“I earnestly ask the Directors to consider whether it was wise to admit women at all unless they have achieved some signal distinction in the profession,” Boston architect C. H. Blackall wrote to the secretary of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1907. “Signal distinction” was not a requirement for AIA membership as detailed by the organization’s bylaws. Blackall was recommending a higher standard for membership for female architects.

A history of discrimination

The particular woman who Blackall was trying to keep out of the AIA was Ida Annah Ryan, an architect who had accrued six years of experience—although Blackhall described her as “entirely untried as an architect”–before becoming the first woman to earn a masters degree from MIT’s architecture program in 1906. “I do not believe she is a proper person yet to become a member of the Institute,” Blackall wrote.

Perhaps it rankled Blackall that one of the three AIA members signing in support of Ryan’s application was also a woman. Lois Lilley Howe, a successful architect in the Boston area, had been admitted as an AIA member in 1901. Blackall speculated that Howe had only gained admittance to the AIA “because members who voted on her thought Lois was a man’s name.” Howe met the stated qualifications for membership and she went on to achieve the signal distinction of becoming an AIA Fellow in 1931. While Blackall was unable to thwart Howe, the AIA did reject Ryan’s membership application that year, and two more times. Ryan persisted and had a successful career. How much more successful she would have been without having to overcome gender bias is impossible to say.

Addressing bias today

Today, the gatekeepers in the profession are still overwhelmingly male. Men accounted for 79 percent of partners and principals at architecture firms in 2019 while 66 percent of licensed architects were male, according to the AIA. “There are several commonly held views explaining the lack of women in the field,” a 2016 AIA report summarized. One of these is that women “are neither paid as well nor promoted as often as their male peers.”

In their recent New York Times opinion piece “This Is How Everyday Sexism Could Stop You From Getting That Promotion,” Jessica Nordell and graphic designer Yaryna Serkez illustrate the accumulating impact of gender bias on women’s careers. A computer simulation showed that when equally skilled male and female employees start at the same level, if the woman faces a 3 percent gender bias it will take her 8.5 years to reach the highest level that her male colleague reaches in just 4 years. This is true across professions.

In architecture, women perceive gender bias at far greater rates than men do (see the graphic below). This creates a recurring condition: More men become firm leaders more quickly than women because of gender bias; overwhelmingly male firm leaders, when unaware of gender bias, don’t implement measures to reduce bias in hiring and promotion; gender bias persists. Women leave the profession. Men continue to dominate it. And so on.

One tool for disrupting this cycle is the Women’s Leadership Edge webinar “Interrupting Bias in Performance Evaluations” recommended by the AIA’s Equitable Compensation Guide. Nordell’s book The End of Bias: A Beginning is another resource. In her opinion article, Nordell summarized a few solutions like mentoring women and establishing fair and transparent criteria for promotion.

But while these strategies have potential, creating policies is not enough. Nordell writes, “Interventions make a difference, but only if leaders commit to them.” Joan C. Williams describes other tools in her book Bias Interrupted: Creating Inclusion for Real and for Good. In her related opinion piece, Williams explains how to generate metrics to identify where in the hiring process diversity falls off and how to use the information to correct for bias.

In 1907, gender bias was explicit. Today, it is insidious. It is past time for firm leaders to commit to creating and implementing fair systems for hiring, pay, and promotion, and for the women, men, and others who work for these leaders to insist that they do so.

This article was republished with the permission of Linda Reeder, writer of The Architectress. View the original article here.

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