Women designing and planning for social equality

Descriptive accounts of the lack of evidence of women’s participation and its material implications are no longer major trends in gender analysis in the construction industry. Rather, there is an increasing interest in understanding how practitioners’ positionality in society as women influenced their work. Therefore, the aim of the one-day conference is to explore the ways in which women in spatial practices initiated or have been involved in rethinking practice, questioning theory, and taking space. As a result, their positionality as women and their political commitment guided their praxis towards fostering social participation and improving the everyday life of those usually inhabiting the margins of society.

The conference welcomes papers that address historical and current examples, discussions or other aspects that illustrate the social and political responsibility held by women in the built environment. Considering the topics investigated, the conference will serve as a platform to discuss theories of social reproduction, intersectionality, Marxist feminism, and Bourdieusian forms of capital; although submissions exploring other theoretical approaches are welcome.

Contributions will be organised into three principal areas: space, theory and publishing, and archives.
The first session will explore how women engaged in spatial practices took/are taking a stance in confronting gender bias in the places of social reproduction. These challenges can be analysed at different scales: domestic, local, and urban.
The second session will consider the implications of being at the margins of the history and discourse of architectural practice. For example, if women are segregated into assumed female sectors and roles, how could they contribute to the definition of the architectural ‘canon’?
The third and last session aims to question the concept of ‘archive’ and offer alternative readings of the past and the present where interpersonal relationships, in particular gendered ones, hold a fundamental role in the definition of design and planning disciplines.