Liz Ogbu: The Latest Architecture and News

Women think, plan and construct our buildings and cities, our living spaces. However, gender equality is not yet a reality in various social and professional practices. We see this in the face of physical and psychological violence suffered by women, lack of recognition, occupational impositions, wage differences, and so many others. This panorama concerns women from all over the world, but also within the architecture there are statistics that prove how women are still not socially and professionally valued.

Inside this framework of devaluation and inequality, black women face an even greater panorama of invisibility. The racial prejudice rooted in our society, as well as the still segmented opportunities generate a disparity of quantity and recognition of black professionals in the classes and areas of action of Architecture and Urbanism.

Whether it be the overly-dainty posture of scale model figures or the assumptions of being the in-house decorator, the portrayal of women in architecture is often one of subservience. Despite Despina Stratigakos' hands-on efforts behind Architect Barbie or the global impacts of the legacy of starchitect Zaha Hadid, there continues to be a lack of visibility of women in the profession.

In a recent article in the New York Times, writer Allison Arieff poses the echoed question that the architectural community keeps asking itself, "Where are all the female architects?" No longer an issue of uneven gender ratios in architectural schooling, the persistence of dwindling numbers of women principals at the top of firms simply does not resonate. She postulates, that perhaps more significant than the statistics, the real problem lies in the definition of success.