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Why Are There Not Enough Women Architects? →

by Mark Lamster, Dallas Morning News, 8/29/14 (Excerpt from the Article, go to link above for full article) Mark attended a panel of 3 women fellows from the Texas AIA (9 total women out of 130 fellows) and this was part of his response to moderating the panel.

Those wishing to understand the high attrition rate among women in architecture should focus their attention on the assumptions implicit in those words, which are still disturbingly pervasive. Simply put: lack of workplace flexibility chases women out of the profession. The problem is especially acute in architecture, where young professionals — who are theoretically at the point in their lives when they will be starting families — are expected to work extremely long hours, often off the books. And architectural wages are nowhere near those of other professions (attorney, doctor, banker), which make large child-care bills easier to manage.
The problem demands systemic change within the architectural profession, a shift in the expectations and demands that are forcing women out, to one that actively and aggressively promotes equality. Lip service won’t do.
Those who would defend the status quo should consider how much we have to gain by a reordering of priorities — the contribution of 50 percent of our workforce. While we can dismiss the twaddle about women’s “gossamer” minds, it is true that women bring a different experience to the practice of architecture. As was noted during our discussion, statistically women are more likely than men to participate in the field of sustainability. Because they are more directly engaged in child-care, they approach our private and public spaces (or lack thereof) with a different set of assumptions.
One can’t help but wonder: How different would our cities be if the architectural profession was more equitable? Frankly, we shouldn’t have to wonder. It’s time to find out

How women are climbing Architecture's Career Ladder →

by Lamar Anderson, Curbed.Com (3/17/14)

In celebration of Women's History Month, this article is a "Women in Architecture 101" for those new to the discussion and yet unaware of the complexity of challenges and issues surrounding the topic. There is reference to the The Missing 32% Project - Equity in Architecture Survey (Thanks!) and relevant anecdotes from women in various stages of their professional career development. A bonus survey of Pump Rooms in various firms serves to bring awareness and a gentle reminder that Equity starts with Action.
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Why do Women really leave Architecture? is the wrong question. →

by Vanessa Quirk for Archdaily (2/20/14)

"Maria Smith, shortlisted for The Architect’s Journal’s Emerging Woman Architect of the Year, has just published an article in The Architectural Review titled “Why do Women Really Leave Architecture?” – an article that, like many over the last year, attempts to tackle the tricky question of why women (who make up over 40% of architecture students in the US but only 23% of the profession) leave architecture. For the first few paragraphs, I was nodding in agreement, eagerly reading something that - finally - promised to offer a different perspective on the “women in architecture” question.

Unfortunately, a few paragraphs later, all that promise falls terribly flat. Smith spends a good amount of time setting up a fabulous argument, and then – disappointingly – falls into the very traps she was hoping to break wide open. By the article’s conclusion, I was less satisfied than when I started, wondering: is this even the right question we should be asking?"

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Why do Women really leave Architecture? →

by Maria Smith, Architectural Review(2/14/14)

Trying to tackle a complex issue is noble. But the set of solutions offered unfortunately don't address the depth of the challenges that women are facing: socioeconomic, biases, personal work/life flexibility challenges plaguing the modern family. See below for a counterpoint by Vanessa Quirk for Archdaily.

"Women in architecture. There, I said it. Whether you’re in the ‘why do we need to talk about this, I just want to be good at my job’ camp or the ‘we must do more to bring our backward profession up to the 21st-century standards it lags so embarrassingly behind’ camp, ‘Women in Architecture’ is probably a phrase that irks. I waver daily between those camps but I am firmly in the ‘get involved or stop whinging’ camp so, here we go: why do women leave architecture?"

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Incredible True Adventures of the Architectress

by Gabrielle Esperdy, The Design Observer

 An associate professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology brings us an extensive history of the topic of gender equality in architecture.  Gabrielle ponders "How did we get here (again)? I would argue that too often today, despite ongoing efforts to achieve diversity and inclusiveness, there is a tendency, especially in the aftermath of '90s-era identity politics, to efface gender difference and to avoid the F-word, effectively disallowing the conjugation of “woman” + “architect.”

 

"Why are so many women leaving architecture?" →

Jane Duncan explains...in this article from The Guardian

 Jane Duncan is the founder of Jane Duncan Architects and RIBA equality and diversity champion. "In 2003 the RIBA undertook a study on why women were leaving architecture. One woman's response perfectly summed up the general feeling: "frustrated with the amount of regulation and legislation, high stress, low pay, long hours and not enough flexibility to allow time with my children, lack of job security and lack of support".
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Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia →

 by Despina Stratigakos, The Design Observer

This critique by Despina Stratigakos from The Design Observer explains the complex and varied reasons women architects are overlooked. "The reasons we forget women architects are varied and complex. Until recently, historians assumed that there were no female practitioners before the mid-20th century and so they did not bother to look. Nor was it likely that they would stumble upon these designers by chance, given that traditional research methods focus on archives and libraries, institutions that have been slow to collect women’s work."

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"Was it too much to hope for first a woman and then a partnership?" →

by Alexandra Lange, Dezeen

Women are still, as one self-critical initiative has it, The Missing 32 Percent. As I wrote in a 2013 Metropolis story, Architecture's Lean In Moment: "The more we talk about the state of women in architecture, the more the state of architecture itself begins to sound rotten. For it to be sustainable as a profession, more than its treatment of women has to change. Women need to learn to ask for raises, but so do architects of their clients… Raising wages at all levels of the profession would increase diversity and add flexibility: unless architects lean in to clients, the profession as a whole is in danger of being marginalised. In other words, social design begins at home.
Until architecture takes a hard look at the very nature of its practice, including classic shibboleths like the all-nighter, as well as a star system that rewards those who can work, for little or no pay, for the biggest names, it's going to be difficult to expand its audience and continue to keep talent within the bounds of architecture. Obviously, there are a welter of other issues complicating architecture as practiced today, from construction labour prices and proliferating consultants, to bad press and cultural change, but you have to start with those things you can control.
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Architecture's Lean in Moment →

by Alexandra Lange, Metropolis Magazine

“Women are the ghosts of modern architecture, everywhere present, crucial, but strangely invisible,” writes historian Beatriz Colomina in “With, Or Without You,” an essay in the Museum of Modern Art’s 2010 catalog, Modern Women. “Architecture is deeply collaborative, more like moviemaking than visual art, for example. But unlike movies, this is hardly ever acknowledged.”
"The value of the architect, and how architects value themselves, what they are willing to accept, how fees are established—the respect isn’t there.” Raising wages at all levels of the profession would increase diversity and add flexibility: unless architects lean in to clients, the profession as a whole is in danger of being marginalized."  says Nina Freedman.
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No Vacation Nation - Revisited by the Center for Economic Policy and Research →

By Rebecca Ray, Milla Sanes, and John Schmitt

May, 2013 - Outside of the profession, there are bigger questions of how we compare with other countries and their support of paid breaks. "The United States is the only advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation. European countries establish legal rights to at least 20 days of paid vacation per year, with legal requirements of 25 and even 30 or more days in some countries. Australia and New Zealand both require employers to grant at least 20 vacation days per year; Canada and Japan mandate at least 10 paid days off. The gap between paid time off in the United States and the rest of the world is even larger if we include legally mandated paid holidays, where the United States offers none, but most of the rest of the world's rich countries offer at least six paid holidays per year." This report is an update to the original report published by the same authors in 2011 with the same title.
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Families & Work Institute 2008 Study on Worker's Health →

By Kerstin Aumann and Ellen Galinsky (updated report 2011)

The importance of getting a break from work or any major project that we are trying to accomplish seems like an obvious no brainer to maintain optimal focus and productivity. A 2008 Families & Work Institute study found that not only do workers with paid vacation time have higher job satisfaction and are less likely to leave their job than those without paid vacation time, but also that the amount of time away matters. Both workers’ satisfaction and likelihood to stay in their job rose significantly when their vacation lasted 13 days or more.

What Stalled the Gender Revolution? Child Care That Costs More Than College Tuition →

By Tamara Straus, California (Cal Alumni Association Newsletter)

"Feminism isn’t a prominent social movement in this country anymore. And one reason for this is blazingly clear: We don’t have an affordable, taxpayer-subsidized system of infant-to-12 child care that levels the playing field for all women, their partners, and their children. What we have is elite women (and men) blathering on about choice, and billionaire executives passing themselves off as role models for working women, while refusing to acknowledge, let alone celebrate the women who help raise their children and manage their homes."
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Why Women Still Can't Have it All →

by Ann Marie Slaughter, The Atlantic June 13, 2012

The best hope for improving the lot of all women, and for closing what Wolfers and Stevenson call a “new gender gap”—measured by well-being rather than wages—is to close the leadership gap: to elect a woman president and 50 women senators; to ensure that women are equally represented in the ranks of corporate executives and judicial leaders. Only when women wield power in sufficient numbers will we create a society that genuinely works for all women. That will be a society that works for everyone.

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Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life

by Stew Friedman, October 2014 via Amazon

You’re busy trying to lead a “full” life. But does it really feel full—or are you stretched too thin? Enter Stew Friedman, Wharton professor, adviser to leaders across the globe, and passionate advocate of replacing the misguided metaphor of “work/life balance” with something more realistic and sustainable. If you’re seeking “balance” you’ll never achieve it, argues Friedman. The idea that “work” competes with “life” ignores the more nuanced reality of our humanity—the interaction of four domains: work, home, community, and the private self. The goal is to create harmony among them instead of thinking only in terms of trade-offs. It can be done.
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To Rescue Economy, Japan Turns to Supermom →

By Jonathan Soble, NY Times January 1, 2015

"These days, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been encouraging Japanese women to have it all. A rewarding career. Children, preferably more than one.
In a country where juggling work and family has long been especially difficult, Mr. Abe has pledged to ease the way for women like Ms. Kitajima, with more state-funded child care and other measures to foster “a society where all women shine.” Tackling the nation’s shrinking population and declining labor force by encouraging working women is part of his broader effort to re-energize the economy, which is looking especially unsteady after Japan unexpectedly fell into a recession last quarter." ---
"The United States and Europe face similar challenges. National policies have largely failed to address pay inequalities or create broad support systems for working mothers.
But the gender gap in Japan is more pronounced. The national birthrate is just 1.4 children per woman, among the lowest in the world and well below the level needed to ward off a sharp decline in population in the coming decades. And when Japanese women do have children, they quit their jobs more often than mothers in other industrialized countries, leaving a hole in an already dwindling work force."
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Why I put my wife's career first

by ANDREW MORAVCSIK, The Atlantic October 2015

The well-being of children, the status of women, and the happiness of men will depend on whether more fathers are willing to take on primary parenting roles.
"Three years ago, my wife, Anne-Marie Slaughter, wrote in these pages about how difficult it remains for women to “have it all”—a family and a career. She’d recently left a high-powered job in Washington, D.C., to return to our home in Princeton, New Jersey, where I had been acting as lead parent to our children. Somewhat ironically, her article on work-life balance led her to increased prominence on the national stage, which reinforced my role as the lead parent of our two sons—a role I continue to fill today."
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Salary Calculator →

The full 2015 AIA Compensation Report has more insights and information, such as compensation for 21 other positions at architectural firms, details on benefits packages, and select state and metro area salaries. Visit www.aia.org/compensation for details on how to order the report, either in its entirety, for the metro areas, or by region.

AIA Compensation Report →

The biannual AIA Compensation Report gives you access to salary data for 39 architecture firm positions in 27 states, 27 metro areas and 15 cities. You’ll get an exclusive look at industry salary trends and expert analysis on where the market is headed. 
Use the complete national report, the metro area report or one of nine regional reports to understand your value and make good decisions for your career or your business. Special pricing for AIA members.
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