![Left: Ms. Magazine, inaugural issue, summer 1972. Right: Faculty and students of the Women's School of Architecture and Planning Summer Program, 1975. [Images courtesy of Gabrielle Esperdy]](http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/a6/a6e4976girowvrur.jpg "Left: Ms. Magazine, inaugural issue, summer 1972. Right: Faculty and students of the Women's School of Architecture and Planning Summer Program, 1975. [Images courtesy of Gabrielle Esperdy]")
Let’s mentor a new generation of architects who are as proud to be women as they are proud to be designers. And let’s start by taking back the “architectress,” by infusing that cringe-inducing, condescending, mid-century term of opprobrium with some born-this-way, kick-ass, grrrl-power, retro cool. Imagine Architectress t-shirts and Architectress tattoos, Architectress blogs and Architectress fansites, Architectress flash mobs and Architectress meetups. Imagine Architectress going viral. — Places Journal
Back in the '70s, second-wave feminists were organizing and agitating, forming alternative communities, creating new spatial practices and attempting to pry open what a contemporary reporter called the "exclusively male preserve" of the American architecture profession. Gabrielle Esperdy revisits their "amazing adventures fighting for gender equality" and measures the distance we've traveled since. It's pretty far, she concludes — but not far enough.
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