It is long past the time when women should gain equality in the intersecting disciplines of Interior Design and
Architecture. This article will analyse the inequality faced by the women who have, or more accurately, are still
trying to break through the gender barrier.
Women currently outnumber men in Architecture and Interior design studies but struggle to establish a career
within the design industry. In 2021, it was recorded by UCAS that 2,900 women were accepted into architecture-based courses compared to 2,730 men. This is an increase over the previous year, where the gender divide was
almost equal with 2,585 women and 2,575 men. Despite this rise, the working industry is largely catered to men.
The Architectural Association was founded in 1847 comprised of only male membership until 1917 when women
were allowed to enrol in the institution. This alleviated financial hardship due to a decrease in membership because
of the First World War. In the first year of female admission only four women applied. One of the first four women
was Winifred Ryle who wrote in 1917, “[that] in the near future the woman architect will not only be the vague
possibility but an absolute necessity.” It is this level of confidence from women who challenged restrictions in a
previously male dominated world that has contributed to greater social equality, allowing women to vote in 1928.
The Architects Registrations Board reported in 2021 that 27% (9,814) of registered architects are women, compared
to just 7% (2,065) thirty years ago. Women now also outnumber men in the association’s reported numbers, but the
situation is not balanced in the workplace.
The world is a competitive vortex of individuals who have connections through family and friends making it near
impossible for people with no connections to get a job. Since the architecture and design disciplines are male
dominated, women with no networks may be deterred from finding employment in the field they are qualified in as
they may see themselves having a disadvantage from the beginning.
Although sharing similar design capabilities to an architect as discussed in the previous article, interior designers are
held with less respect within the public’s eye, often being associated with decorative consultations and not full
design schemes. An interior designer can be consulted pre or post construction which is where a lot of freelance
interior designer’s roles reside. These are contributing factors to the stigma around interior designers as purely
decorators or only capable of adding “finishing touches.” There are 57 interior design programmes in the UK
compared to the 223 architecture courses. How can Interior Designers lessen this stigma or firmly establish
themselves when on average there are 20 students compared to 80 coming from Architecture? The critical mass
being much lower therefore making it seem impossible to be equal upon completion of the course. In December
2020, the first study of interior design education statistics was published by the British Institute of Interior Design.
Spanning five years, the data was collected and evaluated against other architecture and other design courses. Every
year 2,700 students enrolled in the interior design courses which were analysed. Overall, 57% of students in the
study were women. Interior design students had a higher proportion of women (83%) compared to Architecture
(37%). More women also achieved a first when completing the Interiors courses 24%, versus 19% for male students;
proving that women are higher achieving or more motivated to perform or on the other hand prove themselves to
the patriarchal society.
The exact number of interior designers in practice is unknown as many find careers within architectural firms. In May
2021, the British Institute of Interior Design projected that there are 20,000 working in the industry in
multidisciplinary firms. It does not state the gender split of the discipline, but this is likely to be mostly female when
factoring in the low percentage of men within interior design courses.
In the March 2016 issue of The Architectural Review (AR) – Women in Architecture Awards Highlight survey, it was
discovered in a study of 1,152 women worldwide that one fifth of women would not recommend beginning a career
in architecture. Most contributors were in the UK, where the results leaned more negatively. A common reason
amongst most disciplines being difference in income. One quarter of the participants reported that their male
colleagues earn higher wages. Additionally, the survey determined nearly 40% of respondents believed they would
receive a higher rate of pay if they were male. Only 34% of women from the UK felt they had a sufficient balance in
work and life, this percentage increases to 45% if they do not have dependents, with 89% reporting childrearing as a
disadvantage. It was also reported in the AR survey that nearly three out of four women have experienced sexual
discrimination on site, this statistic alone proves that there is not enough being done to welcome women into the
field.
The Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) journal, asked, “Are we running out of men?” as their introduction
when reporting the construction industry’s staff shortages in their Takeover: Deconstructing Gender (2020) article.
This was followed up by low employment rates of women in the UK – fewer than 13%. By assuming men are the only
people capable of filling these roles, doesn’t that make society part of the problem? Women don’t appear welcome
in these roles, and they don’t feel as comfortable or as highly respected on construction sites. This is perhaps due to
an intimidating masculine aura and sexist behaviour. This is backed by a survey conducted by the Architectural
Review where female architects were asked, “have the building industry fully accepted the authority of the female
architect?” to which 67% of these participants answered no.
The RIBA’s solution to construction workforce shortage is largely in the employment of women in offsite jobs. This is
largely ignoring the actual issue that puts women off the idea of working onsite construction – the ingrained sexual
discrimination.
Women are regularly pushed out of affirmed jobs because of long work hours imbalanced with other responsibilities,
such as: children. In the AR survey, 75% of participants had no children and 83% of women globally determined
having offspring is a hindrance to their career. Because of this, 86% of women left their firms but remained within
the profession working freelance. In this way when they work with contractors, they have no option but deal which
them on their own terms - rather than in firms where a male architect may be chosen to manage contractors due to
gender-based respect.
This leaves the question of why women leave to establish their own practice. In the study carried out by Valerie
Caven, “Career building: women and non‐standard employment in architecture.” It was found that women chose
self-employment over traditional work to decrease the threat of termination. The allure of a flexible schedule by the
“entrepreneurs in waiting.” It can be said that women in leadership roles make it seem more attainable for other
women. It also means they are not a pawn in someone else’s company. To assume the choice of self-employment is
to manage a family, “feminises” the issue.
When women are successful in the industry, they are often vilified - an example of this is Zaha Hadid. Unlike other
women she prioritised her career over deciding to marry and have children and tragically passed away at the age of
65. For her whole career she was degraded by the media and slandered by critics. Her work denounced as there
were many political disputes and claims that she was disrespecting the landscape with her innovative thinking. Only
after her death in 2016 has Hadid become celebrated for her angular designs. One of her first projects was a
competition for The Peak Leisure Club, Hong Kong, China; it was never finished due to conflicting opinions of the
controversial concepts. She was conscious of the discrimination and deliberately challenged the condemnation. The
project was short lived and was never completed. In 2004, she was awarded with the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the
highest award received in architecture, “to honour architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those
qualities of talent, vision and commitment.” She was the first woman to receive sole credit for the award. The
Pritzker board have been guilty of snubbing women from their ranks in the past. When Robert Venturi was granted
the prize for in 1991, his collaborator and wife, Denise Scott Brown was given no acknowledgement. As they claimed
they “only accepted individuals, not partnerships” - this is no longer the case. Therefore, sparking outrage in the
design world where it was petitioned in 2013 for her to receive recognition, where she was rejected for a second
time by the jury.
For more women to reach as much success as Zaha Hadid had they must give up more than their male counterpart.
It is expected that although there are more women entering the architecture discipline, while commercial clients and
contractors remain to be largely male dominated roles and a subconscious discrimination towards women exists in
general society, the ratio of men reaching an elevated status within their careers will remain higher than that of
women.
As a woman trying to jump the hurdles in the patriarchal society, it is understood why it is currently an unattainable
task – while the odds are balanced against them. When they are successful, they are forced into submission or
silenced. The only other option is to persevere against the stereotypes. It is difficult to create revolutionary designs
in the 21st century as we are at a point in the industry where designs are produced ad nauseum. It is impossible to
innovate where it has been done before. What is needed is to take a dogmatic approach: create a change in the way
designers think, to revolt the taboo of the decorative, for women to gain a firm balance in the design hierarchy.
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