Aim <p>Parks provide facilities for physical activity (PA), which leads to an improvement in community physical health. Housewives are known as a group to undertake less active activity; thus, special attention should be paid to providing facilities for them to be active physically in parks. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the reasons behind housewives’ refusal to visit parks for physical activity.</p> Subject and method <p>The data was collected by using a questionnaire among 210 visitors (women) the El Goli and Shams Tabrizi parks in Tabriz, Iran. The main core of the questionnaire consisted of three parts, namely accessibility to, attractiveness of, and amenities in parks. The data also was analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS software.</p> Result <p>The results of Spearman correlation showed very strong association between the “attractiveness” of the park and reasons for not participating in PA (<i>r </i>= 0.802). The results of the structural equation model in SmartPLS also confirmed that the attractiveness (β = 0.317, <i>p</i> = 0.904) and the park amenities (β = 0.453, <i>p</i> = 0.841) had strong direct correlation with refusal of engagement with physical activities in parks by housewives (<i>R</i>² = 0.804).</p> Conclusion <p>This study used a systematic analytical method to demonstrate the importance of park amenities, attractiveness, and micro-level of park characteristics on housewives’ participation in physical activity in parks, where attractiveness and the amenities provided had a significant role in their reasons to engage or not to engage in parks. The results are very useful for park designers and urban planners to reorganize and redesign urban parks to improve women’s physical activity levels in public spaces.s</p>