It’s been interesting to see how International Women’s Day has become a mere PR event across professional and academic spaces and how many women professionals who ‘made it’ become active gatekeepers by getting co-opted into the same narrative. I have become more skeptical of the places that call themselves inclusive and equal because it’s one thing to show and another to tell. I earnestly attend seminars and conferences by women architects, expecting camaraderie over the barriers women have to cross, advice for younger professionals, a network, and mentorship. Instead, these turn out to be mere celebratory spaces for the women who made it.
Women who, when asked about challenges faced as women, almost always deny them, as if either they don’t exist, or as if they haven’t personally encountered them, except for the time taken to bear and raise children. This is not to deny the celebration of one’s success, but that celebration also needs some reflection over the extraordinary conditions that led them there — of caste, class, region, and religion, to help others identify and work in those areas. Although it’s also not fair to carry the expectation of constantly educating others about defying gender norms just because one has made it, a sense of humility and responsibility should lead women to acknowledge those hurdles and let younger women know what sort of professional and social spaces they are getting into. When I hear again and again some of the most respectable and creative architects deny having experienced any form of gender bias, it disheartens me.
Or it may also be that my experience has been extraordinarily unique, where having asked for basic respect cost me a job, and asking for equal pay made the work environment so toxic it was best to leave. This extends equally deeply into academic spaces where male architects always desire and expect exclusive space and special treatment, which somehow means constantly shrinking oneself to make space for male colleagues. And if you ever raise a concern, you are shown that you are replaceable, and a male architect is a more valuable asset.
International Women’s Day represents an inherently political as much as social ideal where we demand our basic rights as humans on par with men in abilities. I barely believe in the idea of a women’s day as we know it now but want to end this on a note that I hope it’s enough to say we rightfully demand -
Equal Rights and Equal Pay
Show, don’t tell.
