A feminist AIBU! :D

[HecateGoddessOfTheNight]

My son's homework.

Architects.

Choose one of these famous architects - describe their work, give background info etc etc

The list?

All male. Every one.

I made him do his project on Zaha Hadid instead.

AIBU?

Good for you, even if it turned out to be less than rebellious . My god the "follow the rules, follow the rules, you must follow the rules" responses depressed me, really did anyone anywhere really change anything by following the fucking rules.

Architecture is unusual in that AFAIK, unlike other artistic or scientific disciplines there really isn't a groundbreaking woman until after the feminist movement - that woman is Zaha Hadid, but she's on her own and many criticise her work.

The reason the list was 'All male. Every one.' is because, unfortunately, it's a list of undisputedly significant architects. Just googling a few quite goodish women architects is totally counterproductive because their work will be unfairly held up against Wren or whoever and found wanting.

There will be more great women architects, I'm sure. But let's not pretend there have been plenty and they're being ignored.

Yes, it wouldn't have taken much effort for the teacher to come up with a more representative list of "examples." Not only are they all blokes, they are all white European, bar one.

I don't see the problem with saying 'there are women architects but they're not usually thought to be as good as Wren', though?

FWIW, people used to look at Jane Austen and say - well, she's a woman writer, one of the few (ha!), not really comparable to the great men.

Good for you, Hecate. I don't think you need to worry about being "professionally offended" - more that you're being a good parent by applying 2 miliseconds of critical thinking to what's put in front of you, and finding it wanting in terms of teaching your child about the world.

I've developed something akin to a calorie counting habit, but involving constantly keeping tally of the number of women speaking/stories about women on the news, women on panel games, women's names in lists of "best [whatever]. I saw a trailer for some BBC season about America the other day which involved cheerleaders chanting the names of famous Americans. I'd need to hear it again but I heard two women's names (Marilyn Monroe and Harper Lee) out of literally dozens of male ones. I'd say there are genuinely hundreds of famous American women who are household names (so no-one can say "well there are so few to choose from), but at the moment few people are going to notice that 90% of those featured are blokes.

Imagine how quickly people would notice if they focussed on 90% women. I'd love it if for once a teacher sent home a list of (for instance) poets for children to find out about, and they were all women, and the fact that they were all women wasn't at all the point of the exercise. It was just presented as a "neutral" list like the one Hecate's child was given.

Well I'm sure that as long as schools keep sending home all-male lists of great architects, there won't be any great women architects in the future to add to the list. Vicious circle.

'Well I'm sure that as long as schools keep sending home all-male lists of great architects, there won't be any great women architects in the future to add to the list. Vicious circle.'

This is total nonsense. Many, many women are training and working as architects right now. They would be able to tell you, as I am, that there really, really haven't been any women architects worthy of that list - with the possible exception of Zaha who doesn't yet have history's blessing. There will undoubtedly be many great women architects of the future who will be able to be ranked here in time.

It may be true that over the ages women have been sketching fabulous edifices in their parlours that would rank alongside Gaudi. However, we are unable to judge them because unlike artists materials, construction requires a lot of money and people wouldn't previously have been prepared to back a woman's vision.

This kind of thread is the worst possible sort of feminist bullshit and the reason so many people dislike Feminism. It gives feminists a bad name. With a total lack of knowledge of the subject, there's a desire to reinvent the past with an agenda, and everyone who knows anything about architecture can see this to be bollocks.

Get over the rage. Accept that women haven't achieved as much as men in the past in certain areas such as this one, but that there's no reason to believe that they can't in the future.

"This kind of thread is the worst possible sort of feminist bullshit "

Well, that's me slapped into my place ouch.

Fair enough. I just felt that it matters.

lemon, that's a bit harsh.

I dunno about anyone else, but I admitted my ignorance, and asked about how canons were formed. You saying 'duh, idiot, they're just like obvious' (in effect) makes me think that either architecture is totally un-subjective and therefore a very boring form of engineering (is it? Surely not!), or that you're just not willing to answer my question and challenge the established canon. And that makes me a bit bemused because I was hoping you'd share your knowledge.

Oh, I don't care. I respect Lemon's pov. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and I'd never try to tell another woman that her view of feminism was less worthy / right than mine. I accept her criticism.

I just don't agree. I think that there ARE great women architects and they deserve to be on a list!

If it was dead great architects of the 10th century then maybe an all male list would be fair enough. It was what it was. But it is a list that goes to the modern day.

When there are women doing it and doing it well. I disagree that it is rewriting history to want that acknowledged.

Total nonsense eh Lemon? Back at you. It's basic common sense that young children need role models to look up to, and in this gendered world with nonsensical Pinker/Baron Cohen crap that girls are intellectually inferior to boys in the areas of which you speak, that girls need some confidence boost, they need to know that they too are capable.

As for reinventing history - no one said that. That's just in your warped little mind of what you like to think feminism is. But unless you're going to actually sit girls down and tell them WHY "women haven't achieved as much as men" (let me see... actual laws banning them from doing so, lack of education, restrictive social expectations, childbearing, widespread belief that women were intellectually inferior and had no soul) which might make for a very heavy lesson indeed, then you need to have a bit of sympathy for that girl who has some potential and needs to know that she might one day make that list and not just tell her to "get over it". Nice.

'It's basic common sense that young children need role models to look up to'

Well, what's wrong with looking up to Da Vinci?! Are you insisting that little girls can't look up to him? That he isn't enough?

Architecture is a beautiful, influential, amazing subject and is already inspiring many many women. My father was an architect, employed female architects, and taught students of both genders. My ex-P was an architect. The construction industry is a very masculine place but design isn't. Whatever, Architecture is worthy of more respect than just becoming the broth in which to float your agenda. There's an assumption here that women have been 'excluded' - they haven't. You want to subvert a list with women's names the teacher has googled but that when held up don't match the greatness of the others on the list. That just makes everyone look bad.

Women Architects of The Future/Potential Design Geniuses Who May be Reading This: you can do it. I am truly sorry no-one let you on stage to design the Acropolis, or the House of Lords. But that was then, and this is now, so don't let it put you off. (But if you find time, the architects on that list really are worth studying).

lemon, do you have a sense of who constructed these canons? Is there a good book you could recommend?

I wonder if that wouldn't be a good way to teach it actually - I mean, naturally if men and women are trained to do different things, they will also make different aesthetic judgments, won't they? I'd really love to know if women always genuinely appreciated the architecture or not, but maybe we don't know?

The bit that I though was unreasonable was "I made him do his project on Zaha Hadid instead".

Suggesting that there are alternatives is good. Forcing him to do his project on your choice of architect is unreasonable and may lead to resentment later on if is choices are imposed by you whenever you want it done from your feminist perspective.

Is it fair and reasonable to deny him the liberty that his classmates have in choosing for themselves?

Please dont make your son resent feminism in later years. Ramming your views down his throat regardless of any choice he might make will surely achieve that.

I can totally understand why the earlier architects are all women. But five out of that list are modern. It wouldn't have been terribly hard to add one or two women. There are several articles on famous modern female architects, and flipping through the wikipeadia pages on some of the modern men on the list their buildings don't look terribly interesting so I don't really know why they were all picked. I like architecture, but really one tower block is much the same as another.

Role models do matter. Of course you can be inspired by anyone, but knowing that 'someone like you' has succeeded is very important too.

Depends on how you "made" him do it

W, I pushed it I said I thought if what they wanted was a ground breaking architect, then the best one I could think of (after much private googling!) was zaha hadid, who was the very first woman EVER to get the Pritzker Architecture Prize. (architecture's equivalent of the nobel prize! according to google!) and I thought that made her an excellent choice for his project.

Is there a prize for the first 'why don't you feminists campaign about something I think is important instead of what you think?' Suggestions for prize?

"This kind of thread is the worst possible sort of feminist bullshit and the reason so many people dislike Feminism. It gives feminists a bad name."

I think someone says that on every thread, don't they?

I know sod all about architecture. But I saw a brilliant quote today, which may or may not be relevant:

"Power is the ability to define reality and to have other people respond to your definition as if it were their own"

Good eh?

I have to say, I completely agree with Lemon's point of view on this.

Although I'm a lurker on here and so only read and absorb opinions as opposed to voice them, I pretty much always agree with the feminist standpoint (not to suggest that there is a feminist standpoint; just as opposed to the trolls, stirrer, trouble-maker ad dissenter-for-the-sake of it standpoint).

However... "it wouldn't have taken much effort for the teacher to come up with a more representative list of "examples." Not only are they all blokes, they are all white European, bar one."

This just doesn't make sense to me. What would be the point of a 'representative' list if half the list were unknowns with no significant portfolio behind them?

This isn't to say that the future isn't paving a creative and amazing way for female architects. Just that the vast majority of significant and ground-breaking architectural ouvre thus far has been done by men.

And some of the comments on this thread just go to show - as has freely been admitted in some cases - a complete knowledge gap when it comes to architecture... 'the rest of the list would have been a non-event'? 'One tower block is the same as another'?

I have to agree - and I so rarely say this - it is exactly this sort of thing which has people switching off and disassociating themselves from feminism. :(

slinking - since you do know about architecture, could you tell me, how did the conventions for judging 'good' architecture come to be?

I admitted above (I NC but I'm EllaDee) that I don't know about architecture. I would like to. I'd especially like to know whether (like most other arts), it's a subject where historically, the standard of what's good and what's not has been mostly decided by men. If it is, it'd be kind of nice to go back and reassess what women did and see whether we like it or not. Children at school often have very fresh ideas of what's good and what's not.

I find it really fascinating how ideas of what is aesthetically pleasing change so much (not just in response to feminism obviously). People in all sorts of disciplines used to say 'but this work is just not so good as a man's work'. What changes is not the work, obviously, but the standards people have. People in the past aren't always right and we don't have to agree with them.

I am not sure if YABU or not as I don't know enough about architecture to know if there are women of stature amongst them. BUT I disagree with other posters that YABU to encourage your son to do something other than that which he was set. We MUST bring up our children to question and challenge the status quo where it is wrong. If we just go along with things because a figure of authority says it, even when in our hearts we disagree, then we will never change anything for the better. Think of those psychology experiments that involved electrocuting people and everyone went along with it until ONE stood up for the victims.

Anon (didn't realise you were Ella - I always agree with your posts, for what it's worth!) - I don't really know much about architecture; my Dad is one, and now works in built heritage and preservation and I grew up around a lot of architects. My own knowledge is pretty scant.

From my own point of view, the work of many architects isn't necessarily aesthetically pleasing, at least initially. It is often very original and ground-breaking though, and often only once a style has become accepted and even familiar that it actually becomes appealing to the eye.

One tower block is the same as another, yes. But the first tower blocks were remarkable in their design, engineering and foresight. Subsequent ones in the way the various techniques were honed. I feel like this is stating the obvious - apologies.

It is very subjective. I really don't get Gaudi at all. :-/ Yet so many people jump on the bandwagon adore his style. The thing is, to me anyway, architecture is about so much more than just style, it's also about how we live and how we see ourselves. Architects like FLW designing bungalows and revolutionising the way families exist in their very habitat, for example. So what is considered 'good' isn't just about the way something looks, but how it works as well.

But yes, these 'conventions' and standards probably were defined by men for the most part. Wholly though? I doubt it. Do architectural styles dictate fashion, or does fashion dictate style? Art Deco, for example - who influenced who (whom?!). This style emerged in the 1920s when female fashion designers were coming to the fore and I think it's fair to say that there was probably some mutual appreciation going on.

I think that's the sort of thing I was getting at ... that it is subjective, and that you can 'get your eye in'.

I agree with you it's pretty hard to tell where fashions begin (though plenty of fashion designers are men, aren't they?) and end.

I wasn't saying these conventions are wholly defined by men (in fact, I just asked a question about it). But dominantly so. We still live in a patriarchical society. 500 years ago it was a very strongly misogynistic patriarchial society. I just feel it's maybe missing something to accept the aesthetic and value-based criteria of those societies without questioning it.

Besides which, as a child you need to develop your own eye for what you like, I think.