Delft Women’s Conversations: Sharing Experiences about academic life at Architecture

We would love to hear your experience as a female academic working at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. What can we learn from your experience? How can we use your experience for better policymaking? We want to encourage women to speak their mind to foster conversation in benefit of equal opportunities and an inclusive and safe environment.

Even though progress has been made, women in leading positions are still underrepresented in academia. Our aim is to create awareness about the mechanisms regarding gender inequalities and imbalances; we believe in the power of collective voices and want to see how the sharing of experiences and observations can benefit our understanding. 

Fransje Hooimeijer, Associate Professor Environmental Technology & Design at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, will share her story regarding gender equality and give her perspective on career advancement, working conditions and gender bias.

Notes from Delft Women’s Conversations: Sharing Experiences about academic life at Architecture

Below you can find a few notes from the round table conversations on 15 September 2022, about career advancement, working conditions and gender bias in academia with fellow women scientists at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

The aim of the workshop was to give voice to the women and to create awareness about the mechanisms regarding gender inequalities and imbalances and to see and to see how the sharing of experiences and observations can benefit our understanding. Fransje Hooimeijer, Associate Professor Environmental Technology & Design, shared her story and experience as a women in science.

We discussed working conditions as a women. Women voiced their challenges as an immigrant or as a working mum. As a foreigner, it might be difficult to navigate academia, because of unawareness of the different pathways and opportunities. We talked about how to juggle care taking tasks and how culture and upbringing influences women’s decisions in work and life. Women expressed concern about unequal workloads regarding career advancement, such as being seen as ‘fire workers’ and being expected to take care of others and being expected to do ‘academic housework’. Not considering gender differences in promotion criteria leads to differences in career step classification amongst women and men and, consequently, in salary. We talked about the manifestations of gender bias and how gender bias is in our DNA and is also necessary to act efficiently. Gender bias needs to be addressed at all levels. Teams and managers can organize meetings to discuss gender bias in an open and safe environment. It is important to look at gender bias from an intersectional point of view.
Main takeaway: build your network with successful women and women in the same situation as you!