WRITERS’ PERSPECTIVES
Assoc Prof Dr Zalina Shari I was among a few female Malaysian architecture students when my architectural journey began at the University of Humberside and Lincolnshire in the UK. But it took me until my practical training years to realise that I had entered into a male-dominated industry. I was paid vastly less than most of my male counterparts with the same degrees, and during the 1998 economic crisis in Malaysia, I was the first on the retrenchment list despite being pregnant. Nevertheless, I believe this dark chapter of my life was a blessing in disguise as it opened my desire to teach or be part of academia.
I have been an academic at the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), for almost 20 years. The department has always had slightly more female than male academics or a nearly balanced ratio. However, the gender barometer of other departments (Landscape Architecture and Industrial Design) in the faculty leans in favour of the men. Hence, few women have held the highest administrative positions in the faculty, such as dean, deputy deans, or heads. However, I believe gender equality is not an issue at the university level. A female professor previously held the university’s top administrative position of Vice- Chancellor.
In academia, how soon one climbs up the ladder depends on one’s levels of discipline and motivation to excel. However, after committing two days of architectural studio teaching, many academics, particularly in public research universities, are left with half a week to fulfil other obligations such as postgraduate supervision, research, publication, administration, professional services, and industry and community relations. Meeting all these requirements every year can be daunting for women architecture academics, who prefer to be more family-focused and less career-focused. Unsurprisingly, there are only six architecture professors in five public research universities in Malaysia, and only one is female. I choose to advance my career at my own pace without sacrificing my personal life, which may be impossible to do if I were still working in the industry. For young females who wish to pursue an academic career in architecture, they should seek to explore their career early. Then they should earn Master’s degrees from accredited universities, gain more experience in practice, and be ready to endure the adversities of being a registered architect or a PhD scholar, and thrive from the inevitable challenges in academia.
92 FUTURARC
Dr Ann Deslandes
An overpass collapsed in the southeast of Mexico City last month (May 2021), killing at least 25 people as the bridge gave way under the weight of two rail cars, landing on the people and cars below. In 2012, the opening of the metro line—Line 12 or the Golden Line—was a triumph for the city government then, headed by now Foreign Affairs minister Marcelo Ebrard. Workers from peripheral neighbourhoods had their commute times reduced by a line that cut across the city from the southeast to the southwest, a drastic change for denizens who had some of the longest commutes in the world1
. For the past eight years
the line has been used2 by about 220,000 passengers per day. ,
“They were just working people who wanted to get home”3
reads one of the artworks created to commemorate the tragedy. The Olivos metro station, where the train had been headed, is heaped with flowers, graffiti, and posters. As soon as the news hit, people started to say it: this happened because of corruption—it has been variously alleged that corners were cut and poor materials were used to construct the so-called Golden Line; that the soil type in the area was known to not be able to support the construction; that essential maintenance had not been done and public safety had been sacrificed to inertia and impunity. As an independent investigation is being carried out, the current mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, said the tragedy was the result of a ‘structural failure’4
.
In my article for this issue of FuturArc, I spoke with theorists and practitioners Lilian Chee, Justine Clark and Naomi Stead about gender equity in the profession of architecture. The conversation started with the under-representation of women in high-level roles, pay gaps, and everyday sexism, which was then linked to the very order of how we structure life through the built environment. In the article they consider how using good materials, paying people fairly, supporting family and community life, and governing wisely are all implications of any push for fair treatment of women in architecture. As they show us, if ‘structural failures’—like the Metro Olivos tragedy or the Covid-19 outbreak in Singapore’s migrant dormitories or the disappearance of women from the paid workforce—are to be prevented in the future, gender equity has everything to do with it.
https://www.outsideonline.com/1788181/mexico-city-worlds-worst-commute 2 & 4
https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/line-12-has-been-problematic-since-it-opened/
https://www.instagram.com/p/COgJK0CMqOY/
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