Gender Equity in Irish Architecture

It was wonderful to present some preliminary findings from the survey at the ICAG International Conference on Architecture and Gender. I presented analysis an discusssion of two questions from the Irish Architecture Career Tracker Survey – ‘How important is being a man/woman to the way you think about your career?’, and agreement/disagreement with the statement ‘The term ‘woman in architecture’ is an important reflection of who I am professionally’.  The discussion afterwards was insightful and exciting, in a way that happens sometimes at conference when you have great papers and a great audience. Our question on professiona identity and the ‘woman in architecture’ label made the Chairs’ Debate (defly led by Patricia Santos Pedrosa) as a topic. Interestingly, the debate around the ‘women in architecture’ label is very different in gendered languages such as Spanish, where you have ‘arquitecto’ for a man and ‘arquitecta’ for a woman. 

I got to meet Justine Clarke, Gill Matthewson, and Alison McFadyen of Parlour, Suzanne Ewing of Voices of Experience, Lori Brown of  ArchiteXX. We also got to hear from Carolina Quiroga, Verónica Benedet and Inés Moisset about the amazing work going on in South America by projects including LINA, MujerArquitecta, Una Dia Una Arquitecta.  As well as other European project like Lucía C. Pérez-Moreno’s amazing project mapping and photographing the work of Spanish women architects. Anna Bofill Levi and Dolores Hayden both gave wonderful insightful keynotes. Sol Pérez Martinez’s paper on the feminist work of citation (following Sara Ahmed) was also a highlight for me. 

It was super energising to be surrounded be researchers and activists all working towards a common goal.