The municipality of Zelzate in the East Flanders province wants to re-name all the streets in one neighbourhood of the municipality with only women's names.
Flemish television and radio personality Sofie Lemaire launched an appeal in October to introduce more streets named after women in Flanders. Of all the streets in Flanders named after people, the ratio of men to women is 85-15, according to Lemaire, reports De Zondag.
In her promo video, Lemaire coloured all the streets named after women in certain cities in red to show how few there are. On a map of Brussels (pictured), only very few streets are named after women.
The municipality of Zelzate has answered her appeal by saying it wants to create an entire 'women district'. "We are aware of her appeal and have talked about it with our culture council, which advises us in these things," said Brent Meuleman, the mayor of Zelzate, reports Het Laatste Nieuws.
"We think it would be a good idea to turn the new neighbourhood near the Verbroederingslaan into an entire women's district. Zelzate definitely has more than enough deserving women to provide enough names," he added.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
