“Can She Handle It?” Women Delivery Drivers and the Gendered Politics of Hanoi’s Streets

Sarah Turner and Ngô Thúy Hạnh
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Sarah Turner: Department of Geography, McGill University, Canada
Ngô Thúy Hạnh: Independent Researcher, Vietnam

Urban Planning, 2026, vol. 11

Abstract: On Hanoi’s crowded streets, women app‐based motorbike delivery drivers carve out precarious yet essential roles in the city’s mobility landscape. In this article we examine these drivers’ everyday experiences, highlighting the gendered challenges they face in a profession still widely male‐dominated. Drawing on 34 in‐depth interviews, we explore how these women navigate public scepticism about their capabilities, manage the physical and logistical demands of street‐based work, and respond to harassment by male customers. Our study reveals that women drivers develop a range of tactics to sustain their livelihoods and ensure personal safety, from carefully selecting passengers and routes, devising deliberate narratives for questionable customers, to forming informal peer networks. By centring the perspectives of women delivery drivers, we contribute to broader debates on the gendered dimensions of platform livelihoods and urban mobility. We position Hanoi’s streets not only as sites of economic activity but as contested public spaces where safety, access, and belonging are unevenly distributed. Tracing how women drivers tactically navigate harassment, infrastructural shortcomings, and algorithmic control, we engage with concerns about the (re)configuration of streets as multifunctional yet exclusionary environments. These drivers’ experiences reveal the persistent gendered frictions embedded in Hanoi’s streets, raising critical questions about whose needs, security, and visibility are prioritized in emerging urban mobility futures.

Keywords: digital governance; everyday resistance; gendered mobility; gig‐work precarity; Hanoi; mobility justice; platform economy; streets; women delivery drivers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:urbpla:v11:y:2026:a:10896

DOI: 10.17645/up.10896

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