I do not assert myself

Suffrage, gender and citizenship: …, 2009

The Future Is Hidden in the Present, 2021

BRŮHOVÁ, K. Architecture and Emancipation. The Situation of Women in the Field of Architecture in Socialist Czechoslovakia. In: ROLLOVÁ, V. a JIRKALOVÁ, K. (eds.) The Future Is Hidden in the Present. Prague: Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, 2021. p. 282–331. ISBN 978-80-88308-053-9.

Résumé Cet article examine les représentations des femmes architectes au Canada au 20 e siècle telles qu'elles apparaissent dans les pages d'un périodique national, la revue de l'Institut royal d'architecture du Canada, de 1924 à 1973. L'analyse montre qu'à une époque où les femmes faisaient des progrès significatifs au sein de la profession d'architecte, qui demeure dominée par les hommes, dans les revues professionnelles elles étaient représentées comme des utilisatrices passives de l'espace alors que leurs confrères apparaissaient comme des concepteurs actifs et la profession, comme essentiellement masculine. L'analyse montre aussi que, malgré leurs positions marginales en tant qu'étudiantes, décoratrices ou journalistes, par exemple, les femmes architectes ont néanmoins apporté une contribution vitale à la profession. Abstract While women have made significant headway in establishing themselves within the male-dominated architectural profession, their representations today remain relatively muted. The significance of contemporary representations of women in architecture can be understood by looking at representations of them in national professional periodicals such as the journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's.which we studied from 1924 till 1973. Our survey suggests that in this journal women were portrayed as passive users of space, while male architects were shown as active and quintessential masculine. It also shows also how Canadian women architects made vital contributions to the field from their albeit peripheral positions as students, sculptors, decorators, illustrators, journalists, critics and preservationists.These representations have shaped women's careers in architecture and continue to have implications on their presence within the profession today.

2015

Votes for Women" was one of the most important demands in early European Women's Movements, advancing to a powerful image of women's liberation. In the wake of the political transformation after the French Revolution visionary thinkers of the European Enlightenment -like Olympe de Gouges ([1791] 1980: 44), Mary Wollstonecraft ([1792] 1989: 61f) or Gottfried Hippel (1792: 194) -had pointed out the scandalous exclusion of women from civil rights in Europe (Sledziewski 2006: 47). Soon after, political activists mobilized for women's emancipation and equal political rights. For many feminists, women's suffrage symbolised the full recognition of citizenship for women as members of the state with all rights and obligations. This idea of political participation relates to a strong narrative tradition of historical women's movements in different European countries. Furthermore, women's suffrage was an important issue for processes of democratisation, state-building and the rise of liberalism in general (Mayhall/Levine/Fletcher 2000: xv). However, a deeper historical and empirical enquiry into the relations of the (early) Women's movement shows some limits of this universal idea: Not only was the claim for 'the Vote' addressed to patriarchal national systems which systematically excluded women from the public sphere of political affairs, but it was itself a battlefield of unequal power distributions. In many national movements, main organizations and important leaders of the suffrage campaign demanded only a limited vote to the same conditions as men. That demand did not include working class women and it ignored the exclusion of working class men from suffrage. This discrepancy forced heated debates at international gatherings of Women's Movement Organizations (N.N., 12.09.1910, Gleichheit: 387f). A comparison of the German and the British Women's Movement offers insights into the deep impact of gender and class relations on the struggle for the vote in different political environments. This perspective explains different outcomes of the suffrage campaign in both countries after World War I and shows the importance of representation in social movements itself.

Labour / Le Travail, 1999