The National Gender Equity Committee has been up and running for almost 2 years now – and when I say running I mean it! There has been so much work to do to come up to speed in the gender equity space, to understand what individual Chapter Councils were doing and then to work out where we could fit in at a strategic and practical level.
With an intentional mix of members representing almost every chapter, a mix of men and women from small, medium, and large practices as well as academia, we have been able to establish ourselves as a unified voice from a diverse background.
Early last year we established core areas in which we would focus our attention, namely:
- Awards and Prizes
- CPD programmes
- Profiling women
- Opportunities for women
- Institute policy
- Relationships
In each of these, we sought to establish what had been done or what was being done and participate in these discussions in order to push them forward. It’s an exciting work in progress but I can report the following:
- We have reviewed the Institute’s Code of Professional Conduct to propose the inclusion of a 5th Principle “The Obligation to Employees”. Ensuring consideration is given to equity and opportunity in the workplace. This is currently under review by National Council.
- We initiated a CPD event in Melbourne based on the idea of flexibility in the workplace. This was extremely informative and importantly was filmed and made available online, thus ensuring members have flexibility in how they access this if they were unable to attend the session.
- We have been working with the national CPD coordinator to include a gender balance in the presentation of the CPD programme but also to include topics that are of interest to men and women as part of the professional development stream.
- We are in the final stages of developing a National Prize for leadership in equity in architecture. This will be included as part of the AAAA awards.
- We undertook an audit based on the selection process for juries for architecture awards to ensure equity in their make-up.
- We advocated for and were able to establish a partnership with Parlour. This has been a fantastic opportunity for us to reach out and connect with non-members as well as to enable Parlour to maintain an independent voice in the gender equity space. Through this partnership, we will be holding a symposium in the lead up to the National Conference in Adelaide around the role of women in transforming the city – stay tuned!
- We have developed profile pieces that have been included in the Institute National e-newsletter once a month. The purpose of this being to raise the profile of women in architecture and importantly to advocate for the range of experiences and career pathways.
- We have been developing a resources list with the Institute and starting a conversation about the role the Institute might play in connecting people in short and long term ways to a range of work possibilities from 3 days of drawing markups to longer term roles.
Towards the end of 2015 we had our second face-to-face meeting for the year and established our primary goal for 2016 – to continue to undertake and agitate in each of the areas we have identified but importantly to step up the communication and get this progress out there!
To that end, we look forward to posting more updates on Parlour, to having more news included in the Institutes communications and working to continue to raise the profile of all the amazing women out there!
Through our partnership with Parlour, we are looking forward to continuing the conversation around how to take positive steps to overcome the barriers for many women for meaningful careers in architecture.
2016 also marks an important period of change for the committee with the need to replace four members who have completed their term. With so much change happening at a senior level within the Institute management structure this is the perfect time to make an impact!
Emma Williamson
Chair, National Committee for Gender Equity