Recently I was asked to name female pioneers in architecture of the 20th century and how the industry has changed to become more inclusive. It was a quandary – I knew they were looking for an inspiring story with an upward trajectory. Architecture and design can appear as an idealized realm to the outside world. 

In my work, I find great satisfaction in creating these spaces, places of beauty, a juxtaposition of art, craft, and how its inhabitants live. Inside the office of Ike Kligerman Barkley, where I am a Principal, it is a collaborative environment where I have proven myself and never felt marginalized or my voice muted due to gender. This comfortable space allows me to forget the long-standing imbalance in my profession, it is not often in the forefront of my mind. So that is why I was surprised that this question was like a whirlpool that sucked me deeper and deeper the more attention I gave it with the history of the struggle for women’s rights, the legislative battles, and the conquests of the women who came before, spinning around me. I wanted to find the positive angle they were looking for but could not find the background to support it. I worried later that I had pulled this unsuspecting inquirer into the whirlpool with me, but how could we celebrate the achievements of 20th Century female architects that paved the way for women in the field without acknowledging the context in which they were achieved. It is very much a part of the story, as the most common adjective you will find when researching female pioneers in architecture, is “overlooked.”

... how could we celebrate the achievements of 20th Century female architects that paved the way for women in the field without acknowledging the context in which they were achieved

I recently watched The PBS two-part series, The Vote; about the suffragists’ fight for passage of the 19th amendment and women’s right to vote. This was a 72-year struggle of proposed legislation, petitions, protests and hunger strikes. Susan B. Anthony believed in it and fought for 50 years, her entire adult life, and died without seeing it passed. The suffrage movement was something I understood peripherally, but to dig in is to feel the weight of what I owe to these women and the ones that followed. My grandmother was a nurse. She met my grandfather, a doctor, at work. When I was in my early twenties, I was surprised to learn that she never wanted to be a nurse. She told me that she wanted to work and be financially independent. She was told she could be a nurse or a teacher and she wanted to be a teacher less than a nurse. Before that, I always thought that a nurse is what she aspired to be. My own mother’s father quit paying for college when she got married. These conversations hit me, almost physically, as a young woman just starting to figure out my place in the world, that my sisters and I are the first generation of women who were raised in a society that told us we could be anything we wanted to be, even if the world still isn’t ready to accept it. 

We are lulled into the comfort of believing that the struggle for women’s equality was long ago, first surfaced with the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, which later bore out the passage of the 19th amendment securing women’s right to vote in 1920, 100 years ago, and the proposed equal rights amendment three years later in 1923. I believe it then stays there in our collective outer consciousness. But it is not in the past and it is not over. The Equal Rights amendment, which simply states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex” has not been ratified. In 1972, 49 years after it was first introduced to congress and only three years before I was born, it finally passed the house and congress and went to the states for ratification. It was given a 7-year deadline and failed to reach the required three-quarters of the states to ratify in this window. It didn’t pass, so here we are now 97 years on, and Virginia just become the 38th state to ratify in January of 2020. There is much debate in the House and Senate as to whether the deadline can be removed retroactively, a question that opens the door also to acknowledging the five states who rescinded their ratification within the original deadline: Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, South Dakota and Idaho. If these states are allowed to rescind, the ERA would only have 33 ratifiers, again short of the 38 needed to become part of the Constitution. The late Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg believed we should start anew, proposing a new equal rights amendment be passed, stating “every constitution in the world written since the year 1950, even Afghanistan, has the equivalent of an equal rights amendment, and we don’t. I would like to show my granddaughters that the equal citizenship stature of men and women is a fundamental human right.”

These struggles, still unresolved today, sadly run parallel to women’s place in architecture. While on the surface it appears there have been advances, there is still a long way to go in reality. Until 1972 and the advent of Title IX, which forbade gender discrimination in federally funded education programs, most American architecture schools refused to admit women. This civil rights law cracked open a door and resulted in half of graduates from architecture programs in this country today being female. It stops there. Women make up about 20 percent of intermediate level architects and 17 percent of partners or principals in US architecture firms.

Until 1972 and the advent of Title IX, which forbade gender discrimination in federally funded education programs, most American architecture schools refused to admit women

As Denise Scott Brown states in her essay, “Room at the Top? Sexism and the Star System in Architecture”, “Some young women in architecture question the need for the feminist movement, claiming to have experienced no discrimination. My concern is that, although school is not free of discrimination, it is probably the least discriminatory environment they will encounter in their careers. By the same token, the early years in practice bring little differentiation between men and women. It is as they advance that difficulties arise, when firms and clients shy away from entrusting high-level responsibility to women. On seeing their male colleagues draw out in front of them, women who lack a feminist awareness are likely to feel that their failure to achieve is their own fault.” 

It is difficult to pinpoint a singular cause for this stall in advancement. I have read articles about women and the glass ceiling resulting not just from sexism, but also more insidiously, women’s reluctance to demand promotions and salary increases, that unlike their male counterparts, they believe if they work hard it will be recognized and that they will earn promotions, whereas men are more likely to push for a promotion that they will grow into. I have seen this in the firms I have worked for, and even in myself. I also concur with the supposition that the unbalanced expectation of women’s role in childcare and the lack of institutional support for parental leave and childcare contributes immensely. The 2018 Equity in Architecture survey conducted by the AIA graphically illustrates the glaring inequality in our industry. Of over 14,000 respondents, including architects in every state and across six continents the following was found: 

• Female architects and designers earn lower salaries than their white male peers and are less likely to hold positions of leadership; “a man working as a design principal makes roughly $20K more per year on average than the average female respondent working in the same position”

• Mothers and minorities particularly lose out on career and salary advancements

• “Most respondents, regardless of personal identity, work in firms led mostly or entirely, by whites and mostly, or entirely, by men”. Female role models and mentors are scarce

Per their findings, “the relative homogeneity of leadership within the profession may contribute to a number of difficulties for those from diverse backgrounds entering the field, from implicit bias to difficulty finding mentors who can address their concerns on the basis of personal experience, to difficulty envisioning oneself in leadership positions in the future.”

Further reading, and personal experience in years past has shown me, in a not so “implicit” way, that some of this bias is based on assumptions that women will be less committed to their work when they marry or have children, that they will be unable to command authority on job sites with their competency and qualifications questioned in the field, and that male colleagues will be reluctant to take orders from a woman. 

That the survey was done at all is progress, but the results are unsettling. All the practices I have worked for have been led by men–two sole-proprietors, and one three-person partnership. Though I have no idea how my salary compared to my male counterparts, I have felt valued for my insight and hard work. A survey like this shakes your foundation a bit. Reality may not be exactly as I understood it. What tacit bias lurks in the corners? Am I an exception to the rule, and how I am really seen? I have had my share of overt incidents over the years: a contractor who attempted to explain to me in detail what a floor plan was 8 years into my practice, a prestigious jewelry store client suggesting I flirt and spend time with their specialty cabinetmaker to get him to provide the details I needed to complete construction documents, and the client fund-raiser I was not invited to along with my male colleagues because the only women allowed were there to serve drinks. I gave these events, among others, a moment of my stunned attention and moved on, seeing them as outliers, not indicative of how I might be seen by my peers and clients. The results of that 2018 survey, however, and the long history of women’s exclusion from prestigious architecture awards sends a different message.

What tacit bias lurks in the corners? Am I an exception to the rule, and how I am really seen?

This is not comfortable to write, as it is frankly a reality I prefer to avoid, though I think that is part of the problem, as I am not alone in this. How can I be so tired of thinking about something I habitually ignore? 

There are many ways to measure success. I do feel valued and appreciated by my colleagues and clients and immensely proud of the work we do. There is unquantifiable satisfaction in walking through a building you designed and built with your team of designers, engineers, carpenters, and craftspeople. It is like a beautiful puzzle you solved, and everything fits. I want this for the young women who will follow me and the ones who have not yet found their place. Change can grow from awareness, mentorship, and women finding their voices, but the world must be open to listening. 

With this year marking the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment, I feel a great burden of gratitude for the suffragists' sacrifices and perseverance to guarantee my basic constitutional right to vote, and to those who drove the passage of Title IX, allowing me access to architecture school only 22 years later, and to those still fighting today to pass an Equal Rights Amendment, to declare my basic equality under the law. We can honor them by acknowledging that this struggle is not yet our past and continue work in the parts of our world we can control for progress and equity in a long imbalanced system.