White Paper

Gender Discrimination in Leadership Positions in Architecture

Hisham Issam Othman

SOC488D Fundamentals of Gender Discrimination

Section 32 TR from 12:30pm till 1:45 pm

Dr, Zeina Misk

December 13, 2020

Contents

Introduction: (Introduce the Problem of Gender Discrimination in Leadership in Architecture and how it

is being addressed and what made it significant).........................................................................................3

Literature Review: (Analysis of the Problem: The factors leading to it and its impact)...............................4

Solutions and Procedures Taken by Stakeholders to Reduce the Problem:..................................................7

Limitations Existing Within the Mentioned Solutions:................................................................................9

A Policy Recommendation that may be Effective:....................................................................................10

Conclusion:...............................................................................................................................................11

References:................................................................................................................................................12
 Introduction

We live today in a world where gender discrimination is a subject that causes a lot of

controversy among people. In the workplace, gender inequality is still present and architecture is

one field that suffers from this issue, especially when it comes to being in leadership positions.

What makes this problem one of discussion is the fact that the number of females graduating as

architects has increased in the recent years, yet, change in the workplace is barely noticed.

According to Ramona Abdallah, the founding member of Architects for Change and an

ambassador for the international G(irls)20 initiative, “it does not matter if 80% of architects are

women. What actually matters is women in leadership in architecture”. Warchee, an NGO

founded by Anastasia Elrous, a design instructor at the American University of Beirut conducted

a survey to know respondents’ opinions on having women present on the construction field and

68.2% answered that women that take such responsibilities requiring presence on-field are

negatively viewed by the society. This is where Warchee’s role lies: helping women become

accepted when being present in such tasks. Elie Haddad, the dean of the School of Architecture

and Design at the Lebanese American University expressed in an interview with the Daily Star

that the gender gap in leading the Architecture profession is logical because of its history,

meaning that this field was a male dominated field before it developed to start including more
women. So, due to the fact that most students studying architecture before the year 1990 were

males, Dr. Haddad explains the gender gap as such: “It’s the remnants of the old system.”

Although he only meant to justify the reason of this situation and not imply that the imbalance is

a normal one, he did express that there is no urgent need to take affirmative action to fight this

reality. Being a Dean of a School of this major, one should not transmit such thoughts to younger

generations. In general, there are different sides that have different perspectives when it comes to

confronting the subject of having more women in senior roles in architecture where every side

has specific values and takes specific actions.

Literature Review

Being an architect in leadership positions means taking big responsibilities that require

presence on construction sites and fields and being head of important projects. In other words, it

is not only about sitting in an office and being involved in a minor portions of projects. The

reasons men are more present than women in this sector vary and may justify the disappearance

and marginalization of the large number of female architects after graduation. According to

Oneill (2018), an issue by the Architectural Digest Magazine stated that women constitute only

20% of principals and partners in architectural firms that are owned by AIA (The American

Institute of Architects). This shows how in USA in general, architectural firms and offices are

still mostly led by men, despite the fact that almost half of students enrolled at architecture

schools are women. According to an article by HMC Architects (2020), one main factor is the

wrong perception of female leaders where in the architecture field, “strong female leadership is

sometimes perceived negatively. Women leaders may be looked down on as bossy or shrill

rather than decisive or visionary”. Moreover, women are most often not taken seriously when
being the leaders in architecture firms. Being the only woman on the construction site or in a

meeting would lead to her feeling uncomfortable or under-appreciated. Another factor the HMC

Architects article stated would be the absence of mentors in this field. The architecture domain in

general suffers from the lack of female mentors that are able to help young women entering the

field establish themselves professionally. Additionally, mentors, who are mostly males, tend to

choose those who look like them or share the same interests in order to help them achieve

development, boost their confidence, and aim for promotion. As a result, women would be

discouraged to work on reaching higher standards and would remain in positions that are

ordinary in their firms, as there is no one to support them in their attempts to develop. Another

factor that may prevent women architects from reaching higher positions would be childcare.

According to Architectural Digest magazine (Oneill 2018), the need of taking care of children

would drive women to stay away from big positions at their firms, especially that the profession

would require long working hours. Therefore, leadership in architecture would be a demanding

responsibility for women, just as taking care of their children is, forcing females to choose to

continue in one of the two paths. The lack of maternity leave pay would have women think that

staying in such a position at their job is not worth it as it would obstruct their desire of being able

to properly take care of their children. In an article published in the New York Times, Arieff

(2018) stated: “the percentage of women in architecture radically decreases as one moves up the

ladder toward more senior positions and prestigious honors”. She further elaborated by

explaining how there still exists cases involving women quitting their jobs in architecture for

failing to prove their authority on site, for marriage, or even for believing their creativity is not

up to the level. These factors would result in the architecture workplace becoming a place with

unequal opportunity grants and wages. This means that as more women quit their high positions
at work due to various reasons, new generations of females will find it difficult to reach the

leadership positions they desire because architectural firms and offices will favor males to take

available opportunities. This is because they believe men are less likely to quit their job. As a

result, men would be offered higher wages as they are guaranteed to stay in their jobs for a

longer time, meaning men are looked at as ones who would take such a responsibility more

seriously. But, the problem in fact is not asking ourselves what drove women quit their jobs in

the first place. As a female is constantly not taken seriously by her colleagues or employees and

as her creative ideas are constantly turned down only for being a woman, she would start

believing that she is not suitable for such a position, despite her having all the required qualities.

This would result in her thinking about leaving her job for marriage or even for a less demanding

job/position. Arieff (2018) also mentioned that almost all women architects she interviewed

experienced cases were men questioned their qualifications and did not believe a female is in

charge of a certain project. In many of the cases, clients in a meeting room thought a female

architect was there just to serve coffee. One woman also reported getting complained about to

the firm head by her male colleagues simply because they could not accept taking commands

from a woman. In another case, a female architect lost a promotion opportunity after she became

pregnant. Furthermore, as mentioned before, as committees consist of more men members than

women, decisions taken would come mostly in favor of men only. All these factors play a huge

role in making space for more gender discrimination to take place in the architecture domain.

This would be harmful for all female architects aiming towards reaching high expectations they

set for themselves. Not being able to benefit from opportunities they deserve would also affect

them on the psychological aspect, bringing down their confidence levels and driving them to lose
hope in achieving their dreams. It would also affect future generations as there would be very

few successful female architects for young girls to look up to and feel encouraged.

Solutions and Procedures Taken by Stakeholders to Reduce the Problem

In order to stand in the way of the gender gap increasing in architecture firms, several

institutions, organizations, and other sides have taken actions with the aim of reaching a better

reality. HMC Architects has started a program that is mainly centered about helping all its

employees develop in their profession and reach their desired goals by boosting their confidence

in their abilities. The program is not only woman-centered but encourages all people to be

mentored as a way of supporting gender equality. In addition to that, HMC today has 75% of its

principals at its office in Los Angeles as women. This comes as a result of HMC’s continuous

efforts to show how they value women and to set an example for all architectural firms. HMC is

considered a sponsor of women in the architecture domain and is constantly active in supporting

women in the industry. As part of its work, HMC has partnered with the Women in Architecture

AIA committee to be involved in events and talks that raise awareness in support of female

architects. The Women in Architecture Committee itself is a movement that focuses on having a

positive change that involves treatment of women in architecture. As part of its work, the

committee meets every month in order to plan workshops, lectures, and networking opportunities

for women. It is also the organizer of an annual conference with the name Powerful. Powerful in

its turn is a worldwide event that looks for supporting and guiding any female architect willing to

move her established mid-career forward or a partner in a firm willing to raise the profile of her

office. Furthermore, reSite, a non-profit acting, focuses on raising women’s voices as part of its

plan to reach social balance between genders in the architecture sector. ReSite always works on
making it easier for women architects that are in leadership positions to attend its campaigns and

conferences and help them be part of the change. Since the number of female leaders in the field

is already undersized, and since most of those female leaders would find it hard to afford taking a

few days off at work to attend an expensive event that would boost their careers to a whole

further level, reSite offers a 70% discount from the initial registration fee for all females working

in the design and architecture domain. This would facilitate the situation for female architects

willing to attend such a beneficial event. In the UK, according to an issue by DeZeen Magazine

(2019), a law that requires companies with 250+ employees to annually report their gender pay

gaps now exists. This law, as it involves several architectural firms, has seen a slight

improvement in some of them when it comes to wages. TP Bennet, one of the architectural

practices, witnessed the biggest improvement as it had its gender pay gap decrease from 12.8%

in 2017 to 4.2% in 2018. TP Bennet in its turn has continued on that path in order to have more

gender equality in its offices. In addition to starting initiatives that would help tighten the wage

gap, TP Bennet has also launched programs that would help junior staff develop. This would

help women aiming towards promotion in the start of their careers reach their desired positions

and learn all the required techniques and qualities. In addition to that, TP Bennet has also

launched a mentorship program involving several networking events scheduled exclusively for

women with the direct aim of increasing “the number of women in senior management” in their

business. At Zaha Hadid Architects, also located in the UK, Mouzhan Majidi, the chief executive

of the company, admitted that in 2018 the company hired more women than men. He also stated

that the company in the same year introduced special programs that “will enable more women at

Zaha Hadid Architects to progress to senior roles” (India Block, 2019).

 Limitations Existing Within the Mentioned Solutions

Despite the fact that a lot of movements have started and a lot of procedures have been

taken in order to ensure that more women are reaching senior positions, there exists some

limitations that weaken the plans that the different firms, organizations, and governments have

launched. When it comes to the work reSite has done, efforts to attain gender equality in the

architecture world are clearly visible. However, the fact that the conference in the first place is

expensive to an extent that it needs a discount for women to afford attending it is itself a week

point. When campaigns looking for supporting female architects are launched, they should let

women feel that assist is easily provided and that their voices are easily heard. Attending talks

that would help women evolve should not feel like a burden on these women. A 70% discount is

a great offer, but campaigns should in the first place offer the easiest types of access for women

allowing them to benefit and develop without the need of registration fees. Going further, TP

Benett succeeded in tightening the gender pay gap between 2017 and 2018 and also started

programs that aim towards helping women develop in senior roles. However, the latest Gender

Pay Gap Report sent by G.Doug Smith, the principal director of TP Benett showed that the wage

gap in 2019 rose again to reach 7.42%. This was a major drawback for the firm especially after

the gap had decreased in the previous year. This in fact weakens the law that the UK had placed

with the aim of witnessing a positive change in gender pay gaps with time. Furthermore, at Zaha

Hadid Architects, although a program focusing on enabling women to progress to more

prestigious roles was initiated, ZHA had the “fourth-worst gender pay gap” of all architectural

firms surveyed in the UK in 2018. Not only was the gender pay gap 21% in that year, but it also

increased 1.4% from the year before. The chief executive of the company justified the situation
as such: “This gap exists because a higher proportion of our longest-serving team members are

male”. However, this excuse does not make the situation any better as what is needed to achieve

a change is to start working on equating the number of men and women members in architectural

practices (Block, 2018).

A Policy Recommendation that may be Effective

As all the previous procedures taken by different stakeholders have shown hope of

reaching a positive change, even if slightly, there are some additional suggestions that may be

significant and could be taken into consideration. One of these proposed solutions would be

adjusting the curriculum of teaching the architecture major at universities and colleges. As such,

any student majoring in architecture at any university would have an insertion of courses and

workshops through which he/she is forced to take as part of his/her study program. These courses

would focus on teaching future female architects how to manage companies with full confidence

and how to be able to prove their authority at architectural firms whether in offices or on-site. In

other words, there would be training sessions that would prepare females for the real work-life

later on. On the other hand, these additions to the architecture study program would definitely be

a requirement for male students too. What males would learn from these workshops and courses

would be accepting the fact of sharing a leadership position with a woman or even being

managed by a woman. They would also learn to take women present on construction fields

seriously as their presence on-site is just as crucial as men’s presence. Both genders should be

exposed to all what awaits them in the future work-life before even stepping into the architecture

profession and learning all that during completing their major at the university would be a very

logical procedure.
 Conclusion

In short, being in a leadership position in any architectural firm today is still a challenge

for a female architect. However, change is possible and hope is present. What is needed to get

more women accepted in leadership positions is the support of the industry as a whole. Both men

and women should work together to achieve a positive change and to reach gender-diversity in

the workplace. Hopefully, better results will be witnessed once all the solutions are correctly

taken into consideration and carefully studied and applied. Having a woman running an

architectural firm should become a reality and female architects as leaders should become a

normal thing in the eyes of all societies.

 References

Arieff, A. (2018, December 15). Where Are All the Female Architects? The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/opinion/sunday/women-architects.html.

India Block | 10 April 2019 Leave a comment. (2019, April 29). UK architects reveal 2018
gender pay gap as RIBA issues formal guidance. Dezeen.
http://www.dezeen.com/2019/04/10/gender-pay-gap-uk-architecture-news/.

.O'Neill, M. (2018, October 22). MeToo, Gender Bias, and the Leadership Gap in Architecture.
Architectural Digest. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/gender-parity-in-
architecture.

Powerful: Equity. AIA Los Angeles. (n.d.).

https://www.aialosangeles.org/aiala-events/powerful/.

r/lebanon - Why female architecture graduates are disappearing. reddit. (n.d.).

http://www.reddit.com/r/lebanon/comments/a6ugyq/why_female_architecture_graduates_a
re_disappearing/.

Solidpixels., H. (n.d.). reSITE to Rebalance Gender Inequality in Architecture and Design.

reSITE. https://www.resite.org/stories/resite-to-rebalance-gender-inequality-in-
architecture-and-design.

“Women in Architecture: How HMC Pioneers Gender Equality: Thought Leadership.” HMC
Architects, 17 Apr. 2020, hmcarchitects.com/news/women-in-architecture-how-hmc-pioneers-
gender-equality-2020-04-17/.