How to Cite: Cireddu, Alessandra, Karen Hinojosa and Zaida Muxí Martínez. "Inclusive Learning for Architectural Practice. Gender, City, and Architecture". Dearq no. 40 (2024): 4-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq40.2024.01
How to Cite: Cireddu, Alessandra, Karen Hinojosa and Zaida Muxí Martínez. "Inclusive Learning for Architectural Practice. Gender, City, and Architecture". Dearq no. 40 (2024): 4-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq40.2024.01
Alessandra Cireddu
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Karen Hinojosa
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Zaida Muxí Martínez
Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
This article explores how integrating feminisms and a gender perspective in pedagogy for urban design and planning can create more equitable and just spaces. A critical literature review reveals the need to revisit the history, values, and methods of teaching architecture and urbanism. The results highlight the importance of pedagogical, architectural, and urban projects and critical methodologies that foster empathy and recognize care as an essential foundation of society, thus promoting more inclusive and habitable environments for all people.
Keywords: Architecture, urbanism, teachings, feminisms, gender, critical pedagogy.
This special issue of Dearq contains a diverse group of voices who share the firm conviction that integrating feminisms and a gender perspective in pedagogy for design and urban planning will result in powerful forces for the creation of more equitable and just spaces, respond to unconsidered needs due to the patriarchal and sexist bias in knowledge.
The first quarter of the 21st century is coming to a close, a period marked by critical challenges and social, climatic, economic, and political crises, interwoven with gender inequalities. At a time when city living has become increasingly complex, it is imperative to teach how to think about space, time, displacement, and habitation.
At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, women began fighting for their right to higher education while at the same time questioning the lack of representation and the discrimination in the classroom (Perkins Gilman 1898; De Beauvoir 1965; Freire 2005) and analyzing how the educational structures and practices influenced the construction of gender and perpetuated inequality (Hinojosa y Cireddu 2023).
Knowledge and learning must be situated (Haraway 2013) on the basis of our own personal experiences while recognizing the multiple situations of inequality and oppression (De la Cerda 2023), which is why rewriting history and incorporating other pedagogical criteria and methods is essential (hooks 2007).
The crises of the first quarter of the 21st century require a change in the approach, contents, and objectives of built environment education. For this change to be effective, it is crucial to incorporate feminist perspectives and gender methodologies. Despite the progress made in the social sciences, the fields of architecture, urbanism, and design still have a long way to go.
In the 1970s, with the rise of political feminism, women began to establish a presence in universities. This right was only granted to them at the turn of the 21st century and took hold in the doctoral programs during the 1960s. It was in these positions of academic authority that women began to narrate and construct their own history, including their role in science.
When studying the relationship between gender and science, it is important to examine the methodological strategies that enable a feminist reconstruction of scientific knowledge. This implies not only recognizing the role of women in knowledge production but also identifying and eliminating the gender bias that exists in science and in scientific theory. Diana Maffia refers to the work of Londa Schiebinger, who revealed how gender, class, and racial prejudice has influenced the research of the fathers of modern science, affecting the classification and descriptions of human beings, plants, and animals. This critical approach reveals how scientists, as privileged members of society, create images and explanations of nature that reinforce their own cultural values and positions.
Deconstructing and reconstructing scientific knowledge from a feminist perspective implies reinterpreting science with the objective of contributing to the emancipation of women. This requires conceiving science as a communal construct, influenced by diverse social variables and not only by disciplinary parameters. The knowledge produced must be accessible and relevant for society and not restricted solely to the academic world (Maffía 2022). The use of this situated knowledge of identity and culture is based on a combination of know why, theorical or episteme, and know how, practical or téchne (Zebracki 2020).
In line with this perspective, the integration of non-androcentric, feminine, and non-heteronormative models into the study plans, exhibits, and histories of architecture in academia. This provides a more complete and diverse outlook on history and also empowers the women who graduate in these fields, better preparing them to face the professional challenges that they will encounter (Stratigakos 2016). It is important to remember that the gender wage gap in OECD countries stands at 11.9% on average (OECD 2023) but can reach double that percentage in the social sciences, due to horizontal segregation, where women are concentrated into lower paying jobs and, vertical segregation, which limits their opportunities for career progression (Rorke-Wickins y Wilson, 2009; Clark 2012; Nikkhah Manesh 2020; Sánchez de Madariaga 2021). In this context, a situated review of the history of women architects highlights the wealth and importance of their contributions and opens the door to greater equity and recognition of women in the field.
The invisibility of women is evident in architectural studies. Despite their important contributions, the names of women such as Marion Mahony, Jane Drew, Eileen Grey, Charlotte Perriand, Jane Jacobs, Aino Aalto, Lilly Reich, Denise Scott Brown, and Carme Pinós are rarely mentioned in academic literature. When acknowledged, they are frequently defined by their relationship to masculine figures, or their gender is erased by reducing their names to their initials or last names. This culture suppression plays a part in their names not being remembered, reflecting a systematic undervaluation of their contributions (Muxí 2018).
Leading historical texts, like Historia crítica de la arquitectura moderna by Kenneth Frampton, whose first edition came out in 1980 and continues to be reprinted today, and Modern Architecture since 1900, written by William Curtis in 1982, also continuously reprinted, barely mention women architects, which highlights the inequality and demonstrates the persistence of the problem. The lack of women in reference books not only perpetuates their lack of recognition, but also limits the capacity of professors, both men and women, to provide a more complete education. It is therefore imperative to develop and adopt an expanded bibliography that makes visible the contributions of women architects, urbanists, and thinkers.
If, on one hand, it is crucial to foster and promote the active participation of women at all levels, supporting their presence in the classrooms as professors, in bibliographies, etc., it is also necessary, on the other hand, to more fully integrate a gender perspective in the educational experience. This requires proposing reflections and exercises that reverse the traditional way of seeing things to broaden the perspective and the voices and propose case studies and research methods with a gender perspective. Feminist pedagogy calls for learning that is committed to engaging with self in a continuing reflective process, engaging with the study materials, collaborating to overcome prejudice and discrimination, and working with the community and social movements for social change (Shrewsbury 1987).
By focusing on collaboration, active listening, and facilitation, feminist pedagogy practices not only transform educational environments but also achieve tangible results in the areas of public art and exhibitions. These artistic manifestations serve as extensions of the educational processes, enabling the critical knowledge and reflections to transcend the classroom and reach the general population. They also facilitate care by creating environments that foster well-being and inclusion. These excursions promote continuous and accessible education, wherein art becomes a vehicle for questioning and re-imagining social and cultural structures. The public art and exhibitions that emerge from the feminist pedagogy practices act as democratizing platforms, engaging diverse communities in dialogue about identity, power, and social justice.
Given the significant social stratification at the high school level, the incorporation of a gender perspective in the study plans has been uneven at this level of education. Institutions vary greatly in the number of available recourses and in their approaches, affecting the effective implementation of educational policies to promote gender equality. At the highest levels of academic training, the incorporation of content with a gender perspective responds more to the logic of the discipline. This means that the university study programs are designed to delve into specific topics in each academic field. If the included contents are to achieve their potential to transform education, they should be integrated at both the curricular and institutional levels. This requires robust governance and the support of crosscutting competencies, such as critical thinking, collaboration, and systems thinking (Carney y Carty 2024). This is even more difficult in the case of qualifying degrees, such as architecture degrees in most Latin American countries, as the specific technical and professional training adds another layer of complexity to the integration of a gender perspective.
Integrating gender and sexuality in the teaching of architecture, urbanism, and design, promoting open-mindedness, experimentation, and adaptability, also entails risks and resistance. To address this situation, it is crucial to establish inter-university support networks and obtain the support of the university (Vallerand 2018). Since each academic context is different, it is difficult to provide specific universally applicable recommendations or methods. However, by examining different disruptive techniques we can suggest innovative ways to address this resistance.
The articles selected address the questions about the dominant narratives in architecture and urbanism from different standpoints, emphasizing the need to challenge the alleged neutrality of the spaces and methods with which we work. This critique, reflection, and transformation of domestic and public spaces reveals the persistence of stereotypical gender roles and proposes new forms of occupying these spaces. The articles presented herein raise awareness about the marginalized or peripheral experiences and spaces not only in the home or in the city, but also in education.
Another recurrent theme in this issue is the integration of intersectional perspectives on gender as well as other axes of inequality, such as race, class, and sexuality. This comprehensive approach is needed to offer effective solutions to society's different spatial needs. This diversity is also reflected in the classroom, where education becomes particularly important to those students who are facing multiple forms of oppression and discrimination. In these cases, education acts as an empowerment tool, developing the skills needed to question and transform oppressive structures in their future professional practice.
The articles suggest methodologies, including personal and community narratives, field work, experiential learning dynamics, trips to the regions with a gender perspective, participatory action research, group discussions, collaborative community workshops, temporary urban interventions, technical assistance, self-construction processes and learning based on projects that are carefully selected for specific contexts. These methodologies establish strong connections between theory, academic practice, and action that make it possible to take the knowledge acquired in the classroom and the streets and apply it to real projects that promote spatial justice.
An underlying topic in several of the articles is the need to create supportive environments in educational settings. Addressing mental health and well-being without losing sight of both the additional burdens that those who study or teach may have to assume and the impact of trauma, stress, and marginalization in the learning process. In other words, reflecting about care also requires creating safe learning spaces where each person is respected. With regard to the projects selected for this double issue, we sought examples that supported and promoted the types of care shared, on different scales. We have aimed to select projects that range from detailed and ephemeral to the planning stage.
We asked Laura Pérez Castaño to write a framework document on the care policies in place in cities, to substantiate the projects chosen, exemplifying the material application of ideas. Pérez Castaño prepared a historical and theoretical reflection about care in cities, in planning and in mobility, based on the conviction that feminist urbanism should place life and care at the center of urban decisions and practices.
In the issue's Creation section, Aracelia Barbero and Ximena Ocampo increase our understanding of urban life, exposing bodies and activities that are frequently invisible, turning walking and observing into acts of resistance and transforming public spaces into live narratives.
Addressing gender issues is not just "women's work" (Fincher 2007, 5). Gender does not mean talking about women, but rather speaking about the binary, complementary, and exclusive roles that our societies are based on. The female gender, assigned and realized primarily by women, is responsible for care work, sustaining life. A role that often goes unrecognized but is yet essential. Therefore, situating care at the center of learning about architecture, design, and urbanism is crucial for achieving an equitable, egalitarian, and just society. This is a shared and essential responsibility. In the classroom, this implies a pedagogical dialogue that combines critical reflection and critical action. It encourages the students to question their social conditions and develop the capacity to self-manage individually and collectively (Peters 2016).
For hooks (1990), the concept of yearning is a deep and persistent desire for connection, justice, and social change. This requires focusing on our position in relation to the structures that generate change. Our commitment in this issue is clear: to inspire and empower academic and professional communities to reflect on how the design of the built environment can influence the creation of more inclusive and habitable cities for everyone. It is a call to action to redefine our teaching practices to embrace the diversity of voices that comprise our cities.