International Women's Day has been celebrated worldwide since it was officially recognized by the UN in the 1970s. Broadly speaking, this date symbolizes our historical struggle as women to achieve equality with men.
In the spirit of these celebrations, as a woman and an architect, I wanted to present an overview of women's professional trajectory in architecture—particularly in Brazil—highlighting the discrepancies that persist in the field to reinforce the struggle that International Women's Day represents. This is both a call to action and a personal reflection, as well as an appeal for collaboration, urging everyone to recognize their own position and, above all, our place as women in shaping our country's architectural landscape.
In 2019 CAU/BR conducted a comprehensive survey on the presence of women in architecture and urbanism. According to this data, of the active professionals registered with the council, 63.10% are women. The same pattern is mirrored in universities, where 67% of students are female. However, when it comes to architectural production, among the primary services provided by women and registered on the CAU platform, 55.7% fall under design, while only small percentages—7%, 2.3%, and 1.3%—are related to other services such as construction, occupational safety engineering, and territorial planning, respectively. In terms of awards and representation, the numbers are also inverted: only 17% of national design awards were granted to teams led by women, just as only 17% of the members of the federal board of directors are women, 24% in the state councils, and so forth.
