Whilst architecture has made strides in being more inclusive for both sexes, it is vital to acknowledge that the female demographic in the field is still prejudiced against, as ‘inequality is spatially reinforced by design, from our systems all the way down to individual public spaces’ (Gardner, Begault, 2019). Prejudice is so deeply and unconsciously embedded in our vernacular; for example, the term ‘man-made’ is still used to describe the design of urban spaces, which automatically undermines women and their input in design. ‘Over her breast was the heart of the town’ (Duffy, 2002) states poet Carol Ann Duffy in her poem ‘The Map Woman’, expounding the notion that the women provide a strong sense of vitality to the beating pulse of spaces, perhaps with a greater sense of physical and emotional consciousness. It is crucial to consider women’s voices during the design decision-making process in architecture, to ensure that building development takes place in a socially responsible way (Matrix, 1985), yet misogyny penetrates starkly through architecture practice even today, with 75% of architects registered under the RIBA being male (Sere, 2021). It is clear, both inside and outside of the UK, that the areas we inhabit are still androcentric, designed for the ‘neutral user’ (World Bank, 2020) and are drawn out by mostly men.
Learning through the lens of holistic inclusivity and care should be a predisposed notion in architecture, but the system fails to maintain a level of care that is urgent. In more recent years, schools like Barnard College of Columbia University have instilled methods of radical pedagogy in their curriculum, responding to our built environment and context from an ethical, social and political lens (Barnard College, n.d.). Anooradha Iyer Siddiqui is one such academic who, in her undergraduate course ‘histories of architecture and feminism’, teaches and encourages not reading only feminist texts but building feminist practices and construct archives to recuperate an epistemic shape and create precedent (Pallares-Avitia, 2020). The way forward to reclaim female power and dissolve female dissent should be to explore and approach different methods of pedagogy in a trauma-informed manner, questioning the narrative of pigeonholing women as care-related labourers (FAAC, 2018) The pace of gendered integration has been glacial, but with new pedagogies and methods of teaching considering the systemic errors in architecture, glimmers of hope are being seen (Stratigakos, 2016).
Historically and presently, Leslie Kern states that urban spaces have been the centres of uneven power relations, oppressive socio-political structures and exclusionary and discriminatory practices (Kern, 2020) which has only reinforced male power fantasies and androcentric ways of thinking when designing for the public realm. Pre-existing systems designed from a default male lens still manifests in our current climate; the skyscraper is symbolically a prime example of ‘toxic masculinity being built into the fabric of our urban spaces’ inconspicuously represented through the phallic qualities’ skyscrapers have the ‘upward-thrusting buildings ejaculating into the sky’ (Kern, 2020). This puts the question of whether contemporary realisations are genuinely creating change, or just responding to existing uses, rather than creating opportunities for entirely new behaviours (Gardner, Begault, 2019).
Walter Gropius’ renowned art and design school Bauhaus opened its doors to students ‘any person of good reputation, regardless of age or sex,’ a space where there would be ‘no differences between the fairer sex and the stronger sex’. (ArchDaily, 2018). The visionary for his radical school manifested successfully, with the number of females unexpectedly outnumbering male students in the first Bauhaus class (84 women to 79 men), and the gender-specific tuition rates that charged women a higher fee was dropped (Capps, 2019). This revolution in pedagogy allowed for German women to study design but were ultimately kept to practicing in the home; the ‘beautiful sex’ was only admitted to the weaving workshop, with the argument being that females weren’t suitable for heavy manual work and were unable to see three-dimensionally (Loho, 2019), juxtaposing the external facade of gender inclusivity that the school portrayed. This pattern of continually limiting women in pursuing design by conforming to an androcentric discourse is evident in the present day as well. It is a well-known fact that women remain in a significant minority in the architecture profession: even though Part 1 students at undergraduate level now make up 49% of the intake, only 26% of Registered Architects are women as of 2018 (Architecture. com, 2018). It can be inferred that intrinsic discrimination takes centre stage when considering inequalities in workplace culture (Metropolis, 2016).
When analysing progressive gender-dissolving ideologies, however, the females in the role of creator have a determination that dims the magnitude of their shadow role. Charlotte Perriand, for instance, was overlooked due to Le Corbusier’s reign over the modernism movement but has also set a blueprint for care and strength for women in architecture. Architect Jeanne Gang won the 2023 Charlotte Perriand award for her design of the tallest woman-designed building Aqua Tower (Cano, 2022). This award is enabling contemporary female architects to be acknowledged for projects that men have only achieved. Though a project like this award hasn’t dramatically shifted the conversation and trajectory of architectural inclusivity, it is a step forward in dissolving gynocentric limitations.
As well as this, with our current climate crisis, women are statistically in more danger in all more deficient parts of the world. As women and girls are traditionally the main water collectors in NEEs and LICs, female members of households and communities face time-bound access to water and are at risk of violence and harassment when they go to collect it. Lack of sanitation and limited access to toilets can be degrading and physically dangerous for women and girls (M. Shaw, 2013), increasing the rate of mortality in women and children and decreasing the quality of life. The susceptibility to contracting diseases is more prevalent in women; the lack of maintenance in domestic spaces compared to the carefully crafted workplaces catering mainly for men. It rings true that our built environment around us is not ‘part of a conspiracy to oppress women but it has developed from other priorities, notably the profit motive... and reflects the dominant values in our society, political and architectural views, people’s demands and the constraints of finance’ (Matrix, 1985), illustrating that it is not inherently the fault of the architect or designer but the system itself. However, it is through design that momentum to change and reclaim space can occur. Societies, globally, use spaces to their advantage, so it only makes sense for architects to foster a system of care from the lens of radical inclusivity to create more effective change.
The systemic altruism that women are forced to function in is proving to be difficult to divorce from in architecture as ‘women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its size’, states Virginia Woolf in her critical feminist essay A Room of One’s Own (Woolf, 1929). The pre-structured, internalised ideologies spanning over generations in architectural practice have interpellated women from embodying their own rationales from their female lens, which has limited the urban climate to accommodate for all people. As exemplified during the Bauhaus movement and our current climate, female inputs are imperceptible due to women always being placed as a shadow to their male counterparts. The silence in today’s generation screams loudly; the effects of patriarchy in architectural design is only engendering more cultural displacement, which needs to be addressed by reforming the devil in the details in architecture pedagogy.
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