even before the Triberg controversy, for example, German satirist Florian Willet demanded in 2011 that the riskiest places in garages to be reserved for ''"real men"''. An American reporter in

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

noted that an American mayor attempting to set up a men's parking space would face greater legal risk compared to Strobel.Gender-specific parking stalls: A lawsuit waiting to happen?
Rachel Lewis, ksl.com 12 September 2012

Follow-up

The dedication, planned as a practical joke and a way to alert unskilled drivers to the specific challenge of the two parking slots, attracted worldwide media coverage.''

Spiegel Online ' () is a German news website. It was established in 1994 as ''Spiegel Online'' as a content mirror of the magazine ''Der Spiegel''. In 1995, the site began producing original stories and it introduced ''Spiegel Online International'' for artic ...

''
"Hier nur Männer!"
spiegel.de/panorama, 15 July 2012. (in German)"Parkhaus-Idee macht Triberg berühmt"
suedkurier.de, 7 July 2012. (in German) US television networks, including

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

and

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...

, reported the story."Sexist Parking Plan? German Mayor Creates Male-Only Spots"
abcnewsradioonline.com. Becky Bratu, a news journalist with NBC News, suggested that Mayor Gallus Strobel had increased the threshold for drivers to attract more tourists. NBC News quoted Mayor Strobel's interview with ''

Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...

'' to challenge political correctness, and his hope the tight spaces would be an attraction for ambitious drivers. Mayor Strobel had media contacts and interviews with French,"En Allemagne, des places de parking interdites aux femmes"
''Le Figaro'', 11 July 2012. (in French) English,''German mayor defends 'men only' parking spaces.''
guardian.co.uk, 12 July 2012. Italian, and South African media. ''

Le Figaro () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It was named after Figaro, a character in several plays by polymath Pierre Beaumarchais, Beaumarchais (1732–1799): ''Le Barbier de Séville'', ''The Guilty Mother, La Mère coupable'', ...

'' quoted Strobel as stating "Une ville touristique se doit de faire parler d'elle" ("A tourist town has to make people talk about it"). ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'' reported: "A town in southwest Germany has drawn accusations of sexism after designating two particularly tricky parking spaces "men only". The

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

was on site. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' in UK, a women's magazine in

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, and Norway's ''

Aftenposten (; ; stylized as in the masthead) is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation as well as Norway's newspaper of record. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 daily copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen ...

'' also reported. ''

Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

'' reporter Kritika Kapoor wrote an article on the issue. She quoted Strobel about his secretary's failure to park on the slot, saying "Five times she tried and no success", and inviting women to stand for the challenge. "Women can come here and prove me wrong, and while they're at it, they can see the town's attractions." Kapoor pointed out that Triberg's introduction of gendered parking is not the first example of sexist parking spots.

Regional feedback

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' youth association of

Ortenau The Ortenau (), originally called Mortenau, is a historic region in the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the right bank of the river Rhine, stretching from the Upper Rhine Plain to the foothill zone of the Black F ...

wrote an open letter against the parking spots and gender equality official Anette Klaas of the neighboring

Waldshut-Tiengen Waldshut-Tiengen (; ), commonly known as Waldshut, is a city in southwestern Baden-Württemberg right at the Swiss border. It is the district seat and at the same time the biggest city in Waldshut district and a "middle centre" in the area of the ...

district criticized them as "a foolhardy provocation"."Geschlechterkampf im Parkhaus Triberger Männerparkplätze sorgen für Furore/Für die einen ein netter Gag, für die anderen Sexismus"
, bo.de, 23 August 2012. (in German) Strobel, who has a legal background and holds a PhD in the history of law, countered that the critics were being humourless and described the dedication as usage of a cliché for city marketing. Dieter Stein, a writer living in Triberg, published a humorous booklet about the story. The men's parking slots are included in city tours, and Triberg also sells merchandising articles. The gender-based parking has been featured in annual TV retrospectives in Germany and South Africa. In 2013, Gallus Strobel was a guest on several television programmes, and the local carnival association baptized and tested the parking lots. The number of tourists and visitors to Triberg increased to almost 400,000 in 2012, compared to 250,000 annually before. Neighboring St. Georgen came up with a temporary men's parking place, in the sense of ''a place where men are being parked'' ( Männergarten)."Modeflohmarkt mit Männerparkplatz"
''Schwarzwälder Bote'', 19 April 2013; accessed 15 May 2013. (in German)

References

External links

Interview of Strobel in

6. Juli 2012
Local newspaper Schwäbische
Video 10. Juli 2012
parking exercise of the local carnival association in full gear 2013

Landesschau Baden Württemberg 2012

TTV Südbaden
{{coord, 48.1301, N, 8.2310, E, source:wikidata, display=title Black Forest Men's quarters Parking