How to Cite: Sobrero, Florencia. "Femingas, a Feminist (De)construction Tool". Dearq no. 40 (2024): 73-80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq40.2024.08
How to Cite: Sobrero, Florencia. "Femingas, a Feminist (De)construction Tool". Dearq no. 40 (2024): 73-80. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq40.2024.08
Florencia Sobrero
Taller General – Femingas
Received: November 29, 2023 | Accepted: June 14, 2024
This research paper presents an experiential map drawn from my experience as an architect, aiming to understand the barriers, challenges, tools, and alternatives encountered in the practice of construction and spatial modification alongside women and sexual and gender dissidents.
I propose a critical lens that seeks to (de)construct traditional notions formed by gender stereotypes and binary logics. Additionally, I highlight specific cases of spatial intervention to grasp the challenges faced by those of us who seek to build. I recount the first experience of the Femingas1 as the seed of a personal and political tool.
Keywords: Gender, women, dissidents, self-construction, architecture, spatial intervention, Femingas, critique.
At the architecture studio where I work, we consider it essential to find mechanisms that allow us to "do what we love." For this reason, in every project we develop, we map out the possibilities available to us—possibilities shaped by our own motivations. These motivations are connected to two main aspects: the learning generated alongside the actors involved in the design and construction processes, and the reuse of resources to reflect on and construct spaces with an awareness of their origins and life cycles. We aim to devise actions through experimentation and play, using diverse assembly systems and actors that enable us to envision "alternative scenarios" where personal problems are politicized and transformed into shared resources.
As part of the network, we build day by day in the studio, guided by our personal motivations, I propose this research, which addresses gender inequalities in the field of construction and spatial intervention. These inequalities result from gender stereotypes that I, as an architect, face daily, manifested in the invisibility, discrediting, and displacement of women and sexual and gender dissidents2 (hereafter referred to simply as dissidents) in this context.
I find it necessary to provide background by mapping out some projects and research that support my concerns, tell stories that connect worlds, and form a crucial part of my investigation into the role of women and dissidents in construction and spatial intervention. Architect Carina Guedes de Mendonça's master's thesis (2014) "Arquitetura na periferia: Uma experiência de assessoria técnica para grupos de mulheres," examines the implementation of technical support for low-income women, providing them with design and construction tools to allow them to intervene in their own homes. The "Arquitetura na periferia"3 project is still active today and continues to offer practical and technical training to women in Brazil.
In 2022, various collectives emerged with initiatives addressing the intersection of architecture and gender from a construction practice perspective. These initiatives include: "'Constructortas: lesbianas que construyen" (Curioni 2021), a team of female builders in Santa Fe, Argentina; "Molonas: proyecto socio-productivo de mujeres en la construcción," based in Córdoba, Argentina, where women in a peripheral neighborhood work daily to create a safe learning space for developing construction techniques; and "Albañilas, construyendo sin patrones " (Cartago 2021), a women's construction team in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In rural areas, following construction workshops with the Chamanga community in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, after the 2016 earthquake that affected much of the Ecuadorian coast, we produced the documentary Hacer mucho con poco. From this experience, we concluded: "Architecture itself does not exist in these communities; it's the engineer who knows how to build, but design is not considered— there is no thought of design or architecture, only construction" (Kliwadenko and Novas 2017)4; this testimony is from my colleague, Martín Real.
These experiences arise from a Latin American regional context where self-construction rates5 far exceed those of formal construction.6Self-construction is a vital tool for many people in need of shelter, providing an alternative to meet the need in increasingly hostile urban and rural environments. This vision of architecture, informed by our work with communities—where "seventy percent of in Latin America is built informally, yet seventy percent of graduates will work in the thirty percent that is not informal, meaning we are not working where we should be providing services as architects" (Kliwadenko and Novas 2017, testimony from Kike Villacís)—shows that the majority of the population meets their housing, quality-of-life improvements, or shelter needs without architects.
The practices carried out across Latin America by women and dissidents in construction and spatial intervention offer an alternative to hegemonic and patriarchal practices. These practices are part of everyday lives and historical work, which has been rendered invisible for many years. In response to this sociocultural reality that permeates the construction and self-construction sectors, since 2020, at Taller General, we have held participatory construction meetings with a gender perspective, called Femingas. These spaces have allowed us to create a safe learning environment and access to activities where, in mixed mingas, we often felt displaced. The actions taken did not need to be on a large scale but still left us with a wealth of valuable lessons.
After conducting the first six Femingas, the COVID-19 pandemic dismantled our meeting and learning spaces, confining each of us to our own homes. By that point, Femingas had already become part of our daily lives, demonstrating that building together fostered experiences that promoted our independence and autonomy. As a result of these encounters, we began to ask ourselves: how can Femingas serve as a tool to redefine the roles of women and dissidents?
To reflect on this question, the methodology adopted throughout this article follows what Haraway (1991)7 calls the "tree of women's experience"—to which I add dissidents. Through this methodology, Haraway proposes a "noisy little analytical engine" (188) that allows us to understand the importance of the experiences/consciousness of women and dissidents "as an object of knowledge and action" (186). This praxis, both specific and personal, makes visible alternative ways of practicing architecture and traditional construction. Here, an exchange takes place, a dialogue with local materials and with ways of doing architecture that are characteristic of self-construction and community-building processes.
Through this framework, Haraway explains "how feminist theory and the critical study of colonial discourse intersect with each other in terms of two crucial binary pairs, that is, local/global and personal/political" (188). This machine operates throughout my research, allowing me to identify a local issue in Ecuador's specific social context: the displacement of women and dissidents in spatial construction, which, from a global perspective, connects to the historical relegation of women to the domestic sphere. Exploring the work conducted through this lens allows us to identify a dynamic between the concepts that shape the ways of making the historical experience of women and dissidents as alternatives that stem from resistance. Through the "analytical bush," Haraway (1991) invites us to problematize the feminist and anti-colonial discourses, and instead to navigate bifurcations that provoke affinities and connections, ultimately opening the way to construct new meanings. The Political Sphere is Domestic:
We must engage in everyday politics, reweaving the community fabric, tearing down the walls that enclose domestic spaces, and restoring the political nature of the domestic sphere inherent in communal life. From the politicization of these relational technologies will emerge a form of political action capable of redirecting history toward a greater happiness, marked by the end of humanity's patriarchal prehistory (Aíta and Arrascaeta 2018).
As Federici (2020) explains, for the past 150 years, the capitalist system has been characterized by an urgent need to perpetually produce labor power. This has resulted in the contemporary phenomenon of the "double burden," which originated during the Industrial Revolution when women were displaced from their factory jobs and confined to domestic roles. These so-called "protective" parliamentary measures were initiated by the bourgeoisie—governments and employers—as a response to the detrimental effects of 14- to 16-hour factory shifts for both men and women, including declining birth rates and rising infant mortality. These class-based regulations were implemented out of fear that the population would cease to reproduce due to physical exhaustion and reduced life expectancy. The policies, later adopted in other countries—some of which persist today in the form of a wage gaps—introduced a significant increase in men's wages, establishing the notion of the family wage8 and the nuclear family. Consequently, this forced displacement of women into the domestic sphere to promote the (re)production of labor power and child-rearing resulted in the establishment of hierarchies, dependency, and violence between wage-earning men and women rendered invisible in the public sphere (Federici 2020).
This displacement has led to the phenomenon of the "double burden", which involves performing two types of work within the same unit of time, each with distinct social characteristics: one is regarded as productive, public, paid, and performed under a wage contract, while the other is seen as (re)productive and care work, private, unpaid, invisible, and carried out within the household (Lagarde 2015). Some contemporary examples of this gap include: according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (National Institute of Statistics and Census), in February 2021, a woman employed in Ecuador earned 14.3% less than a man (INEC 2021). Additionally, according to the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Seguridad Social (Ecuadorian Social Security Institute), a pregnant person is entitled to "two weeks of rest before and ten weeks after childbirth," while "the father is entitled to ten days of paid leave for the birth of his child" (IESS 2021).
Given these figures, we can confirm that the sexual division of labor uses the notion that women "naturally" belong to the domestic-(re)productive space of care as a justification for conforming to the system's logic of productivity and reproductivity. This is how "the idea is constructed that women are disconnected from the machine, from the factory, from production, from the street, from money, and from wages. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women have always worked productively" (Lagarde 2015, 135). The construction of the "feminine" role is rooted in the deprivation of freedom, invisibility, devaluation, and oppression of women in order to maintain the capitalist-patriarchal status quo. As Rita Segato mentions in an interview with Carbajal (2017):
If in the 1960s feminism declared that 'the personal is political,' the path I propose is not a translation of the domestic into public terms, nor its assimilation into public discourse to achieve a degree of politicization or to speak in the language of the State, but rather the opposite: 'domesticate politics,' to de-bureaucratize it, and humanize it through a domestic lens, by re-politicizing domesticity.
From this perspective of self-recognition and the valuation of our everyday practices, what are the realities that women and dissidents learn within contexts of oppression? Following Segato's proposal, our lives, our daily experiences, constitute our political practice, even within our oppressed households.
When women and dissidents engage in work beyond (re)productive and care tasks, we confront gender-based discrimination that challenges us in the sphere of "formal work." In our countries, the wage gap and the underrepresentation of women and dissidents in executive or high-level positions highlight the perpetuation of marginalization and gender discrimination, extending well beyond the domestic sphere. As Lagarde notes regarding the "formal" workplace and educational spaces that we now occupy: "even under conditions of exploitation, [...] going out, earning money, [...] work and the public sphere, contractual relationships, and spatial-temporal mobility combined [...] with the exercise of the capacity for learning and the application of skills and knowledge in carrying out activities, create a less oppressive space for women" (2015, 142-143).
Thus, merely gaining access to work and public life is not enough; it is also necessary that the work environments we engage with are equitable and inclusive. Throughout this research, I reflect on the current state of the sexual division of labor within the field of construction and spatial intervention, as well as the ongoing devaluation of the empirical knowledge women and dissidents acquire over the course of our lives.
As a result of the patriarchal capitalist system, gender stereotypes are established, which impose oppressive structures, assign roles to some while excluding others, and define individuals based on various social conventions, as explained by Cook and Cusak (2009). These stereotypes possess the power to categorize us into groups of those who "can" and those who "cannot" perform certain activities. These moral and cultural constructs have been ingrained in society in numerous ways.
[...] over time, women gained access to many occupations that would later be considered masculine jobs. In medieval towns, women worked as blacksmiths, butchers, bakers, candle makers, hat makers, brewers, wool carders, and merchants [...] By the 14th century, women began to be teachers, as well as doctors and surgeons, and they also started to compete with university-trained men, sometimes earning a high reputation (Federici 2004, 49).
Many women who participated in the construction of spaces were actively involved in tasks from which they were later—with the rise of capitalism—removed and displaced into works that was designated as "chores" (duties or obligations) within the domestic sphere (Lagarde 2015).
Based on this evidence and informed by my experience as an architect, I infer that in Ecuador, leading architectural projects presents an even greater challenge, as construction teams (including master builders, masons, and laborers) are composed almost entirely of men. In this context, gender stereotypes play a significant and tangible role.
There is a clear lack of information regarding the leadership roles of women and dissidents in the construction of spaces. This gap is likely a result of their continued invisibility. Bringing these practices to light will enable us to (de)construct established structures and foster new, more inclusive perspectives.
This ability to subvert the degraded image of femininity, which has been constructed through the identification of women with nature, matter, and the body, is the strength of the 'feminist discourse on the body,' which seeks to unearth what the male control of our bodily reality has suppressed (Federici 2004, 28).
The historic center of Quito has high vacancy rates.9 At the beginning of 2020, I was looking for a place to live and became captivated by a room that was completely empty, resonating with stillness. Four white walls, a high plywood ceiling, wooden flooring, and two windows facing the street. The height of the first floor provided me with a view of the Basilica on one side and Itchimbía Park on the other. There was no bathroom, no kitchen, and no bedroom. It was the first time that, in a project of my own, I would serve as both the architect and the client.
The small, empty space offered many possibilities, constrained only by my limited resources. I proposed to the owner that I convert the room into a livable space in exchange for rent, and she accepted. This opened further opportunities. At Taller General, we had been considering a construction system made of metal that was easy to assemble but had not yet had the chance to test. This project became a large-scale experiment; we designed a multifunctional unit made from metal tubes that incorporated everything: kitchen-bathroom-staircase-closet.
When it came time to build, we lacked the resources to pay for labor (by then, we had already participated in several construction mingas). Thus, we designed the furniture in a way that allowed us to assemble it ourselves, working within our constraints and focusing on how to make the best use of the materials at hand. The project reused flooring, glass, wooden doors, ceramic tiles, a toilet, a sink, and a kitchen sink.
We gathered over six consecutive Saturdays. I usually sent a WhatsApp message on Wednesdays as an invitation, specifying the time of the Feminga and including an incentive: no mansplaining.10 Sometimes there were three of us; at other times, seven. Among us were communicators, teachers, architects, managers, and illustrators, aged between 21 and 56. We undertook various tasks: cutting through a wall with a grinder and then removing the adobe with a sledgehammers and picks, sanding and cutting wood for the stairs treads, drilling and assembling metal tubes for the kitchen-bathroom-staircase-closet unit, cutting and gluing glass and polycarbonate, creating a door-sized opening in the adobe, painting walls and ceilings, shoveling debris, and more (fig. 1).
Figure 1_ Femingas, participatory construction sessions with a gender perspective. February and March 2020. Source: Taller General Archive.
The experience extended far beyond the mere construction of a functional object. As we worked, a sense of magic filled the air. The sessions were marked by laughter, shouts and music, with numerous voices blending into long conversations in small groups of two or three. We asked many questions and engaged in reflective discussions: "We weren't afraid to admit that we didn't know things [...] we focused on enjoying the learning process," stated Combette (transcription of the Femingas).
During the final session, we discussed the space we had built, both materially and symbolically. We revisited key moments from those days—reflecting on mistakes, successes, and discoveries—while also considering the broader impact of the activity beyond this space. As Rossignol observed, "When we walked down the street carrying the long metal tubes, we received many curious looks, as if people were impressed or wondering what we were doing. One man even remarked: 'Look at those women workers!'" (transcription of the Femingas).
Acting from a position of freedom and exercising our autonomy were essential elements that enabled these meetings to succeed and allowed us to achieve our goals. Throughout the process, no single person held all the answers, dictated what we could or could not do, or imparted all the knowledge. We recognized and valued each participant's experiences and learning, and through hands-on practice, we resolved the challenges we had set out to tackle. From this point, the Femingas became both a personal and political tool for each of us. As Mesa recounted, "I'd like to share an anecdote: we were really scared, feeling like we didn't know how to do anything, but in reality, we knew a lot. What we did was collectivize that fear and come together, empowering one another" (transcription of the Femingas).
These sessions demonstrated that our diverse approaches to working stemmed from each participant's personal history, and the project brought us together through shared action. The first edition of the Femingas in 2021 culminated in a fanzine that captured personal reflections from each of us who participated in the sessions. The illustrations were created by Tiphaine, one of the participants, and later printed and screen-printed with the assistance of the illustrator "Canela sin miedo," who was also part of the Femingas. Figure 2 shows a vignette from this work.
Figure 2_ Vignette from the Femingas fanzine. Source: Tiphaine Rossignol + Taller General.
These experiences have significantly shaped my future practice. In 2022, we directed the construction of a housing project in the historic center of Quito. Within a crew of twenty workers, we successfully incorporated two skilled female laborers who performed tasks alongside the other workers and received equal pay. One of them, Iñaquiza, expressed her desire to learn more about construction so she could build her own house. The other, who mentioned having four young daughters, said: "Since I learned how to tie the rebar here, I could do it myself if I bought the materials. I could create a nice model, maybe add a couple of rooms for my girls. I'd measure the rods, cut them, tie the rebar, and cast the columns myself" (interview transcript). This underscores the urgent need to create intersectional spaces for participation and action in the field of spatial intervention and construction, particularly for women and dissidents.
Figure 3_ Cristina and Rosi removing the plaster from the entire house. Source: the author.
In conclusion, I believe that the knowledge and practices that have been denied to us for centuries rightfully belong to us, as our freedom depends on access to equity. To date, we have organized more than fifteen Femingas, with the participation of over thirty-five individuals, including women, trans women, and children. These gatherings aim to shed light on a field in which we are already active, raising our voices through life stories that challenge, reshape, and dismantle hegemonic spaces using diverse tools and practices. The reflections we draw from these practices urge us to adopt new perspectives and construct new frameworks of understanding.
1 Femingas is the name I gave to the participatory construction/intervention sessions with a gender perspective. These sessions propose alternative ways of building relationships and participation, contrasting with the conventional dynamics of hierarchy and fragmentation found in traditional mingas. On this initial occasion, they were carried out by women. The term minga originates from the Quechua language and is used to describe a collective of individuals who come together to conduct collaborative work. In Ecuador, it is widely used to refer to activities such as cleaning a neighborhood or school, repairing a road, or even constructing community infrastructure or someone's home.
2 To refer to LGBTIQ+ groups, the most important aspect is "their heterodox position in the sexual field, that is, their dissent from dominant sexual and gender ideologies, a concept more appropriately captured as sexual and gender dissidence" (Núñez Noriega 2011, 37).
3 Arquitetura na periferia. https://arquiteturanaperiferia.org.br/ (Accessed June 17, 2022).
4 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in this article were provided by a third-party translator.
5 By self-construction, I refer to an activity carried out by individuals who have acquired skills through practice, rather than within formal educational settings.
6 When I refer to formal construction, I am alluding to activities performed by construction companies, architects, engineers, and other specialists.
7 All quotes from Haraway (1991) are in the original English.
8 Federici (2018) refers to this process, essential to capitalism, as the "patriarchy of the wage," wherein, with women confined to the household, the wages earned by men in factories were "intended to support" the entire family. Women, in their role as housewives, were responsible for childcare, child-rearing, reproduction, cleaning, and providing sexual pleasure, while men were kept in absolute dependence on their work. Thus, work became a marker of masculine honor, and the other members of the family became economically dependent on men.
9 According to data from recent national censuses, the designated area of the Historic Center of Quito (CHQ) has shown a negative population growth rate [1990: 58,241; 2001: 50,200; 2010: 40,587]" (Garzón Suárez 2013, 36).
10 Mansplaining: "It occurs when a man gives you unsolicited explanation about something you already know well, something you couldn't care less about, or something he knows nothing about but pretends to in order to show off" (Plaqueta and Andonella 2018, 170).