Women on Construction Sites: Our Community Shares their Thoughts, Concerns, and Outlook for the Future

Site work has always been and remains a pivotal stage in forming our built environment. Most architects, designers or engineers have at one point or another been on the grounds and understand the importance of presence within the project development phases. Working on construction sites can be a valuable learning experience and allows different inputs from diverse experts to be considered in forming a better urban, living, and working environment for all. Starting from this idea, and as we delve into Women in Architecture as part of our ArchDaily topics, we published an invitation, encouraging our readers to share their opinion on gender-based discrimination on the construction site.

The aim is to display different accounts and start a conversation on a situation that, according to a previous Architects’ Journal (AJ) annual survey, can become obstructive and limit growth opportunities or creative instances of certain members of the construction industry. We lead the open call with no intention of developing a scientific research survey but to engage our global community and gather diverse accounts from different regions to highlight a small part of a much larger reality.

Within a couple of weeks, we received 127 answers through our platforms, from all over the world: Central and South America (41%) North America and Europe (39.5%), Asia and Africa (18%), and Oceania (1.5%). The form was open to all members of the building community, and our users were not asked to identify themselves in terms of gender. Most replies came from architects that work full-time (67%) or part-time (12%) on-site, while the rest were no longer based on construction sites (21%).

Despite little disparities between the responses from each region, the replies were generally similar suggesting the presence of a certain disequilibrium within the considered setting. We were able to place the feedback into recurring themes including, Dismissal and Lack of Professional Consideration; Uncomfortable Work Environment and Harassment; Positive Discrimination or No Discrimination, and Impact on Professional Growth and Discouragement.

Many of the shared experiences noted unequal cooperation between workers, craftsmen, contractors, and colleagues with women architects, engineers, or builders which led to a hindered sense of professional validation on site.

“A fellow colleague (female) is not given equal importance as compared to her male colleagues and her ideas and suggestions are cross-checked with the male colleagues of the same designation.” _India

” In a situation where I was the lead designer and running the project on-site, the contractor and builders did not direct their queries to me but rather went through another (male) architect that was working on the project with me. I was left out of the loop not because I was incompetent but because they felt that could deal with/solve the queries they had.” _United Kingdom

” Female colleagues’ opinions were not taken into consideration. In addition to the minimal tasks that were given to them, most staff did not like the fact that a lady is working on-site.” _ Lebanon

” As a builder, it happened to me that other workers on site didn’t want to speak to me about work, but always with my boss (not because it’s my boss but because he’s a man and I’m a woman). It also happened that people asked for the builders and when I replied “here I am” they laugh at me.” _Italy