suture: thank you for asking setsquareBOY to behave himself so kindly.
(setsquarekid: ... comments by you in other threads have led to a removal of the entire thread. i dont think these people would be happy with you if you caused that here again.)
"women cried on a regular basis. they had all of the nervous breakdowns. they took out their frustration on their bodies (in an unhealthy way). the ones i knew were all on perscription drugs. the scene/culture bred unhealthy women."
I know you did include a disclaimer, but I have to re-iterate that A-school leaves its mark on everyone...
oh, and there is a diff. b/t being honest and mouthing off like an asshole. I know. I do both.
Strawbeary, back to your question of what MAY cause me to ditch the career of architecture: Family is the ONLY thing. I'm totally devoted to being an architect, and only in the first few months of blissed out new motherhood did I ever seriously consider that raising the child full time might be a higher calling for me. For many women it is, but a few months back in the office showed me that I wanted to have it all - career and happy child. So far, so good.
But don't most architects, female or not, feel that kind of commitment to the profession? Can any of us really imagine doing anything else?
all women, let alone men, are pretty different. those who are ambitious for their careers will be able to find the balance necessary to juggle everything. i can say, from the experience me and my wife (who is an architect) went through with our kids, that my wife's decision to stay home indefinitely with our second has brought her much more happiness than anything in her professional life has. if she never worked for another firm, she'd be perfectly happy. and i'm happy for her. (and yes, we're schleping it like every other non-silver spoon fed couple in the world).
i'd have to believe that her situation isn't that uncommon. now, her previous firm had more than it's fair share of mysoginists, so maybe that's contributed to her feelings. but kids do weird things to your psyche.
also, what the statistics don't really say is where most of the women architects live. i imagine that places with a lower cost of living - compared to ny, sf, la, chicago - are going to make that stay at home/switch your career option much more attractive (assuming kids are in the equation).
finally, what the statistics also don't track is where the women are going. my guess is that they're smarter than the rest of us and are just finding better paying, less stress filled jobs as consultants....
Less rig-a-ma-role for sure. Especially if you don't have a whole lotta money and do choose a traditional, linear path of architecture. Go to school, internship, N.C.A.R.B, A.R.E, continuing ed, insurance. Gaaaaaaaaack! Endless, no? Sheesh. For me, it feels like one long trip!!! Having a child has been exponentially gratifying in comparison. I've experienced degrees of it with architecture, but with my baby I always know I'm in the right place. All of the cover your ass doubt gets tiresome!!!! And patience!
A Canadian once told me that women get a year PAID maternity leave there and their job back at the end of it all. Is that true?
Work environment and the folks you spend that much time with are key---I think someone posted that earlier in this thread.
Sure there are some fundamental differences b/twn women and men but I think we all have more in common than not.
Come on Squareboy, cut the macho posturing. Every one of you cute, dumb Canadian designer boys I’ve ever met has turned out to be a gynophobic closet-case. You’ll feel a lot better once you come to terms with it.
Many of us -mostly current students or fairly recent graduates, I'd guess (graduated within the past 5-10 years?) are saying that the gender ratios at school were about 50/50 male/female. Many of us went to school with a pretty balanced, racially diverse student body. And that people were treated according to merit. So why aren't there more women and minorities in top positions?
How old are the principals/partners of the firms where we all work? Most people who are the heads or in higher positions of design firms (let alone any kind of business), especially big firms, are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond - was it as gender-equal and racially diverse when THEY went to school? Of course there are women and minorities who are currently successful and in top positions in architecture, but were they not the minority percentage of their student bodies when they were in college and starting out in the profession?
Do you honestly think that when people now in their 20s and 30s have had enough experience to be partners that there WON'T be more women and minorities in top ranking positions?
Seriously. Those few decades should make a difference. It may still be well-off women and minorities as someone else noted above, but. Hey. ARCHITECTURE REQUIRES COLLEGE. Until funding oneself through college becomes easier for the poor, expect that.
i agree with what ssurface says...
i think this is a problem that already has a solution well
on its way..
i read most of these posts and i see a certain lack of creativity
or a willingness to see problems in everything...
i.e. on the question of pregnancy it was determined that there
were only two options...stay at home or work...i wonder personally
with the advent of the internet, faxes, email, blackberrys, etc.
why practice can't happen more and more at home...although there
are questions of time restraints i think there have been plenty of
architects throughout history who have practiced from home..i
don't see why pregnancy is an end.
and questions on job sites...of course asking questions on job
sites may at first make you appear ignorant..but which is more
ignorant? avoiding asking questions to which you want answers
or staying quiet so that you can appear confident and go home
not knowing anything more than you did before?
i think part of the problem of our generation (20s-30s) is that
new technology has provided us with a complex for immediacy
in everything...including promotions...there are so many questions
on this site alone from frustrated architects with three years of
experience wondering why they're not running jobs or the design
lead at their firm...i guess it's too easy to say wait a few years
and you'll understand how little you knew..but how else can you
say it?
and as far as money being a requirement for practice...suture..
i worked for charles rose...maryann thompson had money he
didn't ...money helps to get a practice started earlier than would
otherwise be possible..talent sustains that practice.
instead of looking at firms that are corporate and old school
with fixed unmoving before they die power structures...i'd look at
the new firms for analysis...firms like narchitects, shop, tod and
billie, morphosis, all have women in equal or highly prominent
positions to men.
i've worked with highly competent and incompetent men and
women...i have no problem working subordinate to, with or above any
gender as long as i'm learning something and i respect the
knowledge and ability of the person i'm working with...at
the very least professionially if not personally.
i have a friend who has 2 children. she just left her job to work from home for herself. she has found a nice balance between her personal and professional lives that allows her to enjoy both.
for me perhaps bigger than the family issues are the lack of good close-by role models, of wise mature female architects who can fill the valuable mentoring role in my apprenticeship and show me how its done. every last one of the other female architects i know are all my age or younger. i seriously know no practicing female architects older than 27. I have met a few - but they aren't around here.
susan surface is right about the generations and how the process of 50/50 is happening and to just wait. becoming an architect is something a woman in her 40's just doesn't up and decide to do someday as may be possible with some other careers.
I feel the same way as Strawbeary of lack of female role modles. I don't know any women architects with children personally, none at the places I work or worked for. I plan to join AWA and hopefuly to meet some there. Mentoring is very important but hard to find. I wonder where do you find your mentors? Anyone really wants to be mentors?
I’ve had to revive this post because I had a recent insight into why women tend to leave the profession, in particular after they become parents.
New parents generally cannot stay late during crunch times. This impacts in two ways:
First, every deadline comes with a mounting pile of work right at the end, that’s the nature of architecture charettes. When a team member can’t put in extra hours (because s/he has to leave right at 5 to get to daycare), it seems as if that team member is not getting enough work done. The other team members feel that they are having to pick up the slack.
Second, whether the parent is actually getting their allotted work done or not, s/he isn’t staying late into the night at the office (studio). This means missing out on the collegiality that happens late at night when people get giddy – the in-jokes, shared pizzas, coming up with rude nicknames for the client, etc.
From personal experience, missing out on the “studio environment†is incredibly hard. I can and do come into the office very early in the morning during crunches, but the fun sense of studio community really only happens late at night. Between the stress of not getting enough work done – or at least appearing not to, because nobody else sees the long hours I do put in early or at home after the kid goes to bed – and the missed sense of teamwork that is the joy of the studio environment, architecture starts to seem like a thankless job.
at one office, we had a PM that was there late at night with us, and he had a kid. it was so sad. he'd get off the phone at 8pm, and was so excited because his wife would tell him that his kid just took her first step or said 'mama.' it was sad because he missed it all. oh so sad.
The small proportion of women will inevitably shift to a more balanced ratio. More women must work (juggling family as well), many are both right and left brain talents. They also know myths as such that women are weaker, less dedicated, etc.
Computerized technology driving both design and fabrication processes will level the playing field. Architecture is no longer factually based on brute strength traditionally associated with architecture that relied on hammer as technology. That is a myth that is being perpetuated by an established old boys club. Give it 25 years - when the dinosaurs (both in practice and academia - aka the men in black) die off, no one will care about the old way of doing things that was "right". Think civil rights in the 60's. Women are considered by some as troublesome upstarts, when in fact technology will be the driving evolutionary force that changes the practice. It already is.
When it comes to the bottom line - the clients do not care who, what or how - but seek good service & value. Their are individuals and firms who will hire big name firms as a vanity - like a Rembrandt painting to appreciate on an office wall. And then - their is everyone else. If anyone can master the control of construction to build what they can design & draw in a more fiscally responsible manner by integrating developing technologies responsively, clients will seek them out. Those people without consideration of gender will prosper in a changing design and build environment where the technology is not as physically demanding.
Overall, talented ones (architects) will leave to go somewhere else or on their own after they have paid their dues. After meeting about a dozen former Gehry architect employees around LA............ it becomes kind of obvious. Money is not everything - in fact it is just grease in the Hegellian machine of a modern world.
Hopkins and Grimshaw sign up, but Foster’s refuses
By Will Hurst
The 50/50 campaign for more women in architecture scored a major victory this week as two of the country’s leading practices agreed to sign up after being doorstepped by BD.
The addition of Grimshaw and Hopkins Architects, who between them employ 67 architects, takes the total number of practices that have so far signed the charter to 63. BD aims to get 250 practices on board by International Women’s Day on March 8.
But Foster & Partners refused to add its name despite being doorstepped by BD.
In an official statement, the practice later claimed it “meets, and in some instances goes well beyondâ€Â, the charter. However, there are no women among its 12-strong senior management and only one woman, a non-architect, among its 41 partners. Of 45 associate partners, only eight are women. ---- and i hear she's the tea lady!
Following the unannounced visit by BD on Friday, staff at all three practices insisted they were taking the issue of recruiting and retaining women seriously, particularly at the senior level.
At Grimshaw’s office in Conway Street, central London, director Christopher Nash said the practice was involved in the Investors in People initiative.
“Part of the [IIP] project is the question of equal opportunities, and part of that looks at gender split,†he said. “We do meet [BD’s charter], in spirit and in fact.â€Â
Nash said the practice had generous maternity provision and had benefited from the “focus†shown by women returning to work after having children. But he had some reservations about challenging long working hours.
“We do work long hours, although I don’t think we work excessive hours, and we are quite flexible. But architecture takes a long time to do. In architecture, you can always do a bit more.â€Â
Grimshaw also has an all-male senior staff, with no women on its board of six directors. Of its four associate directors, one is female.
BD’s final visit was to the offices of Hopkins Architects in Broadley Terrace, Marylebone. Aside from co-chairman Patty Hopkins, only one of the 13 senior directors is a woman and four of the 10 project directors are female. Overall, there are nine female architects out of a total of 35.
Managing director Bill Taylor gave the campaign his support. But he added that while hours could be flexible
Discrimination can not be tolerated, however if the ‘best candidate’ is not chosen for the job, positive discrimination in promoting the disadvantaged is a joke. We work in a free market economy not a communist social state.
I would be interested to know how companies hope to achieve this idealised gender split in employment without alienating others not so fortunate to have a recognisable disability – that is unless you consider ignorance a disability.
There are no women on our board of Directors; we have Investors in People accreditation.
Ian Marin of BD chips in with a rival 20/20 Campaign to acheive equal number of male and female architects while keeping 60% of the profession non gender-specific! very PC
“It’s no good just blaming the men,†says Zaha Hadid. “If there’s one thing holding back women in architecture, it’s that they need to toughen up.â€Â
look at some of the traditionally 'male' dominated trades which may have close to a 50/50 male/female ratio, but notice the power distribution. women often hold support positions.
is it just me or does the whole real-estate ownership/contractor/engineering consortium still seem to be largely male dominated?
doesnt holding a seat on the board or being a partner depend greatly upon being able to land business, and hustle info from the above boys club?
maybe i'm not "tough enough" or maybe i just dont have the right kind of cigar to get into that club.
After reading Steph’s, Strawberry’s & LB's posts, I feel a lot more sympathetic for women who are struggling to get ahead in our architectural firms.
The three sep. firms I have been employed with staffed a paltry 5%-15% female ratio (including receptionists). None of these women (except the receptionists) have children and their ages range from 28 to 60. The older women (over 40) I work with are involved in planning or interiors only and most seem to have some sort of regret for not having children.
I am a guy with kids and I just get by:
I live in SoCal ($$$), have two young girls (2 & 4) and my wife is a part time medical assistant. Both of our grandparents live nearby and assist with watching the kids 2+ days of the week. Our 4 year old is in pre-school 3 days a week, which puts us out $500+ a month. My work pays for my health care, but we shell out an additional $550+ a month for my wife & kids. In addition, we have the standard expenses of food ($), diapers ($$), doctors vists ($$$) etc… Raising a child is ridiculously expensive!!! Needless to say, between my obviously low paying job and her very low paying job we don’t pull in a whole to of dough. My wife and I go out very rarely (since we use most of our babysitting resources up during the day) and some months the money can be pretty tight. But despite all of this, I can honestly say we are pretty happy and very grateful for the free resources and things we have.
Although, if I was a chick:
If I was a twenty to thirty something woman employed with an architectural firm I probably would forgo the thought of having a child until I became a highly paid associate, partner, or married a man that could support me. Unfortunately, by the time it takes to move into a top paying position, it may be too late to conceive. Simply put, I think that the lack of income that our profession provides it’s lower level employees along with the enormous time demand that our clients/projects require makes it extremely difficult to have a child and keep a career in this field. When it comes down to this topic, the guys will always have it easy. On the other hand…. could some of these women who end up opting out be moving into higher paying professions leaving all of the poor boys in the dust? ;-)
Now we need to build on 50/50 success
11 March 2005 Comment in the BD by Robert Booth
We got there. International Women’s Day on Tuesday saw BPTW Partnership from London become the 250th practice to sign up to our 50/50 Charter for more women in architecture.
It means that about 3,000 architects now work for practices that have pledged to offer flexible working for all returning parents, challenge the long hours culture and strive to go beyond the statutory minimums on maternity and paternity conditions. That is a huge achievement for a campaign that has been under way for just nine weeks.
It is an even bigger achievement for the practices that have signed up.
In this campaign, we have asked you, the BD readers, to do something for yourselves, and you have answered enthusiastically. In the spirit of self-help on which the campaign was founded, and confronted with the fact that 86% of architects today are men, a large section of the British architectural profession has looked to its own practices and pledged to change the way it works.
At the sharp end, we have seen a practice with no women architects out of 33 begin the long climb up with the qualification of their first woman in some time. Other practices with better records have used the campaign as a platform to go even further. One, for example, is plotting the ultimate in flexi-time  annual hours  and has set a target for 35% of its staff to be women in the next couple of years.
It has been impressive stuff and has done wonders for the image of architecture. The trade & industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has looked on with admiration and shared a platform with BD at a construction industry women-only dinner on Tuesday night. From the employees’ side the general secretary of the TUC has backed the campaign for fighting against the long-hours culture that results in unpaid overtime.
So where do we go now? The 50/50 Campaign was just a start. We want the principles of our charter to be included in the criteria for the RIBA’s new chartered architect status. We will continue to showcase your efforts towards more equal opportunities and we will investigate why so few women architects come out of universities  a key problem.
In short, we want to make sure that the next time the profession is profiled, far more than 14% of its members are women. Nothing else will do.
Interesting article. Interesting that we are used as an indicator of architecture discourse.
One thing that didn’t get mentioned is that while the anti-feminist “backlash†was going on in certain parts of the popular culture a lot of feminists were also moving away from talking about “equality†and beginning to think about â€Âdifferenceâ€Â. This, obviously, isn’t the kind of difference that that guy at Harvard believes in but is more along the lines of asking “what’s the point of trying to integrate a marginalized group into a sys tem designed fore and by another, dominant groupâ€Â.
With out getting into a bunch of post-Lecanian gender theory which I don’t pretend to really understand I’ll say this:
It makes me uncomfortable being a man talking to other men here about what we should do for women. It’s not that I think women don’t “have what it takes†to make it in architecture but more that I wonder if trying to get more women into architecture might be like trying to get more women into monster truck rallies in that monster truck rallies are this weird phenomena that only really appeals to a small segment of the population who are dealing with a certain set of specifically male issues (and maybe the women who like them). If architecture is like this then maybe Zaha is the exception that proves the rule.
If it is true that architecture as it is currently practiced is like a monster truck rally I think it’s relay unfortunate in that all sorts of people are effected by it and could potentially use it as a avenue for expression rather only the few who are attracted to the present culture. What we can do as men is to look at what we are designing or building or theorizing or whatever and ask our selves how much of it has to be the way it is and how much of the “culture “ that goes on around it has to be the way that it is and to try to be open to and respectful and supportive of alternative ways of doing things.
It’s not enough to just allow other people the opportunity to do things just like we do (if you can even imagine us to be an “usâ€Â) we have to be ready for the fact that if we open or discipline/profession to “others†that all sorts of other kinds of things are going to start happening and we aren’t always going to be able to understand it or “have what it takes†to do it but the architectural project as a whole could, potentially, get a lot cooler.
When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it.
I try not to visualize myself as one of the witches in "Macbeth," sitting off to the side over a double, double toil and trouble, bubbling cauldron, muttering about what is fair or foul in the hurly burly of the royal court.
There's an intense debate going on now about why newspapers have so few female columnists. Out of what will soon be eight Times Op-Ed columnists - nine, counting the public editor - I'm the only woman.
In 1996, after six months on the job, I went to Howell Raines, the editorial page editor, to try to get out of the column. I was a bundle of frayed nerves. I felt as though I were in a "Godfather" movie, shooting and getting shot at. Men enjoy verbal dueling. As a woman, I told Howell, I wanted to be liked - not attacked. He said I could go back to The Metro Section; I decided to give it another try. Bill Safire told me I needed Punzac, Prozac for pundits.
Guys don't appreciate being lectured by a woman. It taps into myths of carping Harpies and hounding Furies, and distaste for nagging by wives and mothers. The word "harridan" derives from the French word "haridelle" - a worn-out horse or nag.
While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating. If a man writes a scathing piece about men in power, it's seen as his job; a woman can be cast as an emasculating man-hater. I'm often asked how I can be so "mean" - a question that Tom Friedman, who writes plenty of tough columns, doesn't get.
Even the metaphors used to describe my column play into the castration theme: my scalpel, my cutting barbs, razor-sharp hatchet, Clinton-skewering and Bush-whacking. "Does she," The L.A. Times's Patt Morrison wondered, "write on a computer or a Ronco Slicer and Dicer?"
In 1998, Bill Clinton made a castration joke about me at a press dinner, as I sank down in my seat. I called Alan Dundes, a renowned folklorist, to ask about it. "Women are supposed to take it, not dish it out," he replied. "If a woman embarrasses a man, he feels inadequate, effeminate. He wants her to go back to the kitchen."
The kerfuffle over female columnists started when Susan Estrich launched a crazed and nasty smear campaign against Michael Kinsley, the L.A. Times editorial page editor, trying to force him to run her humdrum syndicated column.
Given the appalling way she's handled herself, Susan - an acquaintance for many years - is the last person Michael, a friend of mine, should hire. But he should recruit some more talented women to write for him. So should The Times, The Washington Post - which also has only one female columnist - and anyone else who has an obvious gender gap on their op-ed pages.
Gail Collins, the first woman to run The Times's editorial page and the author of a history of American women, told The Post's Howard Kurtz: "There are probably fewer women, in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very straight opinion stuff, and they're less comfortable hearing something on the news and batting something out."
There's a lot of evidence of that. Male bloggers predominate, as do male TV shouters. Men I know and men who read The Times write me constantly, asking me to read the opinion pieces they've written. Sometimes they'll e-mail or fax me their thoughts to read right before I have lunch with them. Women hardly ever send their own rants.
There's been a dearth of women writing serious opinion pieces for top news organizations, even as there's been growth in female sex columnists for college newspapers. Going from Tess Harding to Carrie Bradshaw, Dorothy Thompson to Candace Bushnell, is not progress.
This job has not come easily to me. But I have no doubt there are plenty of brilliant women who would bring grace and guts to our nation's op-ed pages, just as, Lawrence Summers notwithstanding, there are plenty of brilliant women out there who are great at math and science. We just need to find and nurture them.
This may be a bit off, but I've noticed that many people take it as a personal insult when I say that I do not want children, and they get downright nasty when they ask why I do not want children and my response is that I simply don't want them, and that my career and personal freedom are my most important things and kids would ruin those things for me. But for someone who has the goal of raising a family - childrearing is not a disruption of anything - it's part of the goal and their professional and other aspriations are adjusted accordingly. So I'm not sure how my life plans are a reflection upon anyone else's decisions about children, but it seems that they must be at least a little bitter about their situation or else they wouldn't be offended by what I've chosen to do with my life. I am not sure if anyone else has noticed this because I rarely meet others who don't want kids *someday.*
Ok, different topic slightly..
The Lawrence Summers thing... ugh. Maybe men are better at those professions. There are differences in our brains, whether it's biological or social or a combination thereof. The sciences were, of course, standardized by men - also therefore optimized for any differences/advantages. Musical instruments are the same way. Most of these designed and size-standardized in a way that is optimal for the men of the time the standard was initiated - bigger hand sizes and strengths and all that. But I excel at the harpsichord, in a way that I can't on the piano, becuase it's an instrument rendered obsolete a couple centuries ago whenthe average dude probably had about the same hand span as i do becuase people were smaller back then. My poor, poor boyfriend, with his big manly hands, is having a hellish time learning the mandolin at this point in human biology.
Let's say that men ARE better at math and science for sure - of course some women are still extremely successful. Highly intelligent women will have more success in any profession than unintelligent men could possibly have. I'm not sure why this matters. High-level scientific research and practice gets so specialized they can probably use whatever talent they can get of any gender.
i'm getting your argument but although i think the summers thing was blown out of proportion, i disagree with gender abilities regarding math and science. there are definitely differences in the ways male and female brains work, but i don't think they're there.
or maybe i'm just super smart and all those poor guys in school were sort of dum : )
there's also the matter of affinities... guys tend to like a kind of toy... brain develops more? i mean, i'm agreeing only to a point because it's a dangerous argument [on one hand] and because i think i'm either proof it's incorrect or the exception to the rule [hoping its the first one, i don't want to be that special]
Yeah, it's a what-if. I don't think anyone would argue that men have an advantage in certain professions. Men's predominance in high positions obviates that situation. Whether that advantage is biological, social, or both (social, affirmed by biology?) is the question. As far as I can tell, there actually is evidence backing this up. Yet I still don't think it's necessarily a disadvantage for women as a whole. Even if men are somehow inherently biologically predisposed to excel at math/science in a way that women aren't, intelligent women will still excel over unintelligent men. An intelligent woman is a better father than a stupid man, isn't she? :)
When I was doing science, oh so long ago, both women and men in about equal numbers had hypothesis-requiring (therefore in some sense intuitive), research-driven, goal-oriented projects (for example "Administration of Fullerenes in the Inhibition of HIV-I") but it was almost exclusively men who had projects regarding stuff like abstract divisibility properties of integers, "Properties of Polynomials Having Applications to Geometry and Combinatorics." etc.
Do women still have get a curve on the ARE exams?
Or is that just a rumour. I heard they are scored differently to help with the disparaging ratios.Most likely complete bullshit...
This is an interesting discussion, though it's been going on for a while. I'm 24 and I'm starting to look at my grad school options to becoming an architect. I graduated from a liberal arts college without a B.Arch option, so more or less I'll have to do the 3 or 3.5 year program. As a woman at this stage in life, it is discouraging to think that I'll be 28 or 29 when I'm done with school and then whatever number of years of hard work it'll take for me to be an established (ie, taken seriously) mid-career architect - which strongly suggests that I may have to put off having children until I'm in my late thirties. It's not bad to wait that long, but not preferable either.
But I'm also a minority from an *extremely* economically disadvantaged home. I was fortunate to have been offered a substantial scholarship from my college, where I fell in love with architecture, but now one of the draw backs to pursuing the profession for me has been how long and expensive the M.Arch education is, in a field that pays very poorly for a substantial amount of time. Most of these professional M.Arch programs offer only loans and no (or very few) scholarships. Given that my family won't be able to "back me up" or support me if things become financially tough after I graduate the M.Arch program, I really don't like the idea of taking out such a hefty loan amount. And then, yes, of course, after that the tests and the registration and the memberships to AIA are so very very costly.
So from my point of view, from where I stand, as a poor minority and a woman, there are plenty of reasons for me not to pursue this path. Are things changing? Are there folks out there with similar experience or advice?
shellaby,
although your position is not one i can relate to, and i don't really have any advice, but i just wanted to say that i hope you keep working towards being part of the profession as our culture needs more diversity.
50/50 Campaign: Women & the Profession
suture: thank you for asking setsquareBOY to behave himself so kindly.
(setsquarekid: ... comments by you in other threads have led to a removal of the entire thread. i dont think these people would be happy with you if you caused that here again.)
carry on.
This is why being childfree (note that I did not say childLESS) rocks :)
Setsquareboy writes:
"women cried on a regular basis. they had all of the nervous breakdowns. they took out their frustration on their bodies (in an unhealthy way). the ones i knew were all on perscription drugs. the scene/culture bred unhealthy women."
I know you did include a disclaimer, but I have to re-iterate that A-school leaves its mark on everyone...
oh, and there is a diff. b/t being honest and mouthing off like an asshole. I know. I do both.
Strawbeary, back to your question of what MAY cause me to ditch the career of architecture: Family is the ONLY thing. I'm totally devoted to being an architect, and only in the first few months of blissed out new motherhood did I ever seriously consider that raising the child full time might be a higher calling for me. For many women it is, but a few months back in the office showed me that I wanted to have it all - career and happy child. So far, so good.
But don't most architects, female or not, feel that kind of commitment to the profession? Can any of us really imagine doing anything else?
all women, let alone men, are pretty different. those who are ambitious for their careers will be able to find the balance necessary to juggle everything. i can say, from the experience me and my wife (who is an architect) went through with our kids, that my wife's decision to stay home indefinitely with our second has brought her much more happiness than anything in her professional life has. if she never worked for another firm, she'd be perfectly happy. and i'm happy for her. (and yes, we're schleping it like every other non-silver spoon fed couple in the world).
i'd have to believe that her situation isn't that uncommon. now, her previous firm had more than it's fair share of mysoginists, so maybe that's contributed to her feelings. but kids do weird things to your psyche.
also, what the statistics don't really say is where most of the women architects live. i imagine that places with a lower cost of living - compared to ny, sf, la, chicago - are going to make that stay at home/switch your career option much more attractive (assuming kids are in the equation).
finally, what the statistics also don't track is where the women are going. my guess is that they're smarter than the rest of us and are just finding better paying, less stress filled jobs as consultants....
Less rig-a-ma-role for sure. Especially if you don't have a whole lotta money and do choose a traditional, linear path of architecture. Go to school, internship, N.C.A.R.B, A.R.E, continuing ed, insurance. Gaaaaaaaaack! Endless, no? Sheesh. For me, it feels like one long trip!!! Having a child has been exponentially gratifying in comparison. I've experienced degrees of it with architecture, but with my baby I always know I'm in the right place. All of the cover your ass doubt gets tiresome!!!! And patience!
A Canadian once told me that women get a year PAID maternity leave there and their job back at the end of it all. Is that true?
Work environment and the folks you spend that much time with are key---I think someone posted that earlier in this thread.
Sure there are some fundamental differences b/twn women and men but I think we all have more in common than not.
Come on Squareboy, cut the macho posturing. Every one of you cute, dumb Canadian designer boys I’ve ever met has turned out to be a gynophobic closet-case. You’ll feel a lot better once you come to terms with it.
SCI arc thesis presentations 2005;
30 female
45 male
OK, what about this question.
Many of us -mostly current students or fairly recent graduates, I'd guess (graduated within the past 5-10 years?) are saying that the gender ratios at school were about 50/50 male/female. Many of us went to school with a pretty balanced, racially diverse student body. And that people were treated according to merit. So why aren't there more women and minorities in top positions?
How old are the principals/partners of the firms where we all work? Most people who are the heads or in higher positions of design firms (let alone any kind of business), especially big firms, are in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond - was it as gender-equal and racially diverse when THEY went to school? Of course there are women and minorities who are currently successful and in top positions in architecture, but were they not the minority percentage of their student bodies when they were in college and starting out in the profession?
Do you honestly think that when people now in their 20s and 30s have had enough experience to be partners that there WON'T be more women and minorities in top ranking positions?
Seriously. Those few decades should make a difference. It may still be well-off women and minorities as someone else noted above, but. Hey. ARCHITECTURE REQUIRES COLLEGE. Until funding oneself through college becomes easier for the poor, expect that.
i agree with what ssurface says...
i think this is a problem that already has a solution well
on its way..
i read most of these posts and i see a certain lack of creativity
or a willingness to see problems in everything...
i.e. on the question of pregnancy it was determined that there
were only two options...stay at home or work...i wonder personally
with the advent of the internet, faxes, email, blackberrys, etc.
why practice can't happen more and more at home...although there
are questions of time restraints i think there have been plenty of
architects throughout history who have practiced from home..i
don't see why pregnancy is an end.
and questions on job sites...of course asking questions on job
sites may at first make you appear ignorant..but which is more
ignorant? avoiding asking questions to which you want answers
or staying quiet so that you can appear confident and go home
not knowing anything more than you did before?
i think part of the problem of our generation (20s-30s) is that
new technology has provided us with a complex for immediacy
in everything...including promotions...there are so many questions
on this site alone from frustrated architects with three years of
experience wondering why they're not running jobs or the design
lead at their firm...i guess it's too easy to say wait a few years
and you'll understand how little you knew..but how else can you
say it?
and as far as money being a requirement for practice...suture..
i worked for charles rose...maryann thompson had money he
didn't ...money helps to get a practice started earlier than would
otherwise be possible..talent sustains that practice.
instead of looking at firms that are corporate and old school
with fixed unmoving before they die power structures...i'd look at
the new firms for analysis...firms like narchitects, shop, tod and
billie, morphosis, all have women in equal or highly prominent
positions to men.
i've worked with highly competent and incompetent men and
women...i have no problem working subordinate to, with or above any
gender as long as i'm learning something and i respect the
knowledge and ability of the person i'm working with...at
the very least professionially if not personally.
but maybe i'm oversimplifying..
i have a friend who has 2 children. she just left her job to work from home for herself. she has found a nice balance between her personal and professional lives that allows her to enjoy both.
for me perhaps bigger than the family issues are the lack of good close-by role models, of wise mature female architects who can fill the valuable mentoring role in my apprenticeship and show me how its done. every last one of the other female architects i know are all my age or younger. i seriously know no practicing female architects older than 27. I have met a few - but they aren't around here.
susan surface is right about the generations and how the process of 50/50 is happening and to just wait. becoming an architect is something a woman in her 40's just doesn't up and decide to do someday as may be possible with some other careers.
I feel the same way as Strawbeary of lack of female role modles. I don't know any women architects with children personally, none at the places I work or worked for. I plan to join AWA and hopefuly to meet some there. Mentoring is very important but hard to find. I wonder where do you find your mentors? Anyone really wants to be mentors?
my mentor sucks.
The fire her/him, and find a better one. I'm trying to find a few good mentors, I hears local NCARB acturally can refer you to someone, any one knows?
I’ve had to revive this post because I had a recent insight into why women tend to leave the profession, in particular after they become parents.
New parents generally cannot stay late during crunch times. This impacts in two ways:
First, every deadline comes with a mounting pile of work right at the end, that’s the nature of architecture charettes. When a team member can’t put in extra hours (because s/he has to leave right at 5 to get to daycare), it seems as if that team member is not getting enough work done. The other team members feel that they are having to pick up the slack.
Second, whether the parent is actually getting their allotted work done or not, s/he isn’t staying late into the night at the office (studio). This means missing out on the collegiality that happens late at night when people get giddy – the in-jokes, shared pizzas, coming up with rude nicknames for the client, etc.
From personal experience, missing out on the “studio environment†is incredibly hard. I can and do come into the office very early in the morning during crunches, but the fun sense of studio community really only happens late at night. Between the stress of not getting enough work done – or at least appearing not to, because nobody else sees the long hours I do put in early or at home after the kid goes to bed – and the missed sense of teamwork that is the joy of the studio environment, architecture starts to seem like a thankless job.
at one office, we had a PM that was there late at night with us, and he had a kid. it was so sad. he'd get off the phone at 8pm, and was so excited because his wife would tell him that his kid just took her first step or said 'mama.' it was sad because he missed it all. oh so sad.
The small proportion of women will inevitably shift to a more balanced ratio. More women must work (juggling family as well), many are both right and left brain talents. They also know myths as such that women are weaker, less dedicated, etc.
Computerized technology driving both design and fabrication processes will level the playing field. Architecture is no longer factually based on brute strength traditionally associated with architecture that relied on hammer as technology. That is a myth that is being perpetuated by an established old boys club. Give it 25 years - when the dinosaurs (both in practice and academia - aka the men in black) die off, no one will care about the old way of doing things that was "right". Think civil rights in the 60's. Women are considered by some as troublesome upstarts, when in fact technology will be the driving evolutionary force that changes the practice. It already is.
When it comes to the bottom line - the clients do not care who, what or how - but seek good service & value. Their are individuals and firms who will hire big name firms as a vanity - like a Rembrandt painting to appreciate on an office wall. And then - their is everyone else. If anyone can master the control of construction to build what they can design & draw in a more fiscally responsible manner by integrating developing technologies responsively, clients will seek them out. Those people without consideration of gender will prosper in a changing design and build environment where the technology is not as physically demanding.
Overall, talented ones (architects) will leave to go somewhere else or on their own after they have paid their dues. After meeting about a dozen former Gehry architect employees around LA............ it becomes kind of obvious. Money is not everything - in fact it is just grease in the Hegellian machine of a modern world.
Well -- per BD "big norm wont sign up!!"
Top names join 50/50 campaign
21 January 2005
Hopkins and Grimshaw sign up, but Foster’s refuses
By Will Hurst
The 50/50 campaign for more women in architecture scored a major victory this week as two of the country’s leading practices agreed to sign up after being doorstepped by BD.
The addition of Grimshaw and Hopkins Architects, who between them employ 67 architects, takes the total number of practices that have so far signed the charter to 63. BD aims to get 250 practices on board by International Women’s Day on March 8.
But Foster & Partners refused to add its name despite being doorstepped by BD.
In an official statement, the practice later claimed it “meets, and in some instances goes well beyondâ€Â, the charter. However, there are no women among its 12-strong senior management and only one woman, a non-architect, among its 41 partners. Of 45 associate partners, only eight are women. ---- and i hear she's the tea lady!
Following the unannounced visit by BD on Friday, staff at all three practices insisted they were taking the issue of recruiting and retaining women seriously, particularly at the senior level.
At Grimshaw’s office in Conway Street, central London, director Christopher Nash said the practice was involved in the Investors in People initiative.
“Part of the [IIP] project is the question of equal opportunities, and part of that looks at gender split,†he said. “We do meet [BD’s charter], in spirit and in fact.â€Â
Nash said the practice had generous maternity provision and had benefited from the “focus†shown by women returning to work after having children. But he had some reservations about challenging long working hours.
“We do work long hours, although I don’t think we work excessive hours, and we are quite flexible. But architecture takes a long time to do. In architecture, you can always do a bit more.â€Â
Grimshaw also has an all-male senior staff, with no women on its board of six directors. Of its four associate directors, one is female.
BD’s final visit was to the offices of Hopkins Architects in Broadley Terrace, Marylebone. Aside from co-chairman Patty Hopkins, only one of the 13 senior directors is a woman and four of the 10 project directors are female. Overall, there are nine female architects out of a total of 35.
Managing director Bill Taylor gave the campaign his support. But he added that while hours could be flexible
Discrimination can not be tolerated, however if the ‘best candidate’ is not chosen for the job, positive discrimination in promoting the disadvantaged is a joke. We work in a free market economy not a communist social state.
I would be interested to know how companies hope to achieve this idealised gender split in employment without alienating others not so fortunate to have a recognisable disability – that is unless you consider ignorance a disability.
There are no women on our board of Directors; we have Investors in People accreditation.
Ian Marin of BD chips in with a rival 20/20 Campaign to acheive equal number of male and female architects while keeping 60% of the profession non gender-specific! very PC
talk about writing being a form of 'critical practice'!!!
BD updates us on the status of their mission.....
The 50/50 campaign reached a major milestone this week, with more than 100 practices pledging to adopt BD’s charter for women
[you may need to register....but is free for the pick'n]
Did anyone see the front cover of BD last week?
The transexual headline??
The transexual headline?? One word - Joke!
Women must stop hiding, take charge and demand more, says Zaha Hadid. Zoë Blackler interviews architecture’s leading lady and 50/50 champion.
“It’s no good just blaming the men,†says Zaha Hadid. “If there’s one thing holding back women in architecture, it’s that they need to toughen up.â€Â
by Nancy Levinson
look at some of the traditionally 'male' dominated trades which may have close to a 50/50 male/female ratio, but notice the power distribution. women often hold support positions.
is it just me or does the whole real-estate ownership/contractor/engineering consortium still seem to be largely male dominated?
doesnt holding a seat on the board or being a partner depend greatly upon being able to land business, and hustle info from the above boys club?
maybe i'm not "tough enough" or maybe i just dont have the right kind of cigar to get into that club.
I finally got around to reading this thread...
After reading Steph’s, Strawberry’s & LB's posts, I feel a lot more sympathetic for women who are struggling to get ahead in our architectural firms.
The three sep. firms I have been employed with staffed a paltry 5%-15% female ratio (including receptionists). None of these women (except the receptionists) have children and their ages range from 28 to 60. The older women (over 40) I work with are involved in planning or interiors only and most seem to have some sort of regret for not having children.
I am a guy with kids and I just get by:
I live in SoCal ($$$), have two young girls (2 & 4) and my wife is a part time medical assistant. Both of our grandparents live nearby and assist with watching the kids 2+ days of the week. Our 4 year old is in pre-school 3 days a week, which puts us out $500+ a month. My work pays for my health care, but we shell out an additional $550+ a month for my wife & kids. In addition, we have the standard expenses of food ($), diapers ($$), doctors vists ($$$) etc… Raising a child is ridiculously expensive!!! Needless to say, between my obviously low paying job and her very low paying job we don’t pull in a whole to of dough. My wife and I go out very rarely (since we use most of our babysitting resources up during the day) and some months the money can be pretty tight. But despite all of this, I can honestly say we are pretty happy and very grateful for the free resources and things we have.
Although, if I was a chick:
If I was a twenty to thirty something woman employed with an architectural firm I probably would forgo the thought of having a child until I became a highly paid associate, partner, or married a man that could support me. Unfortunately, by the time it takes to move into a top paying position, it may be too late to conceive. Simply put, I think that the lack of income that our profession provides it’s lower level employees along with the enormous time demand that our clients/projects require makes it extremely difficult to have a child and keep a career in this field. When it comes down to this topic, the guys will always have it easy. On the other hand…. could some of these women who end up opting out be moving into higher paying professions leaving all of the poor boys in the dust? ;-)
Now we need to build on 50/50 success
11 March 2005 Comment in the BD by Robert Booth
We got there. International Women’s Day on Tuesday saw BPTW Partnership from London become the 250th practice to sign up to our 50/50 Charter for more women in architecture.
It means that about 3,000 architects now work for practices that have pledged to offer flexible working for all returning parents, challenge the long hours culture and strive to go beyond the statutory minimums on maternity and paternity conditions. That is a huge achievement for a campaign that has been under way for just nine weeks.
It is an even bigger achievement for the practices that have signed up.
In this campaign, we have asked you, the BD readers, to do something for yourselves, and you have answered enthusiastically. In the spirit of self-help on which the campaign was founded, and confronted with the fact that 86% of architects today are men, a large section of the British architectural profession has looked to its own practices and pledged to change the way it works.
At the sharp end, we have seen a practice with no women architects out of 33 begin the long climb up with the qualification of their first woman in some time. Other practices with better records have used the campaign as a platform to go even further. One, for example, is plotting the ultimate in flexi-time  annual hours  and has set a target for 35% of its staff to be women in the next couple of years.
It has been impressive stuff and has done wonders for the image of architecture. The trade & industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has looked on with admiration and shared a platform with BD at a construction industry women-only dinner on Tuesday night. From the employees’ side the general secretary of the TUC has backed the campaign for fighting against the long-hours culture that results in unpaid overtime.
So where do we go now? The 50/50 Campaign was just a start. We want the principles of our charter to be included in the criteria for the RIBA’s new chartered architect status. We will continue to showcase your efforts towards more equal opportunities and we will investigate why so few women architects come out of universities  a key problem.
In short, we want to make sure that the next time the profession is profiled, far more than 14% of its members are women. Nothing else will do.
(Practice names that have signed published)
Obviously ours is not the only industry suffering through this…perhaps it’s the “tec†in Architecture?
Arbona:
Interesting article. Interesting that we are used as an indicator of architecture discourse.
One thing that didn’t get mentioned is that while the anti-feminist “backlash†was going on in certain parts of the popular culture a lot of feminists were also moving away from talking about “equality†and beginning to think about â€Âdifferenceâ€Â. This, obviously, isn’t the kind of difference that that guy at Harvard believes in but is more along the lines of asking “what’s the point of trying to integrate a marginalized group into a sys tem designed fore and by another, dominant groupâ€Â.
With out getting into a bunch of post-Lecanian gender theory which I don’t pretend to really understand I’ll say this:
It makes me uncomfortable being a man talking to other men here about what we should do for women. It’s not that I think women don’t “have what it takes†to make it in architecture but more that I wonder if trying to get more women into architecture might be like trying to get more women into monster truck rallies in that monster truck rallies are this weird phenomena that only really appeals to a small segment of the population who are dealing with a certain set of specifically male issues (and maybe the women who like them). If architecture is like this then maybe Zaha is the exception that proves the rule.
If it is true that architecture as it is currently practiced is like a monster truck rally I think it’s relay unfortunate in that all sorts of people are effected by it and could potentially use it as a avenue for expression rather only the few who are attracted to the present culture. What we can do as men is to look at what we are designing or building or theorizing or whatever and ask our selves how much of it has to be the way it is and how much of the “culture “ that goes on around it has to be the way that it is and to try to be open to and respectful and supportive of alternative ways of doing things.
It’s not enough to just allow other people the opportunity to do things just like we do (if you can even imagine us to be an “usâ€Â) we have to be ready for the fact that if we open or discipline/profession to “others†that all sorts of other kinds of things are going to start happening and we aren’t always going to be able to understand it or “have what it takes†to do it but the architectural project as a whole could, potentially, get a lot cooler.
maureen dowd on women/men in her profession >>
Dish It Out, Ladies
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 13, 2005
When I need to work up my nerve to write a tough column, I try to think of myself as Emma Peel in a black leather catsuit, giving a kung fu kick to any diabolical mastermind who merits it.
I try not to visualize myself as one of the witches in "Macbeth," sitting off to the side over a double, double toil and trouble, bubbling cauldron, muttering about what is fair or foul in the hurly burly of the royal court.
There's an intense debate going on now about why newspapers have so few female columnists. Out of what will soon be eight Times Op-Ed columnists - nine, counting the public editor - I'm the only woman.
In 1996, after six months on the job, I went to Howell Raines, the editorial page editor, to try to get out of the column. I was a bundle of frayed nerves. I felt as though I were in a "Godfather" movie, shooting and getting shot at. Men enjoy verbal dueling. As a woman, I told Howell, I wanted to be liked - not attacked. He said I could go back to The Metro Section; I decided to give it another try. Bill Safire told me I needed Punzac, Prozac for pundits.
Guys don't appreciate being lectured by a woman. It taps into myths of carping Harpies and hounding Furies, and distaste for nagging by wives and mothers. The word "harridan" derives from the French word "haridelle" - a worn-out horse or nag.
Men take professional criticism more personally when it comes from a woman. When I wrote columns about the Clinton impeachment opéra bouffe, Chris Matthews said that for poor Bill, it must feel as though he had another wife hectoring him.
While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating. If a man writes a scathing piece about men in power, it's seen as his job; a woman can be cast as an emasculating man-hater. I'm often asked how I can be so "mean" - a question that Tom Friedman, who writes plenty of tough columns, doesn't get.
Even the metaphors used to describe my column play into the castration theme: my scalpel, my cutting barbs, razor-sharp hatchet, Clinton-skewering and Bush-whacking. "Does she," The L.A. Times's Patt Morrison wondered, "write on a computer or a Ronco Slicer and Dicer?"
In 1998, Bill Clinton made a castration joke about me at a press dinner, as I sank down in my seat. I called Alan Dundes, a renowned folklorist, to ask about it. "Women are supposed to take it, not dish it out," he replied. "If a woman embarrasses a man, he feels inadequate, effeminate. He wants her to go back to the kitchen."
The kerfuffle over female columnists started when Susan Estrich launched a crazed and nasty smear campaign against Michael Kinsley, the L.A. Times editorial page editor, trying to force him to run her humdrum syndicated column.
Given the appalling way she's handled herself, Susan - an acquaintance for many years - is the last person Michael, a friend of mine, should hire. But he should recruit some more talented women to write for him. So should The Times, The Washington Post - which also has only one female columnist - and anyone else who has an obvious gender gap on their op-ed pages.
Gail Collins, the first woman to run The Times's editorial page and the author of a history of American women, told The Post's Howard Kurtz: "There are probably fewer women, in the great cosmic scheme of things, who feel comfortable writing very straight opinion stuff, and they're less comfortable hearing something on the news and batting something out."
There's a lot of evidence of that. Male bloggers predominate, as do male TV shouters. Men I know and men who read The Times write me constantly, asking me to read the opinion pieces they've written. Sometimes they'll e-mail or fax me their thoughts to read right before I have lunch with them. Women hardly ever send their own rants.
There's been a dearth of women writing serious opinion pieces for top news organizations, even as there's been growth in female sex columnists for college newspapers. Going from Tess Harding to Carrie Bradshaw, Dorothy Thompson to Candace Bushnell, is not progress.
This job has not come easily to me. But I have no doubt there are plenty of brilliant women who would bring grace and guts to our nation's op-ed pages, just as, Lawrence Summers notwithstanding, there are plenty of brilliant women out there who are great at math and science. We just need to find and nurture them.
This may be a bit off, but I've noticed that many people take it as a personal insult when I say that I do not want children, and they get downright nasty when they ask why I do not want children and my response is that I simply don't want them, and that my career and personal freedom are my most important things and kids would ruin those things for me. But for someone who has the goal of raising a family - childrearing is not a disruption of anything - it's part of the goal and their professional and other aspriations are adjusted accordingly. So I'm not sure how my life plans are a reflection upon anyone else's decisions about children, but it seems that they must be at least a little bitter about their situation or else they wouldn't be offended by what I've chosen to do with my life. I am not sure if anyone else has noticed this because I rarely meet others who don't want kids *someday.*
Ok, different topic slightly..
The Lawrence Summers thing... ugh. Maybe men are better at those professions. There are differences in our brains, whether it's biological or social or a combination thereof. The sciences were, of course, standardized by men - also therefore optimized for any differences/advantages. Musical instruments are the same way. Most of these designed and size-standardized in a way that is optimal for the men of the time the standard was initiated - bigger hand sizes and strengths and all that. But I excel at the harpsichord, in a way that I can't on the piano, becuase it's an instrument rendered obsolete a couple centuries ago whenthe average dude probably had about the same hand span as i do becuase people were smaller back then. My poor, poor boyfriend, with his big manly hands, is having a hellish time learning the mandolin at this point in human biology.
Let's say that men ARE better at math and science for sure - of course some women are still extremely successful. Highly intelligent women will have more success in any profession than unintelligent men could possibly have. I'm not sure why this matters. High-level scientific research and practice gets so specialized they can probably use whatever talent they can get of any gender.
i'm good at math...
i'm getting your argument but although i think the summers thing was blown out of proportion, i disagree with gender abilities regarding math and science. there are definitely differences in the ways male and female brains work, but i don't think they're there.
or maybe i'm just super smart and all those poor guys in school were sort of dum : )
there's also the matter of affinities... guys tend to like a kind of toy... brain develops more? i mean, i'm agreeing only to a point because it's a dangerous argument [on one hand] and because i think i'm either proof it's incorrect or the exception to the rule [hoping its the first one, i don't want to be that special]
oh, wait, that was a for instance... ok, i'm not that smart.. end of break, back to work
Yeah, it's a what-if. I don't think anyone would argue that men have an advantage in certain professions. Men's predominance in high positions obviates that situation. Whether that advantage is biological, social, or both (social, affirmed by biology?) is the question. As far as I can tell, there actually is evidence backing this up. Yet I still don't think it's necessarily a disadvantage for women as a whole. Even if men are somehow inherently biologically predisposed to excel at math/science in a way that women aren't, intelligent women will still excel over unintelligent men. An intelligent woman is a better father than a stupid man, isn't she? :)
When I was doing science, oh so long ago, both women and men in about equal numbers had hypothesis-requiring (therefore in some sense intuitive), research-driven, goal-oriented projects (for example "Administration of Fullerenes in the Inhibition of HIV-I") but it was almost exclusively men who had projects regarding stuff like abstract divisibility properties of integers, "Properties of Polynomials Having Applications to Geometry and Combinatorics." etc.
Do women still have get a curve on the ARE exams?
Or is that just a rumour. I heard they are scored differently to help with the disparaging ratios.Most likely complete bullshit...
This is an interesting discussion, though it's been going on for a while. I'm 24 and I'm starting to look at my grad school options to becoming an architect. I graduated from a liberal arts college without a B.Arch option, so more or less I'll have to do the 3 or 3.5 year program. As a woman at this stage in life, it is discouraging to think that I'll be 28 or 29 when I'm done with school and then whatever number of years of hard work it'll take for me to be an established (ie, taken seriously) mid-career architect - which strongly suggests that I may have to put off having children until I'm in my late thirties. It's not bad to wait that long, but not preferable either.
But I'm also a minority from an *extremely* economically disadvantaged home. I was fortunate to have been offered a substantial scholarship from my college, where I fell in love with architecture, but now one of the draw backs to pursuing the profession for me has been how long and expensive the M.Arch education is, in a field that pays very poorly for a substantial amount of time. Most of these professional M.Arch programs offer only loans and no (or very few) scholarships. Given that my family won't be able to "back me up" or support me if things become financially tough after I graduate the M.Arch program, I really don't like the idea of taking out such a hefty loan amount. And then, yes, of course, after that the tests and the registration and the memberships to AIA are so very very costly.
So from my point of view, from where I stand, as a poor minority and a woman, there are plenty of reasons for me not to pursue this path. Are things changing? Are there folks out there with similar experience or advice?
shellaby,
although your position is not one i can relate to, and i don't really have any advice, but i just wanted to say that i hope you keep working towards being part of the profession as our culture needs more diversity.
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