Women architects and their discontents

The article critically investigates recent assumptions that professional women are en route to equality with professional men by assessing the field of architecture as a case study. It addresses the poorer completion rates for women architectural students, together with the lower proportions of professionally registered & promoted women architects. The article explores, in particular, Bourdieu's theories of gender divisions & higher professions as an explanatory grid for understanding these phenomena, deploying especially two late works, Masculine Domination (2001) & The State Nobility (1996). It is argued that the extended Bourdieusian theory of practice illuminates the interview data gathered from women architects, especially through its emphasis on a disposition to naturalize domination. While Bourdieu's position is not without weaknesses, this theory sheds light on the difficulties women practitioners are found to face empirically, especially in combining architecture & parenting