Gender Inequalities in the Architectural Profession of Argentina

Abstract

Gender inequalities in female architecture professionals in Argentina. Survey of Argentine Women Architects (2021) Since 1987, the number of female students has exceeded 50% in architecture universities, nevertheless this is not demonstrated in the representation and participation (management of institutions , awards, publications and invitations to participate in conferences) in the field of projectuals disciplines of architecture, urbanism and design.The Argentine Women Architects Survey is developed due to the absence of information production separated by gender and has allowed to count with a diagnostic base on the labor situation of professional women in different regions of the country that makes it possible to emphasize the difficulties and inequalities that goes through them particularly in different areas of performance and set out lines of action and transformation that promote the balancing of these disparities.The fact that there is no data is a data, it indicates that these issues are not found among the institutional priorities. However, many of us women architects notice that this profession does not shelter, but rather it excludes many times. This lack of data is not always intentional, but comes from the naturalization of millenary power structures in which men have been considered the measure of all things. And this is how many things were made.This initiative articulates different professional networks, national architecture, design and urbanism universities, and research centers that work and investigate the gender issue in Argentina’s projectual disciplines in. This survey was carried out between June and July 2021 and 2341 responses were obtained that were able to elaborate data from the collective interpretation. It was made using binary categories that were defined by the institutions of which the survey respondents were part of.This experience is a starting point to obtain more basic data and integrate it with a broader perspective in the future. The survey was developed in ArcGIS/ Survey 123 software (license and credits OFUT FAU UNT) and the answers were evaluated anonymously and always with other data.Among the main questions of the study are: Where are the women architects and what do they do? What professional areas do they part of? How many jobs do they have at the same time and what are the conditions like? What is the average payment? How do they manage their time? Main answers to these and other questions will be represented graphically and in summary form by creating the infographic proposed for this publication. The answers showed the situation of women architects mainly settled in the urban agglomerate of the country(70%).The 35% of the women architects respondents work in two or more sectors at the same time. These sectors are i) private ii) academic/ scientific; iii) government sector; iv) third sector and 45,9% work more than 40 hours per week.Only 14,95% of the decision-making positions are occupied by women meanwhile the 60.32% are held by men. Other relevant data show that 68% of the women architects who were surveyed have not worked the total potential working time in the profession and 59.14% consider that the main cause is the caregiving tasks of other people. This is in line with what has been pointed out in various studies that the persistent sexual division of labor and the different use of time by women and men due to caregiving tasks contributes to the decrease in time dedicated to the professional development of women architects: "Regardless of the percentage of income they contribute to their household, women perform a minimum of 60% of the couple´s total unpaid workload" (ECLAC, 2017). A third relevant issue to highlight is violence in which 75.8% of the total number of female architects surveyed state that they had suffered some kind of violence, however only 12% said that there are internal gender equity policies and that they are fully practiced. In these times we have been building new social consensus on issues of our gender, which allows us to move forward.This new context, where awareness of the existing gaps is emerging, requires us to review the data. The study also gives us the opportunity to reflect on another issue: the connections between public science and technology institutions and the demands of the context. It is common to expect the scientific and technological system to produce the knowledge and the context to produce the demands. Here, however, we are facing a more interesting relationship: we work from a scientific and prestigious organism, financed by the State, together with professional women´s networks and trade union institutions to create a synergic feedback relationship that builds hybrid knowledge. The approach we give to this work is action-research, which implies a form of knowledge production based on the reflection of the research subjects themselves. This approach is based on the discourses produced by the architects themselves, referring to the understanding of themselves and the description of their own practices (Yuni and Urbano, 2012).This modality promotes the group perspective over the individual one. Taking the survey is a transformative event. We are not the same person when we start filling out the survey as when we finish it.In addition to the survey, the investigation implicated systematization, analysis, a national cartography and an open essay to the community. These first studies of the situation will make possible projects that promote gender equality and the visibility of these women work. At the same time, it is articulated with other ongoing initiatives that provide a framework for the survey linked to the discussion of the fields of formation, knowledge construction and professional practice of architecture, urbanism and design, which are challenged by new demands in the national and regional context. In a mostly male field, the growing incidence of women has not been exempt from contradictions and tensions.Finding ways to accompany, from the construction of knowledge, the demands of emerging actors and the reactions of social movements in articulation with the regional context is a commitment of the scientific-academic field. The context demands to organize and articulate the construction of knowledge incorporating gender as an analytical category and transformative political concept, which can be applied and transferred to teaching and professional practice in the projectual disciplines.