Women to be featured on street signs in Zurich
By Jan de Boer
Officials in Zurich have voted in favour of including women in street and traffic signs around the city. Various different depictions will be used on the signs in future, in a bid to make women more visible on the streets and in city life.
Street signs with women are coming to Zurich
By 73 votes to 41, on Wednesday the city council of Zurich voted to introduce new street signs depicting women. In future, men will be joined by women, pregnant women, elderly women and same-sex female couples in being depicted in pedestrian and traffic signals across the Swiss metropolis.
The plan in Zurich was inspired by a similar scheme in Geneva. In 2020, the local council replaced half of the city's iconic “man with hat” crossing signs with “less masculine” symbols featuring women.
More female street signs better reflect our values, supporters argue
"It is time to make women more visible on the streets," Social Democratic city councillor Rahel Habegger told Blick. She noted that signs in Zurich are still focused on depicting working, childless men who drive, arguing that “symbols always say something about our values.”
The move to impose new street signs is part of a wide push to make “male-dominated” streets more diverse. In June 2024, seven streets in Zurich were dedicated to famous women, following a report from local magazine Tsüri which found that of the 516 different streets named after people in the city, only 68 or 13 percent are named after women.
Opponents label diverse street signs as ineffective and expensive
However, the proposal was not without its opponents, with the Swiss People’s Party labelling the idea “nonsensical” and ineffective at addressing real inequality. FDP. The Liberals added that the extra cost of the project is “simply unnecessary”, stating that traffic signs are about preventing road accidents, not politics.
"How should women be depicted? With skirts and long hair? And how big should the breasts be?" asked FDP city councillor Yasmine Bourgeois. For their part, the Evangelical People’s Party proposed that all street signs should be “gender-neutral”, but the idea was rejected by lawmakers.
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Jan studied History at the University of York and Broadcast Journalism at the University of Sheffield. Though born in York, Jan has lived most of his life in Zurich and has worked as a journalist, writer and editor since 2016.
While he has plunged head-first back into life in Switzerland since returning to the country in 2020, he still enjoys a taste of home at pub quizzes and karaoke nights.Read more