Shit is degrading. It is degrading for those who have to do it openly, those who have to live in it and those who must handle it. The politics which surround it can also degrade or sometimes they can empower. People are often ashamed to talk about the detrimental effects of urban sanitation, yet this dissertation openly draws attention to the ‘dirty’ issues which are an everyday struggle for the urban poor. The slums of Ahmedabad lie within a dense and socially diverse urban fabric, disconnected in terms of infrastructure and society from the city. Sanitation infrastructure can drastically improve income, health and productivity, alleviating the poor. It is a simple solution yet the problem of open defecation in India only seems to worsen and the city becomes more fractured. This dissertation looks at gender-specific slum intervention programmes carried out by the Mahila Housing Trust (MHT), an NGO in Ahmedabad, and explores why it chooses to work with women in particular, how they are affected more detrimentally by a lack of sanitation and why working with them specifically can potentially help entire communities regain a place in the city.