Two issues of A&B this year, the April and June issues, were devoted to the architectural profession with special emphasis on women in the profession. Having held various positions in the SARP and the Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland for many years, I took the liberty of scribbling a few words about the situation of women in our profession, trying to objectify the problem on the basis of my own experience.
Having access to reasonably precise figures, admittedly for the Silesian province, but representative of the country due to its size, it is necessary to start looking at the problem from a dispassionate, yet objective, unemotional statistic. At the three Faculties of Architecture operating in the Silesian province, two of which have master's degree programs, the percentage of female students is about 50 percent with a slight upward trend, with about two hundred and twenty graduates per year in the master's degree program in Architecture .
At this stage, professional achievements are absolutely symmetrical. In the last 14 editions of the SARP competition, the annual Zbyszek Zawistowski "Diploma of the Year" Award, the top prize was won by seven women and seven men, i.e. at the professional start, creative design achievements are perfectly distributed 50 percent each. The next step in the professional path is to obtain a design license. In the Silesian District Chamber of Architects, the third largest district chamber in Poland, the results for 2019 were as follows: in 2019, seventy-one architects, including thirty-seven women, were licensed in the Silesian District Chamber of Architects as a result of passing the exam; in2018 seventy including thirty-three women, in 2017 ninety-two including fifty-seven women, that is, at this stage there remained further parity of about 50% with a small advantage of women. Since these values have been stable for several years, they mean that only one-third of master's graduates in architectural studies obtain licenses. The architectural profession is, of course, not limited to strictly design activities, there remains interior design, urban planning, administrative work, computer graphics, etc., but already at this stage two-thirds of both men and women remain outside the design mainstream, and this situation has remained stable for eight or nine years. Three to four years elapse between obtaining a diploma and completing the necessary professional internships preceding the exam, which means that during this period the career paths of men and women are still symmetrical.
Disparities
Disproportionality occurs a little later, as indicated by the membership data of our Chamber. The Silesian Regional Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland currently has one thousand five hundred and twelve members, including five hundred and twenty-nine women, or 35 percent. This clearly means that the "churning out" of women from the profession generally takes place as soon as they are qualified. A simple calculation shows that for every one hundred women receiving a master's degree in architecture, only twenty-two of them remain in the profession as active (being members of the Chamber of Architects). By the time of the licensing exam, that is, on average, until around the age of thirty (this is the largest age group taking the exam), the number of women and men in the profession is exactly 50 percent. The problem arises before the age of thirty, which is obviously related to the divergence of the path of family and professional life. After obtaining the qualification comes the time of decision to open your own design company, which requires a huge commitment of time and emotion, and devoting all the energy of life to this. Often it is also the time of motherhood, which, especially with young children, requires an equally huge commitment. The lack of a state policy in this regard and leaving the woman alone results in women "chipping away" at their profession or postponing the decision to fully engage in their own professional activities. After such a break, women who have a "lag" compared to men are no longer able to make up professionally for lost time. Hence, the return to the profession takes place on a smaller scale, both in terms of the size of their own offices or studios and the size of the subjects already occupied by fellow architects in the meantime. Confirmation of this fact from my observations is the lack of larger studios run by women in our Silesian market. This is also proven by a statistic I made - not very accurate, but nevertheless -. I counted the names of Polish female architects in twelve issues of A&B from 2019. Out of three hundred and six names, authors of completed buildings, projects, competition entries, conference panelists, etc., women's names were mentioned ninety-eight times which is 32 percent. This statistic, which may not be entirely objective, and may partly be considered a joke, nevertheless confirms the "chamber" data given above.
