i only want to discuss feminIST. but the latter other two can be absorbed in to the former in some methods of definition.
and i dont know if i really want to start this conversation, because while i have ots of thoughts and theories and ideas about feminist architecture, i dont have a REAL clear definition. and i will probably just end up getting ridiculed.
dont we give frank too much press here? if my only exposure to architecture was archinect, i would assume there are only 2, maybe 3 architects in the world. frank being one of them.
come on...its about discrimination and i think that age thing mentioned is really something that sneaks up on us all. where will you be at 50, 60? if your with a big firm, do you think they will keep you around?? and pay them what there worth? hell no. i think in broad terms, archs above 20 years exp all are at the same experience level so one tops out in salary at about 45 or so. then can you compete with the young guns in a practice if your not an owner. no.
keep frank in the bendy discussion mode. and there is a man behind zaha[there is always has to a good man behind every woman architect....right?], so her work is not really about only her.
"You implied that any criticism of her architecture is tantamount to chauvanism"
nope..thats not what I implied, though obviously its what you though I implied. I explained => "her architecture is, in this topic, only nominal...a consequence of her."
if architecture was mentioned (" the sharpness, the angularity, the schizophrenia of her lines") it was only in reading the author within her text...an (admittedly) associating reading. Indicating a form of reading her architecture in the manner crafted by psychoanalysis.. an existential (not in the angsty Satrean sense) cause/her-effect/architecture. For instance...another level of approaching it is how her body relates to her calligraphy..the reactionary imprints of her luxurious slow body in the form of dynamic anorexic architectural splinters (before they started to merge in a spatial continuum in later phases). The dialectic relationship of antipathic emulation (to mimic the opposite of a thing) from Zahaspace to Paperspace and back and forth.
Patrick is only a latter addition. Actually, you can pretty much cleave him away from Zaha...he is not 'behind' her..his sophisticated rhetoric is far far from Zaha's short-tempered 'intuition'. I do not diss him...but he is her artificial limb (an oldfashioned one that is recognizable different, distinct from the rest of the body)...even if that limb has taken over lately. My concern was the pure distilled eau de Zaha
someone explain to me why when a good discussion gets going - one that is wrangling with the complexity of being a woman in architecture and in the workplace, zaha's vagina gets thrown in?
I know this will get flamed, but unEDITed scathing vision of a powerful woman in architecture is the anti-feminist (do I dare say sexist) thing posted in this forum and is bound to derail the constructive discussion thus far. sad.
Just from reading the above posts, i find it interesting that the discussion has focused on Zaha, the first female architect to win the Pritzker prize...but what about the other women in architecture...the up-coming generation of female architects...
Simply using another upcoming female architect as an example, Lindy Roy. She's made some headlines recently, but what kind of headlines?? Most of her interviews were featured in female marketed magazines(mags like Vogue or whatever), and had her doing photoshoots...there's nothing wrong with that, but when did it become about photoshoots instead of the architecture and design that she was putting out onto the scene.
As a woman in architecture that kind of pissed me off...
Be careful with your words, TED, as a man, we all know of course you're just lamenting the bittersweet loss of your own strawberry boyhood, when you frolicked among the secret vessels and verdant aryan myths.
'wrong time of the month uneDITed?'
what is that supposed to mean?
so far uneDITed had the most as is, on your face explanation of the situation via a perfect metaphor like zaha hadid.
some of you guys are really thick and pre judgemental and offensive. and funny think is, you don't even know it.
abra, soory if i came across as offensive, didnt mean to. i early post are supportive of the thread's premise.
you speak as if you know me and perhaps we all wear a mysterious veil sometimes. i am only busting uneDITeds chops, trying to keep the thead refocused on speaking of discriimation of women [which i strongly feel IS occuring in architecture] and throwing a wrench in the discussion... that of course there must be a good man behind every woman....wasnt that a song? and zaha's patrick was there from the start.
i do believe the influence of gender in architecture, however, i dont think zahas work is about that.
good enough. no problem.
mum, it does matter. thread has excellent contributions. don't write yourself out just yet, you have pretty good reporting from the trenches, keep it up.
I think we had this discussion a few months ago, I'll add my bit anyway. Discrimination, depends on your definition I guess, but I certainly witnessed something "amiss" in the five offices I worked in before I quit to hang out in my back yard and archinect. Two of them I was interning in, and one was very small, but all of them were owned by men, the senior designers were all men, and there were no women partners, only project managers. A few of those offices could be chalked up to coincidence, but not all (I don't think). I also did a small amount of work for a woman architect who had her own firm and a 50/50 split in employees under her, so I know they exist, but didn't get the chance to stay there long. In all of the male owned firms there were older women, just not in partner, associate or senior designer positions. I would say I only felt that one office out of the five really had a definite culture of discrimination (in regards to race as well), but the same issues exist that I think exist in our culture in general in terms of men feeling more comfortable with other men and not really knowing how to deal with promoting women (see the Wal-Mart class action suit and the suit against Costco they are hoping to turn class action). Just because there is no "policy" of descrimination, doesn't mean that the fact that women are mostly missing from the top positions and getting lower pay should be ignored. I don't doubt some of it comes from the social issues other than sexual identity - having children and taking care of them, primarily done by women in our society, is a disadvantage. Women supposedly are not as strong when it comes to negotiating pay and asking for promotions... but I really question the ethics of an employer who knows the statistics and still says "what discrimination?"
I would like to know how women in countries with a more liberal child care and maternity/paternity leave fare (anyone out there in scandinavia?).
As far as dealing with consultants, bldg dept and contractors, I more or less second mum. I have the age issue as well but I really haven't noticed a problem except with the architects I'm working for.
I would also add it seems to be a plus when working with clients, esp. women.
Several of you have mentioned the lack of women partners in firms. My father, who has been a partner in his own firm for nearly 50 years doesn't have any female partners. I asked him once why this was. We were re-tiling my bathtub at the time and I was holding a hammer in my hand. He said, quite seriously, that women hadn't been in the profession long enough to "make partner". I really had to resist the urge to hit him with it even though I love him dearly. This was in the early '90's. It's 2004 and with nine partners, there's still no sign of a female yet. I call it Good Ole Boy syndrome.
I don't know why this is. It's a very large firm and I can't believe that there has never been a woman pass through there who wasn't good enough. I can only believe that there's an aversion to letting a woman into the fold. He's "mum" on the subject.
My husband worked at the one particular firm I mentioned that had a serious problem at the same time I did... of course he told me a lot of the comments that were made when there were no women around, and believe me, it was insane. I really didn't want to believe him. They would make sexual comments about anyone - high school interns, bldg dept. engineers, really sad. They also played a lot of golf.
Oh, and now that I work with him and his best friend, I get to hear all the comments directly. Boys will be boys. At least people should know when to keep their mouths shut and use some tact. Mum, I guess I honestly feel they didn't want to invite women to their principals meetings and retreats because they wouldn't feel "free" to make crass jokes and talk shit, not to mention that they couldn't invite them golfing because the country club barely tolerates women as it is.
" that of course there must be a good man behind every woman"
"busting uneDITeds chops"
what an ugly and presumptive language.
....
"Boys will be boys." <= this is almost always said (except when cutsie-fied) with an air of resignation..the first "Boys' is accusatory & bitter ..the second released in a sigh of resigned acceptance of the status quo. A person who uses this phrase already gives exemption to Boys for being Boys...That is nonsensical and destructive...the Boy can and should change and be even slightly castrasted.
i think the "boys will be boys" mentality is part of what perpetuates the "boy's club" atmosphere.
and there should be some sort of ground where women can be respected, and not come off as a bitch.
You could be describing your own posts, uneDITed. Maybe you should drop the mannered intellectual pretensions and even try eDITing once and a while.
How fun to free-associate trivial allegorical tangents and infer generalized pathological causes and effects, and then dissemble when caught haughtily overreaching. Really, I didn't just say that.
just a little incision, one sac, Margine.
if the world doesn't end soon.
"Where should I hang my head?
Where would you like for me
To hang my head"
chan "creature of the wind"
herbst, you know very well that your flaming crucifix is a bit of a *warrever* to me..in fact, even if you die..the obvious truth is I could care less. Now, I wonder why would you you trail behind me like a disobedient tail. Down..Boy. :)
I love you all actually, I felt a surge of love take hold of me.
"Like a leaf clings to a tree
Oh, my darling, cling to me
For we're creatures of the wind
And wild is the wind, the wind
Wild is my love for you" Nina
covered by Chan Marshall.
you MUST hear the David Bowie version as well!!! Some songs can be suggested so differently (you just need to compare it to bon jovi's..yuk).
A lot of people characterize Zaha Hadid as brash, egocentric, pushy, etc. The fact of the matter is, to be a woman in the profession you have to be able to deal with the grit. Look at all the big-name starchitects, they all have enormous personalities which one needs in order to win over the public/client. When they go around flashing the same attitude and aforementioned characteristics no one thinks twice about it - it's normal. When a woman such as Zaha Hadid does so, she's viewed negatively as bitchy.
From what I've heard, she is bitchy. And men who yell at and exploit their employees and talk about how great they are are considered asshole jerks. Nothing gender specific.
yes, but a bitch is much more 'infamous' than an asshole.
Proof: we're talking about (and far more itnerested in) Zaha's 'bitchiness', not some male architect's assholeness.
A bitch is ever so much more potent than an asshole. There is an element of danger...a dimension of futureness in the term 'bitch' (an asshole is just an asshole..he is predictable...he is imprisoned by his own yukiness. There is no future tense for the asshole. He does not present a threat because he's just an asshole jerk. A bitch, on the other hand, is (if I use Novel's word) a weasel, a rebel against the predictability of time. bitchiness stems from the unpredictable, from a rude and abrupt violence done to the 'nice norm'. A bitch is much more likely to surprise you and therefor double your damage. It is, in connection to gender (after all, there are bitchy men as well), fueled by the perception of women as the corrupters of Adam...the witchcraft of Jezebel and the destructive whimsy of Eve.
Asshole jerk is not the same thing as Bitch. Gender Specific.
There is a very common way of writing in archinect in the form of a pedantic-leash (that I have to lead you, or you lead me, in a very clear very short line from A to B).
ok. at a first quick glance thought you were really just pissed off at us all and the world and i didnt know why.
she is a bitch, but the same can be said of anyone at her level of passion, which is indepedent of any stararchitect status.
while her persona and how she drapes her body reflects her strong manor, you almost go as far to say 'her body by design'. she is comfortable with her baroque physique and she knows how to use it well.
you put out a good point that i missed - it isnt gender specific nor specific to architecture. i remember all those photo shots of liberskind with the 2 giants, silverstien and childs. he tries to make up for it but some how comes across like an annoying misquito that wont go away. did his lack of understanding of how to be a 'real presense' have anything to do with how the so called collaboration never really occured?
that first practice crashed a bit and she started up another in the last 6 months. she never moved to the burbs and split with hubby in the last year. so she now is re-starting a firm with 2 kids--share custody of course, but guess who the kids live with except on the odd weekend. i guess thats a whole other thread....
to some degree I think the 'popularity' of figures like Libeskind, Tschumi,Lebbeus has suffered because they represent ,to many, the previous avant-garde. The current avant-garde's rhetoric of pragmatism ('opportunism', 'production' and such terms) is partially a rebellion against the mysticism of the poststructuralist rhetoric within architecture. Interestingly...Hadid and Gehry did manage to survive into this century with more grace. Why is that? I suspect that it is because they both were not as verbally gifted or articulate in theorizing their position. The exact same reason that was given against their work on many occasions (bluntly, how to justify their forms). Their words did not form a dated patina on their buildings. There are other, more specific, reasons of course. For example, one of them could be that Hadid's womanhood charisma (a.k.a 'bitchiness') is a much needed colour in the drab of the 'gentleman's club' profession.
Of course women are still discriminated against, just like in any profession. As someone who does hiring, it is REALLY difficult not to lookat a woman in her late 20's, and think about how long it is going to be until she follows her husband to her new job out of town, or decides to have a family and quit or go part time.... even if it isn't blatant discrimination, it HAS to figure in to your thinking, no matter how hard you try to put it aside. Yes, men sometimes do the same, but not as often as women. Take a look around at the firms in your city. How many have women in managment roles? They get hired as quickly as men when they are young, but just do not advance at the same rate as men. Some of it is due to time off to have kids, but most of it is due to the male managers hiring and advancing men who remind them of themselves when they were young. Until women advance to managment, and own their own firms, it is not going to change.
To add another tangling thread to => "another level of approaching it is how her body relates to her calligraphy"
take the greek God Hephaestus...god of fire and metal working. Renown for his physical 'deformity'..his physical 'otherness' as it would be called by some...and for producing works of beauty, in fact Beauty itself (Pandora). In fact...Zaha is an arabic word for 'radiance' and Hadid is the arabic word for 'Steel'..fire (radiance) and metal(steel)...she is Hephaestus forging himself into Pandora. the clash of the ugly and the beautiful, the 'genuis' and the 'bitch'.
some 'off the threads' issues with regard to femism i just happen to stumble upon on harpers...
Events Related To Feminism
2002 Week of Jan 15
Lithuania's “gender ombudswoman†ruled that a regulation mandating that women receive a gynecological exam before they receive a driver's license was discriminatory. »
Brazil gave women equal rights. »
2003 Jul 22
A mayor in southern Spain banned men from going out on Thursday nights; the mayor, who will deploy brigades of women to patrol the streets and issue fines to errant males, proclaimed that "in future, Thursday will be a day for women."»[Ananova]
2004 Jul 31
The Vatican criticized feminists for trying to ignore the differences between men and women and said that a woman "is not a copy of a man."»[Associated Press]
Facts Related To Feminism
1998 Apr
Ratio of the average volume of a breast implant inserted in the U.S. to that of one inserted in Europe: 3:2»[Mentor Medical Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.)]
1999 May
Chance that a mother of dependent children depicted on a prime-time network TV show holds a paying job: 1 in 3»[National Partnership for Women &Families (Washington)]
Chance that a black woman living in the U.S. will be a victim of violence this year: 1 in 18»[Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington)]
2003 Sep
Number of females on the American Film Institute's list of the fifty greatest movie villains, aliens included: 15 »[American Film Institute (Los Angeles)]
2004 Jul
Number of publications on women's rights that the Labor Department has removed from its website since 1999 : 25»[The National Council for Research on Women (N.Y.C.) ]
Number of publications on women's rights that the Labor Department has removed from its website since 1999 : 25»[The National Council for Research on Women (N.Y.C.) ] <i/>
Labor Department has been criticized for removal of other 'defensive' information by other groups.
<i>1998 Apr
Ratio of the average volume of a breast implant inserted in the U.S. to that of one inserted in Europe: 3:2»[Mentor Medical Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.)]
not as different as i'd have expected, if i'd ever pondered the difference.
My own experience: in workplaces and education I never felt my gender was a factor in either favoritism nor discrimination. At school, I was only "discriminated" against when my work was hurried or crappy (so it wasn't discrimination, it was what I deserved). At work... no difference as far as I can tell. On my job hunt I did have the weird, awkward experiences of interviewing at archi firms at which I walked in and the floors were entirely populated by dudes. I have to admit, that was unsettling.
I have had one instance of extreme sexual harassment at a job (fine arts related, not architecture). It was.. profoundly gross.. I have never been so embarrassed on the behalf of another person as I was for my former boss. So I'd definitely say unfairnesses exist. But I've been fortunate enough to experience a version that made me irate and indignantly walk out of that job and never return, rather than having a seepage-like exposure to discrimination's subtler and more grinding, soul-destroying, insidious forms.
Are Women Still Discriminated Against in Architecture?
i only want to discuss feminIST. but the latter other two can be absorbed in to the former in some methods of definition.
and i dont know if i really want to start this conversation, because while i have ots of thoughts and theories and ideas about feminist architecture, i dont have a REAL clear definition. and i will probably just end up getting ridiculed.
dont we give frank too much press here? if my only exposure to architecture was archinect, i would assume there are only 2, maybe 3 architects in the world. frank being one of them.
come on...its about discrimination and i think that age thing mentioned is really something that sneaks up on us all. where will you be at 50, 60? if your with a big firm, do you think they will keep you around?? and pay them what there worth? hell no. i think in broad terms, archs above 20 years exp all are at the same experience level so one tops out in salary at about 45 or so. then can you compete with the young guns in a practice if your not an owner. no.
keep frank in the bendy discussion mode. and there is a man behind zaha[there is always has to a good man behind every woman architect....right?], so her work is not really about only her.
"You implied that any criticism of her architecture is tantamount to chauvanism"
nope..thats not what I implied, though obviously its what you though I implied. I explained => "her architecture is, in this topic, only nominal...a consequence of her."
if architecture was mentioned (" the sharpness, the angularity, the schizophrenia of her lines") it was only in reading the author within her text...an (admittedly) associating reading. Indicating a form of reading her architecture in the manner crafted by psychoanalysis.. an existential (not in the angsty Satrean sense) cause/her-effect/architecture. For instance...another level of approaching it is how her body relates to her calligraphy..the reactionary imprints of her luxurious slow body in the form of dynamic anorexic architectural splinters (before they started to merge in a spatial continuum in later phases). The dialectic relationship of antipathic emulation (to mimic the opposite of a thing) from Zahaspace to Paperspace and back and forth.
i just tried changing my mode to zs from ps. didnt work. is this new in acad 2004 ?
Patrick is only a latter addition. Actually, you can pretty much cleave him away from Zaha...he is not 'behind' her..his sophisticated rhetoric is far far from Zaha's short-tempered 'intuition'. I do not diss him...but he is her artificial limb (an oldfashioned one that is recognizable different, distinct from the rest of the body)...even if that limb has taken over lately. My concern was the pure distilled eau de Zaha
someone explain to me why when a good discussion gets going - one that is wrangling with the complexity of being a woman in architecture and in the workplace, zaha's vagina gets thrown in?
I know this will get flamed, but unEDITed scathing vision of a powerful woman in architecture is the anti-feminist (do I dare say sexist) thing posted in this forum and is bound to derail the constructive discussion thus far. sad.
"i will probably just end up getting ridiculed."
who cares sis, douse them in a shower of estrogen
bring it on
xxxxxxxxxx
wrong time of the month uneDITed?
Just from reading the above posts, i find it interesting that the discussion has focused on Zaha, the first female architect to win the Pritzker prize...but what about the other women in architecture...the up-coming generation of female architects...
Simply using another upcoming female architect as an example, Lindy Roy. She's made some headlines recently, but what kind of headlines?? Most of her interviews were featured in female marketed magazines(mags like Vogue or whatever), and had her doing photoshoots...there's nothing wrong with that, but when did it become about photoshoots instead of the architecture and design that she was putting out onto the scene.
As a woman in architecture that kind of pissed me off...
Be careful with your words, TED, as a man, we all know of course you're just lamenting the bittersweet loss of your own strawberry boyhood, when you frolicked among the secret vessels and verdant aryan myths.
'wrong time of the month uneDITed?'
what is that supposed to mean?
so far uneDITed had the most as is, on your face explanation of the situation via a perfect metaphor like zaha hadid.
some of you guys are really thick and pre judgemental and offensive. and funny think is, you don't even know it.
i think it might be a song by explosions in the sky.
but i dont know what the name is. sorry.
oops, wrong thread.
Steph, the way this thread is going, I don't think it matters! :)
abra, soory if i came across as offensive, didnt mean to. i early post are supportive of the thread's premise.
you speak as if you know me and perhaps we all wear a mysterious veil sometimes. i am only busting uneDITeds chops, trying to keep the thead refocused on speaking of discriimation of women [which i strongly feel IS occuring in architecture] and throwing a wrench in the discussion... that of course there must be a good man behind every woman....wasnt that a song? and zaha's patrick was there from the start.
i do believe the influence of gender in architecture, however, i dont think zahas work is about that.
good enough. no problem.
mum, it does matter. thread has excellent contributions. don't write yourself out just yet, you have pretty good reporting from the trenches, keep it up.
I think we had this discussion a few months ago, I'll add my bit anyway. Discrimination, depends on your definition I guess, but I certainly witnessed something "amiss" in the five offices I worked in before I quit to hang out in my back yard and archinect. Two of them I was interning in, and one was very small, but all of them were owned by men, the senior designers were all men, and there were no women partners, only project managers. A few of those offices could be chalked up to coincidence, but not all (I don't think). I also did a small amount of work for a woman architect who had her own firm and a 50/50 split in employees under her, so I know they exist, but didn't get the chance to stay there long. In all of the male owned firms there were older women, just not in partner, associate or senior designer positions. I would say I only felt that one office out of the five really had a definite culture of discrimination (in regards to race as well), but the same issues exist that I think exist in our culture in general in terms of men feeling more comfortable with other men and not really knowing how to deal with promoting women (see the Wal-Mart class action suit and the suit against Costco they are hoping to turn class action). Just because there is no "policy" of descrimination, doesn't mean that the fact that women are mostly missing from the top positions and getting lower pay should be ignored. I don't doubt some of it comes from the social issues other than sexual identity - having children and taking care of them, primarily done by women in our society, is a disadvantage. Women supposedly are not as strong when it comes to negotiating pay and asking for promotions... but I really question the ethics of an employer who knows the statistics and still says "what discrimination?"
I would like to know how women in countries with a more liberal child care and maternity/paternity leave fare (anyone out there in scandinavia?).
As far as dealing with consultants, bldg dept and contractors, I more or less second mum. I have the age issue as well but I really haven't noticed a problem except with the architects I'm working for.
I would also add it seems to be a plus when working with clients, esp. women.
Several of you have mentioned the lack of women partners in firms. My father, who has been a partner in his own firm for nearly 50 years doesn't have any female partners. I asked him once why this was. We were re-tiling my bathtub at the time and I was holding a hammer in my hand. He said, quite seriously, that women hadn't been in the profession long enough to "make partner". I really had to resist the urge to hit him with it even though I love him dearly. This was in the early '90's. It's 2004 and with nine partners, there's still no sign of a female yet. I call it Good Ole Boy syndrome.
I don't know why this is. It's a very large firm and I can't believe that there has never been a woman pass through there who wasn't good enough. I can only believe that there's an aversion to letting a woman into the fold. He's "mum" on the subject.
My husband worked at the one particular firm I mentioned that had a serious problem at the same time I did... of course he told me a lot of the comments that were made when there were no women around, and believe me, it was insane. I really didn't want to believe him. They would make sexual comments about anyone - high school interns, bldg dept. engineers, really sad. They also played a lot of golf.
Oh, and now that I work with him and his best friend, I get to hear all the comments directly. Boys will be boys. At least people should know when to keep their mouths shut and use some tact. Mum, I guess I honestly feel they didn't want to invite women to their principals meetings and retreats because they wouldn't feel "free" to make crass jokes and talk shit, not to mention that they couldn't invite them golfing because the country club barely tolerates women as it is.
Definitely...everytime someone walks into our office, they think I'm the Receptionist. When they dfind out I'm not, they ask me what my position is.
" that of course there must be a good man behind every woman"
"busting uneDITeds chops"
what an ugly and presumptive language.
....
"Boys will be boys." <= this is almost always said (except when cutsie-fied) with an air of resignation..the first "Boys' is accusatory & bitter ..the second released in a sigh of resigned acceptance of the status quo. A person who uses this phrase already gives exemption to Boys for being Boys...That is nonsensical and destructive...the Boy can and should change and be even slightly castrasted.
Is there such thing as slightly castrated??
i think the "boys will be boys" mentality is part of what perpetuates the "boy's club" atmosphere.
and there should be some sort of ground where women can be respected, and not come off as a bitch.
"what an ugly and presumptive language."
You could be describing your own posts, uneDITed. Maybe you should drop the mannered intellectual pretensions and even try eDITing once and a while.
How fun to free-associate trivial allegorical tangents and infer generalized pathological causes and effects, and then dissemble when caught haughtily overreaching. Really, I didn't just say that.
just a little incision, one sac, Margine.
if the world doesn't end soon.
"Where should I hang my head?
Where would you like for me
To hang my head"
chan "creature of the wind"
herbst, you know very well that your flaming crucifix is a bit of a *warrever* to me..in fact, even if you die..the obvious truth is I could care less. Now, I wonder why would you you trail behind me like a disobedient tail. Down..Boy. :)
I love you all actually, I felt a surge of love take hold of me.
Is this a 'female' or a male 'voice'?
"Like a leaf clings to a tree
Oh, my darling, cling to me
For we're creatures of the wind
And wild is the wind, the wind
Wild is my love for you" Nina
covered by Chan Marshall.
you MUST hear the David Bowie version as well!!! Some songs can be suggested so differently (you just need to compare it to bon jovi's..yuk).
Here's a thought:
A lot of people characterize Zaha Hadid as brash, egocentric, pushy, etc. The fact of the matter is, to be a woman in the profession you have to be able to deal with the grit. Look at all the big-name starchitects, they all have enormous personalities which one needs in order to win over the public/client. When they go around flashing the same attitude and aforementioned characteristics no one thinks twice about it - it's normal. When a woman such as Zaha Hadid does so, she's viewed negatively as bitchy.
From what I've heard, she is bitchy. And men who yell at and exploit their employees and talk about how great they are are considered asshole jerks. Nothing gender specific.
yes, but a bitch is much more 'infamous' than an asshole.
Proof: we're talking about (and far more itnerested in) Zaha's 'bitchiness', not some male architect's assholeness.
A bitch is ever so much more potent than an asshole. There is an element of danger...a dimension of futureness in the term 'bitch' (an asshole is just an asshole..he is predictable...he is imprisoned by his own yukiness. There is no future tense for the asshole. He does not present a threat because he's just an asshole jerk. A bitch, on the other hand, is (if I use Novel's word) a weasel, a rebel against the predictability of time. bitchiness stems from the unpredictable, from a rude and abrupt violence done to the 'nice norm'. A bitch is much more likely to surprise you and therefor double your damage. It is, in connection to gender (after all, there are bitchy men as well), fueled by the perception of women as the corrupters of Adam...the witchcraft of Jezebel and the destructive whimsy of Eve.
Asshole jerk is not the same thing as Bitch. Gender Specific.
where are u going with this?
There is a very common way of writing in archinect in the form of a pedantic-leash (that I have to lead you, or you lead me, in a very clear very short line from A to B).
Why would I want to go somewhere with this? This might sound like a cliché but I'm rarely interested in having a solid and concrete opinion (especially here). Just inquisitive nudges here and there on my part. I know where I stand..but I know that already..why would it interest me to voice my opinion...Its like masturbating after exhausting all the multiple supplies one has in her bank.
ok. at a first quick glance thought you were really just pissed off at us all and the world and i didnt know why.
she is a bitch, but the same can be said of anyone at her level of passion, which is indepedent of any stararchitect status.
while her persona and how she drapes her body reflects her strong manor, you almost go as far to say 'her body by design'. she is comfortable with her baroque physique and she knows how to use it well.
you put out a good point that i missed - it isnt gender specific nor specific to architecture. i remember all those photo shots of liberskind with the 2 giants, silverstien and childs. he tries to make up for it but some how comes across like an annoying misquito that wont go away. did his lack of understanding of how to be a 'real presense' have anything to do with how the so called collaboration never really occured?
males can be bitchy too
thats the point, not gender specific.
needless to say, she decided that she wasnt going to make water run up hill, left the firm and opened her own practice.
good for her. how's she doing?
that first practice crashed a bit and she started up another in the last 6 months. she never moved to the burbs and split with hubby in the last year. so she now is re-starting a firm with 2 kids--share custody of course, but guess who the kids live with except on the odd weekend. i guess thats a whole other thread....
yes, golf is sick (not sick). :-)
to some degree I think the 'popularity' of figures like Libeskind, Tschumi,Lebbeus has suffered because they represent ,to many, the previous avant-garde. The current avant-garde's rhetoric of pragmatism ('opportunism', 'production' and such terms) is partially a rebellion against the mysticism of the poststructuralist rhetoric within architecture. Interestingly...Hadid and Gehry did manage to survive into this century with more grace. Why is that? I suspect that it is because they both were not as verbally gifted or articulate in theorizing their position. The exact same reason that was given against their work on many occasions (bluntly, how to justify their forms). Their words did not form a dated patina on their buildings. There are other, more specific, reasons of course. For example, one of them could be that Hadid's womanhood charisma (a.k.a 'bitchiness') is a much needed colour in the drab of the 'gentleman's club' profession.
Of course women are still discriminated against, just like in any profession. As someone who does hiring, it is REALLY difficult not to lookat a woman in her late 20's, and think about how long it is going to be until she follows her husband to her new job out of town, or decides to have a family and quit or go part time.... even if it isn't blatant discrimination, it HAS to figure in to your thinking, no matter how hard you try to put it aside. Yes, men sometimes do the same, but not as often as women. Take a look around at the firms in your city. How many have women in managment roles? They get hired as quickly as men when they are young, but just do not advance at the same rate as men. Some of it is due to time off to have kids, but most of it is due to the male managers hiring and advancing men who remind them of themselves when they were young. Until women advance to managment, and own their own firms, it is not going to change.
To add another tangling thread to => "another level of approaching it is how her body relates to her calligraphy"
take the greek God Hephaestus...god of fire and metal working. Renown for his physical 'deformity'..his physical 'otherness' as it would be called by some...and for producing works of beauty, in fact Beauty itself (Pandora). In fact...Zaha is an arabic word for 'radiance' and Hadid is the arabic word for 'Steel'..fire (radiance) and metal(steel)...she is Hephaestus forging himself into Pandora. the clash of the ugly and the beautiful, the 'genuis' and the 'bitch'.
some 'off the threads' issues with regard to femism i just happen to stumble upon on harpers...
Events Related To Feminism
2002 Week of Jan 15
Lithuania's “gender ombudswoman†ruled that a regulation mandating that women receive a gynecological exam before they receive a driver's license was discriminatory. »
Brazil gave women equal rights. »
2003 Jul 22
A mayor in southern Spain banned men from going out on Thursday nights; the mayor, who will deploy brigades of women to patrol the streets and issue fines to errant males, proclaimed that "in future, Thursday will be a day for women."»[Ananova]
2004 Jul 31
The Vatican criticized feminists for trying to ignore the differences between men and women and said that a woman "is not a copy of a man."»[Associated Press]
Facts Related To Feminism
1998 Apr
Ratio of the average volume of a breast implant inserted in the U.S. to that of one inserted in Europe: 3:2»[Mentor Medical Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.)]
1999 May
Chance that a mother of dependent children depicted on a prime-time network TV show holds a paying job: 1 in 3»[National Partnership for Women &Families (Washington)]
Chance that a black woman living in the U.S. will be a victim of violence this year: 1 in 18»[Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington)]
2003 Sep
Number of females on the American Film Institute's list of the fifty greatest movie villains, aliens included: 15 »[American Film Institute (Los Angeles)]
2004 Jul
Number of publications on women's rights that the Labor Department has removed from its website since 1999 : 25»[The National Council for Research on Women (N.Y.C.) ]
interesting....
Number of publications on women's rights that the Labor Department has removed from its website since 1999 : 25»[The National Council for Research on Women (N.Y.C.) ] <i/>
Labor Department has been criticized for removal of other 'defensive' information by other groups.
<i>1998 Apr
Ratio of the average volume of a breast implant inserted in the U.S. to that of one inserted in Europe: 3:2»[Mentor Medical Inc. (Santa Barbara, Calif.)]
not as different as i'd have expected, if i'd ever pondered the difference.
My own experience: in workplaces and education I never felt my gender was a factor in either favoritism nor discrimination. At school, I was only "discriminated" against when my work was hurried or crappy (so it wasn't discrimination, it was what I deserved). At work... no difference as far as I can tell. On my job hunt I did have the weird, awkward experiences of interviewing at archi firms at which I walked in and the floors were entirely populated by dudes. I have to admit, that was unsettling.
I have had one instance of extreme sexual harassment at a job (fine arts related, not architecture). It was.. profoundly gross.. I have never been so embarrassed on the behalf of another person as I was for my former boss. So I'd definitely say unfairnesses exist. But I've been fortunate enough to experience a version that made me irate and indignantly walk out of that job and never return, rather than having a seepage-like exposure to discrimination's subtler and more grinding, soul-destroying, insidious forms.
10 years ago. Things have, changed?
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