As the US continues to debate gender-neutral bathrooms, China has rolled out gender-specific parking spaces because apparently women “can’t reverse”.

An area located along the Hangxinjing highway connecting Zhejiang province to Jiangxi province in China’s southeast, created the extra wide spaces specifically for female drivers.

The spaces are outlined in pink paint (of course) and feature the universal symbol for ‘women’ – the one you find on women’s bathrooms and such.

The spaces are 50% larger than the average parking space.

Pan Zhuren, who’s responsible for the spaces, says he decided to create them after observing female drivers having trouble reversing and parking carelessly:

Yes, these are parking spaces ‘customized’ for women. It’s part of [a set of] measures we’ve introduced to humanize the area.

Some people expressed outrage on Sina Weibo (the Chinese Twitter):

True respect for women entails letting women enjoy the same rights as men.

While others think it’s no biggie:

This female driver doesn’t think it’s discrimination, it’s obviously just to be considerate. If you think it’s discrimination, just go park in an ordinary parking spot.

Images VIA

Well I guess the intention is good here, but obviously you can’t pull off something like this without offending half the population. Some will be asking why you’d want to reinforce such a regressive stereotype, while others will still be wondering ‘are those spaces wide enough?’. Might even be some ‘meninists’ out there complaining that women are getting all the good parking spaces now. You just can’t win whatever you do.

P.S. This young lady is certainly doing her bit to keep that stereotype alive, that’s for sure.