ABSTRACT
Women constitute 4.3 per cent of the total membership of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a total of 1,134 women members in January 1978. Architecture, much like law, engineering and business, has always been thought of as a man’s field. At a time when the economic activity rates of women have been increasing, particularly among married women, the sexual distribution in architecture suggests that certain obstacles persist in impeding the absorption of women into the profession. Data collected as part of a research project funded by the Architects Registration Council of the UK and the Social Science Research Council, has been used to explore these areas in depth. By the mid sixties, the pattern of architectural courses had become more standardised, such that almost all students were following full-time courses in recognised schools of architecture. Most of the women subjects came from upper middle class backgrounds – only one could be classed as skilled manual.
