Who are the Missing 32 Percent?
Perhaps the most unfortunate part of the feminist movement is the negative connotations that accompany the label of “feminist”.
Hey! HEY, STOP! Don’t click that back button. We are going to have a civil, educated discussion about equity in architecture, and introducing this discussion with the word feminist is not going to scare the majority of readers away. If we say it, maybe it’ll happen. Anyways…
This article begins with the above statement because like the term feminist, a project titled “The Missing 32% Project” might appear to some as an exclusive movement. Despite the fact that the goal of “The Missing 32% Project” is “a call to action for both women and men to help realize the goal of equitable practice to advance architecture, sustain the profession and communicate the value of design to society”, many of us dismiss these ideas and projects without thought. Too often a discussion on “gender equality” sounds equivalent to a discussion on “how much men suck”. And who can blame those who bow out for doing so — no one wants to talk about how much they or someone they care about sucks for two hours.
But Rosa T. Sheng, the founder of Equity by Design and “The Missing 32% Project”, rejects this notion out of hand when discussing her project. On a rainy, snowy, icy morning in Boston (the weather really couldn’t decide what would make a trip to Boston the most difficult, so it decided to throw everything it had at us instead), with a crowd of around 72 (stubborn weather-denying New England) people, Sheng asked everyone in attendance not to play the blame game. Not only is it an impossible and somewhat unfair exercise, she argued, but it doesn’t solve any of the current problems that she desperately wants to tackle. “Equity by Design,” she finished “is not an attempt at blame, but an attempt at change”.
“Equity by Design,” she finished “is not an attempt at blame, but an attempt at change”.
And thanks to the message “The Missing 32% Project” and Sheng have been spreading, things are beginning to change in the architectural community, even if it’s just in awareness. At the original symposium, only two men out of several hundred women had signed up to attend. At the meeting Builtr attended, there were thirteen. Slow progress, yes, but progress nonetheless. The incredible irony was not lost on us; the premise of “The Missing 32% Project” is that despite the fact that 50% of graduates from accredited architecture programs are women, the number of women who are licensed architects hovers between 15% and 18%. Where, then, have those 32% of female graduates gone? For those of you who weren’t mathletes in high school and haven’t already figured it out, the percentage of male architects at the Equity by Design Discussion was 18%. If 50% of architecture graduates are men (and much more than 50% of licensed architects are men), then men were the missing 32% at this presentation. Are the two missing 32%s related? We think so.
The presentation given by Sheng was well put together, interesting, and informative. It was an exploration of how architects are recruited, how they are retained and promoted, and where people find satisfaction and happiness in the industry. The surveys were conducted online and sent out as a link to architects around the country.
We will post a link to the findings page at the end of this article, but for now, here are a few of the ones we found the most interesting.
Although men are more satisfied in general in their job positions, it’s still important to note that in both groups less than 50% of architects are satisfied with their work.
Women are actually ahead of men in leadership positions in the early years of their careers — however, they start to fall behind once they’ve worked in the field for over ten years. And despite their start in leadership positions, women on average still make less money than men.
What gives architects a sense of meaning and satisfaction in their career. And what makes people leave the field?
Yet our favorite part of the presentation was the hour set aside for discussions and questions among the audience. Women shared their stories of their careers as architects and discussed where they had encountered problems with gender bias. One woman mentioned that although women did have some leadership in architecture firms, often it felt as though the female supervisors were there to “babysit” the male talent. This remark was met with murmurs of agreement from both sexes, and led to a discussion of the negative impacts such bias had on the entire industry — after all, if only 50% of graduates are being considered for talent, the industry is robbing itself of the potential inherent in the other 50%.
And although 32% of men were missing from the audience, those that did attend made important and eye-opening points, particularly in terms of how to discuss gender inequality effectively. We started this article by exploring potential reasons people are loath to discuss gender, or attend a presentation about equity in the workplace — and there are real reasons. And here at Builtr, we think that learning how to effectively discuss these issues, how to bring more people into the conversations, is almost as important as the conversations themselves. After all, a discussion isn’t worth much if everyone agrees on everything said — unless you just want to stroke egos for a while.
So how do we get the missing 32% of male architects to care about the missing 32% female architects? Sheng made a great point in avoiding the blame game; as she said “Equity is everyone’s problem, and a fault of the industry, not of one gender over the other.” One of the male attendees also made the point that a lot of men don’t or don’t want to realize that there is a problem. Most men today view themselves as progressive thinkers — they grew up in the 70’s, after all — and don’t realize how deeply they (and everyone) is affected by implicit bias and dominant culture. It’s never fun to admit that you might not be as progressive as you thought, but it’s something that needs to happen in order for more people to take gender discussions more seriously. The man ended his comments by saying that in his experience, when teams are more gender diverse, they are more effective.
We have to focus on solving this problem, rather than feeling angry or ashamed for the roles we feel others, and even ourselves, have played in it.
Recognizing a gap in your progressive thinking is not meant to be a sudden realization of the evil of the male race, or the superiority of women over men. It’s not about saying men and women are equally good at everything or exactly the same, because that is scientifically incorrect. And it certainly isn’t about finding a flaw in oneself. It’s about saying, “Hey, we are working as an industry in the shadow of 19th and 20th century male-driven design, and that affects what we value in the present”.
And it’s not about lecturing men for their cardinal sin of being born a man. That’s not fair, and is going to drive far more people away from the conversation than towards it. We have to focus on solving this problem, rather than feeling angry or ashamed for the roles we feel others, and even ourselves, have played in it.
Which brings us to our closing comments on this article, as well as the comment that closed the Equity by Design presentation. A woman, prefacing her comments by saying that she realized what she was saying was likely inflammatory, said that if you were a man trying to enter this discussion, sometimes you had to just “Shut up and listen.” “Shut up and listen” was said multiple times, sometimes in anger, other times in desperation. And while we understand this sentiment, and this request, we cannot stand behind this statement. First of all, not that many men are talking about this anyways, so shutting up would probably be a little superfluous. Secondly, no one likes being told to shut up. Telling someone to shut up is to discount what they are saying, to tell them, effectively, that they and their opinions do not matter. We cannot disagree more with this. If gender equality is everyone’s problem, then everyone is allowed to have an opinion. We can’t have it both ways. Should men listen to women when discussing this issue — yes, because they experience the majority of the bias. But they should not shut up. They should be a valued part of the conversation. If we could change the closing comment of the presentation, it would be to ask men and women to please, please listen. Please listen to the stories of the bias and sexism women are telling. Don’t ignore it because it’s uncomfortable or difficult or because you’re scared of encountering anger or sadness or desperation.
Please listen.
