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Of what historic and contemporary concern is it that the architecture
profession has been, and continues to be, strongly male dominated in Australia
(currently 90% of registered architects in NSW are men). Ideally, what
proportion of the profession should women occupy and why? From the start of
human history, we always experience certain level of inequality between sexes.
It can be seen everywhere around the world and is a concern to everyone, both
men and women.
This inequality is an important issue within the workforce of
many professions, such as being an architect, landscape architect, city planners
and designers within the built environment. Industrial revolution is the onset
for women to become segregated from home, creating greater spatial division to
impact on gender roles.
There is common concept between the relationship of
public and private space with male and female as described by Kate Lyons, PUBLIC
þ Male þ Economic and Political þ WORK PRIVATE þ Female þ Reproduction and
Domestic life þ HOME This model represents the suburbanisation occurring in the
late 19th century and the early 20th century.
Many suburban women are forced
within their daily activities due to the constraints on accessibility and
mobility in low-density suburbs and lead to a feeling of being isolated from the
inner city.
These constraints of this gender role affect the women's ability in
the broader professions within the built environment, as they were restricted at
home. … Architects do not like to employ women in their offices; contractors do
not like to build from their plans; people with money to spend do not like to
entrust its expenditure to a woman.
This is probably due to the fact that women
are kept at home without 'knowing much' of the 'outside world'; the design
professions have intrigued women into marginal roles. Architects and other
similar professional fields have perceived women not as profession but as
passive clients. From these, women are users of the designed built environment
as there are only few to have the opportunity to design them.
This forces women
to adapt to the way environments have been designed (by men). There is a concern
where many women architects, landscape architects, planners, builders and
designers such as Catharine Beecher, Louise Bethune. Eileen Gray, Julia Morgan,
and others are not formally identified with professions. Many of their works
have been credited to their male colleagues.
Another concern is that there is a
lack of sensitivity towards women's needs within the built environment. Design
strategies and schemes often fail to consider women as a disadvantage group with
exclusive needs, many of these needs are inadequately met or even un-met. This
was evident in several Local Environmental Plans and Development Control Plans
of the Sydney Metropolitan area that had not identified women as a disadvantage
group to be included amongst the handicapped and elderly in design issue.
Having
considered women's issues within the built environment, in concluding one must
ask are the fundamentals of professions of the built environment gender biased?
Whilst the outcomes of these are gender biased, the fundamentals of planning
require subsequent analysis in order to resolve the question. … not only do men
and women view a common world from different perspectives, they view different
worlds as well.
The issues raised are not subject to strictly to women, but men
also experience them though with less intensity. In addressing these issues a
gender sensitive environment will be beneficial to all.
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