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The Woman/Architect Distinction

2012; Routledge; Volume: 17; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13264826.2012.730537

1755-0475

Karen Burns,

Architecture, Design, and Social History

Abstract The complicated links between individual life stories and theories of gender are central to feminist discussion. Since the end of the 1970s, feminist discourse has debated the tensions between feminism's collective category, "woman", and the diversity of women. Feminist theory has worked to undo the monolithic category of Woman. This paper argues that research on women in architectural practice should draw on this long-standing debate, particularly when researchers use life-story interview texts as the corner-stone for gender studies. Researchers who use gender as a category of analysis must negotiate the complexity of lived subjectivity narrated in the interview testimonial. The apparent "refusal" of women interviewees to self-identify as women architects or explain career trajectories primarily through the prism of gender invites us to produce more subtle theories of identity, lived subjectivity and mechanisms of gender identification in feminist architectural research. The term, woman architect, invites us to think about the hyphenated nature of identity. Notes The quotation comes from Bridget Fowler and Fiona M. Wilson, "Women Architects and Their Discontents", Sociology, 38, no. 1 (2004), 114. This essay was first commissioned by Justine Clark for publication on the Parlour: Women, Equity, Architecture website curated by Clark. I am grateful for Justine's invitation, her advocacy and fine editorial skills. A shorter, different version of this essay can be found at www.archiparlour.org (accessed 1 August 2012). See Audre Lorde's 1979 comments on the racism of feminism. Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House' (1979), in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Berkeley, CA: The Crossing Press, 1984, 110–113. See Paula Whitman, RAIA and QUT, Going Places: The Career Progression of Women in the Architectural Profession, Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology, 2005; Eva Matsuzaki, Patricia Gibb and Imbi Harding, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Consultations and Roundtables on Women in Architecture in Canada (2003), www.archiparlour.org (accessed May 2012); Ann de Graft-Johnson, Sandra Manley and Clara Greed, Why Do Women Leave Architecture?, Bristol and London: Royal Institute of British Architects, University of West of England, 2003, 26. Fowler and Wilson, "Women Architects", 115. Fowler and Wilson, "Women Architects", 116. Valerie Caven, "Career Building: Women and Non-Standard Employment in Architecture", Construction Management and Economics, 24 (May 2006), 457–464. Caven, "Career Building", 460. Caven, "Career Building", 463. Caven, "Career Building", 457. Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice, London: Methuen, 1982, 179. Caven, "Career Building", 459. See Francesca Hughes (ed.), The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996, x–xix. Hughes, The Architect, xvii. Rachel Neeson, "Going Places", Architecture Australia, 49, no. 1 (January/February 2006), www.architecturemedia.com (accessed May 2012). Virginia Valian, "Beyond Gender Schemas: Improving the Advancement of Women in Academia", Hypatia, 20, no. 3 (Summer 2005), 303. This was of course the title of Joan Scott's famous article, "Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis", The American Historical Review, 91, no. 5 (December 1986), 1053–1075. Scott, "Gender", 1053. See Gary Stevens, "Struggle in the Studio: A Bourdivin Look at Architectural Pedagogy", Journal of Architectural Education, 49, no. 2 (1995), 105–121; Dana Cuff, Architecture: The Story of Practice, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991, 43–45. See Meltem Ö Gürel and Kathryn H. Anthony, "The Canon and the Void: Gender, Race, and Architectural History Texts", Journal of Architectural Education, 59, no. 3 (2006), 66–76; Karen Kingsley, "Gender Issues in Teaching Architectural History", Journal of Architectural Education, 41, no. 2 (1988), 21–25; Karen Burns, "A Girl's Own Adventure: Gender and the Contemporary Architectural Theory Anthology", Journal of Architectural Education, 65, no. 2 (March 2012), 125–134. Stevens, "Struggle in the Studio", 105. Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema, London: Macmillan, 1984, 159. See Linda N. Groat and Sherry Ahrentzen, "Reconceptualizing Architectural Education for a More Diverse Future: Perceptions and Visions of Architectural Students", Journal of Architectural Education, 49, no. 3 (February 1996), 166–183; Mark Paul Frederickson, "Gender and Racial Bias in Design Juries", Journal of Architectural Education, 47, no. 1 (September 1993), 39–49. See Stevens, "Struggle in the Studio", 113; Mindi D. Foster and E. Micha Tsarfati, "The Effects of Meritocracy Beliefs on Women's Well-Being after First-Time Gender Discrimination", Personality and Psychology Bulletin, 31, no. 12 (December 2005), 1730–1738. Louise Marie Roth, Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, 179–196. Valian, "Beyond Gender Schemas", 204. Scott, "Gender", 1053–1075. Scott, "Gender", 1053. Meaghan Morris, The Pirate's Fiancée, London: Verso, 1988, 6. See Marie Wilson, "Playing the Gender Card: The Myth of Meritocracy and Individuality in America", The Huffington Post, posted 12 November 2007. www.huffingtonpost.com/marie-wilson/playing-the-gender-card (accessed 2 May 2012). See Virginia Valian, Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999, 1–22. Valian, Why So Slow?, 303. Valian, Why So Slow?, 309. See De Graft-Johnson et al., Why Do Women Leave Architecture?