Why are there so few women architects?

i disagree sir. women can have children and then go back to work, or work from home while feeding. it’s the cultural shift towards “stay at home dads” that has YET to occur. however, i further contend that this economy will be THE game-changer, and now that there are more women in the workplace resulting from the gender wars of the 60’s and 70’s, it will soon come to pass that men will take a more equal role in the family and begin staying at home as a result of financial burden more than anything. the social shift towards stay at home dads will become more acceptable as a means of financial necessity initially (i.e. job loss), and later as a matter of choice.

Wow, Stern should think then speak. Its 2009 and time to get with the program!

I hope it’s not feminism heresy to state that there are indeed differences between men and women. One major difference is our biological clocks and window of fertility. Men are able to put off having children with little stress, knowing that they can father children their whole lives, while women know that their fertility exponentially decreases as early as their 30s. With all the education required to become a licensed architect, and years of experience necessary to gain a “professional” status, brings many women right into the point of when their “clock” ticks with pressing urgency. Perhaps taking a “break” from work to have children ends up taking longer (for A break of in whatever degree is necessary), or they enjoy being the primary caretaker and end up not exerting the extra effort (after getting out of the groove) for getting back on the horse towards getting professional status. All I know is that these are issues that worry me, as a young woman about to graduate from grad school at 27 and looking at 3 years of hard work before gaining professional status. Then I am looking at having a busy career and a child raised in daycare. Sacrifices one way or the other are necessary, and so far, it seems women are the ones to graciously take the blow.

talking about inequality stirs the pot, but not talking about it deters progress. frankly, we need to be asking these questions…

stern was asked a direct question about a statistical fact and frankly, he gave the “safe” answer – that the motherhood timeline interferes with the typical architect’s timeline. safe because it’s a common conjecture and because it implies that women have made a conscious choice about leaving.

truth is, it’s a hell of lot more complicated than that (isn’t everything?)…

as a practicing female architect (age: 31) thinking about having children and an undergraduate studio professor (first-year b.arch) encouraging my 50/50 class to work hard and think critically, i see the discrepancy in female representation between the profession and education firsthand. i should also note that my (all-male) co-workers will tell you, i’m no shrinking violet, especially when it comes to women’s issues.

anecdotally, i see five major factors which have turned my female classmates and colleagues away from the profession over the years – i offer them up for the purpose of discussion:

1. the persistent “i can’t maintain this work schedule if i care at all about raising my kids to be decent human beings” feeling. i think this also explains you don’t see a lot of single fathers in architecture.

2. the subtle reminders women tend to get from bosses, co-workers, contractors, and even clients, that they have to prove their worth – it wears you out over time, trust me. (btw, i think this is the reason #4 exists)

3. in my experience, women intertwine social dynamics with professional dynamics. if there is dissension women tend to respond towards repairing the social balance – they can be consciously competitive, but it becomes unsustainable (the self-critique is hard to escape). this leads women to be hard-working employees who wait to be recognized instead of arguing their case away from the competitive showmen. it eats away at you in such a thankless profession.

4. this one’s tough to admit, but… women tend to be the most vituperative when it comes to judging women (something i have never gotten used to – nor do i really understand). it erodes the already tiny pool of positive female mentors (in a profession supposedly rooted in the concept of mentorship). to those awesome women architects out there – let’s put an end to this!

5. the profession has not adjusted to accommodate the external pressures women face because, by and large it is still run but old men. cynically, i think they’ll have to die off before real progress can be made towards equality (gender and racial, alike). further slowing the equalizing is the fact that unlike other professions, where you can measure merit by profitability, growth, or “results” – architecture is subjective in all stages and that keeps those not-so-lovely “traditions” in place longer.

let’s all begin to move beyond the anecdotal into the analytical – really examining and rectifying this issue is the only way we can keep my female students in the profession for years to come.

“Why are there so few architects in their 80´s in the profession?”

Because they quickly turn to a sort of social dementia and embrace out-of-date and out-of-reality worldviews which inhibit their hability to contextualize their architectural work in a relevant way for contemporary society.

Like someone else said: maybe it’s time for retirement.

It is really interesting in fact, that during my studies, the percentage of women versus men was 50/50. Where are they now?
I can surely think of a couple of reasons, why there are such few well known women architects out there.
They are probably working for a man boss who is the front man, the one who signs the deals with other “big men bosses”… But they all know that without the hard working women, on which they can count on to cover their backs, they wouldn’t be able to keep their end of the deals. I think that women love architecture as much as men and are just as dedicated, but they are not such attention and power seakers.
Motherhood is for sure one of the factors as well.. I’ve actually had a woman boss when I started my career and it was so sad to see her two children miss their mom.. I felt sorry for them and thought to myself “I wonder into what kind of people they will grow up..” If you don’t want them to call their grandmother “Mom” and if you don’t want them to grow up into emotional invalids, you have to be there for them.
One other thing, among many actually, is the construction sights.. I’ve worked on bigger projects and had to visit the construction sights where there were more than fifty men working at once and not a single woman. I was the only one and I was there to give them a hard time, if things were not going according to the plans. But it was damn hard to get them to take me seriously at first as I heard whistles and shouts about a “WOMAN” present on the site.. and this was when I made a conscious effort to look like a man-dressed dyke with a bad attitude. How frustrating. In my opinion, that is also a reason, why a lot of women prefer to work in the interior design, where there are not looked at like hookers on a stag night and can still remain what they are… ladies. And they contribute a lot!

hm… well, this is the same that my mother – architect (and my grandma is a civil engineer)- said to me when I said that I want to became an architect. She said it’s impossible to have a family etc (but she was married and has 2 children…that proves she is not right)
So, ladies, what shall we do next? ;)

Well, most men have kids. And many women don’t.
So there goes that argument.

My Architecture University is 50/50 – male/female. I had no idea there were going to be that many females when I first started.

Well guess he voted for obama and not for hillary in the primaries

Opium,

He´s designing the George Bush Library… trust me he didn´t vote for any democrat at all :)

Change the words “architect” by “doctor”, “layer”, “engeneer”, anything, and the speach would still stand, and be perfectly valid…..if we were in 1960.

Cheers from pertedetemps.

Tania!! Gender roles are prescribed by a long history of war-making patriarchal societies, and genetic predispositions which became obsolete when homo sapiens achieved conciousness. Cognitive evolution!