Perception of the Urban Environment by Men and Women (Based on a Study of Krasnodar Residents)

The urban environment is considered a symbolic field, an integral part of which is the personal meanings, feelings, and emotions of a person interacting with objects and artifacts of the surrounding space in the context of his life practices. The relevance of the study lies in the ability to identify the gender specifics of a person's connection with the living environment, to determine what factors shape the subjective well-being and psychological comfort of men and women in the urban environment. The purpose of the study is to identify gender characteristics of identity with the city and perception of the urban environment using the example of residents of the city of Krasnodar. The methodological basis of the study is the concept of gender mentality. The study involved 354 respondents permanently residing in Krasnodar (131 men, 223 women). Research methods: to study identity with the city, the Droseltis and Vignoles scale was used in the authors' adaptation; a methodology by B.V. Kaygorodov was used as a tool for studying the characteristics of men's and women's narratives of identity with the city in the author's modification; to study the visual image of the city, an associative experiment and the prototypical analysis by P. Vergès were used, which allows one to identify the structure of social representation. As the results of the study showed, men in Krasnodar have significantly higher scores on the "Self-realization in the urban environment" scale. It was revealed that the connection between a person and the urban environment is gender specific: men perceive this environment as a space of competition, and women as a space of development and improvement. For women, such factors of the urban environment as recreation areas, pedestrian zones, places for walking and playing sports, cleanliness and safety of city streets are of particular importance.