Roles of Female Architects in the Process of Design Practice and Their Impacts on Feminist Spaces - Comparison between Genders

Abstract

Female architects in the professional industry or feminist spaces design are explored as two main aspects or topic in the study of feminism in architecture. Architectural design practice, as collective, cooperative and immaterial work, mostly produces space. In this research, relationship between participation of women architects in the cooperative link of professional team and creation of feminist space is explored. A questionnaire, designed for both male and female architects in China, was sent to architectural design industry forum and chat rooms via internet, discussing female architects' labour division in the team and the implementation of feminist space. In the results, men architects have a certain bias against women architects' strengths and characteristics as well as cognition of feminist compared to that of female's responses. At present, the division of labor in the team is generally dominated by men in the gender-neutral approach of architecture design. Meanwhile, male architects are less aware of feminist spatial needs than women. Increasing female architects' participation in core professional links would have positive effects on design and implementation of feminist space.

Gender Equality Issues in the Architecture Profession

“…The difference between female and male architects is that female architects pay more attention to aesthetics and care about humanistic concerns. Meanwhile, male architects hold more leadership and division of work when at work than women (Xie, 2022).…”