Thursday, October 29, 2009

Not Natural.

I hate stereotypes.

There is one stereotype in particular that has been bothering. "Architects are men." What the crap. Seriously. Yes, there are more men than women, but what of it? 1/3 of the students in class are girls. That is not a bad amount, it's actually a lot more than I was expecting. Girls are awesome and I love that more girls are going into architecture. It's no longer a man's world. So, as you know I live in the architecture building. There is something about the building that bothers me and other girls in the program to no end. The building is 3 stories. Every level has restrooms. There is ONE girls restroom in the building. The rest are mens or unisex. The mens bathrooms are all stalls. The womens bathroom is just for one person at a time. Clearly they assumed that there would be a lot more men in the building than women, so them made unisex handicapped restrooms on every floor and then mens with lots of stalls. Then, women started studying architecture so they converted ONE of the unisex handicapped bathrooms into a womens restroom. It seriously bothers me. See how much architecture can say? It's totally making a statement about who they think should be there.

Okay so that's my rampage about girls being awesome.

Now I need to discuss something about men vs. women in architecture that is a little different. I do not think that women are dumb. However, you cannot deny (as much as you or I may want to) that construction, building, and materials come much more naturally to men. They grow up with it. Little girls don't grow up helping their moms pour cement, build furniture or tree houses, or learn how to weld. They play with dolls and help cook. My materials and construction class is SO HARD for this reason. My teacher breezes through concepts because majority of the class (men) totally understand what he is talking about. I feel like I am learning a foreign language, but they all get it in one second!!! It is SO frustrating. We are learning about wide flanges, steel construction, joists, girders, beams, columns, structural systems, moment frames, braces, simple frames, shear walls, pre-cast concrete, cast on site concrete, etc, etc. LITERALLY A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. It sucks. This is one area where I will admit, it is a mans world. But that is not stopping me. I am going to give my life to the library for the next 5 days and study as hard as I can for the test on Tuesday so that I can (hopefully) prove that girls can be good at this and understand it too. Don't worry girls, I won't let you down!!! (But wish me luck...because I'll need it)


PS- These are the types of things I have to understand. And this is like the easiest thing that will be on the test.
This is the dimensions of wide flange beams from the Manual of Steel Construction. For example: W21x36. W meaning Wide Flange, 21 meaning it's nominal depth in inches, and 36 meaning it's weight in pounds per lineal foot. A wide flange can range from 4-18" in 2" increments, 18-36" in 3" increments, and 36-44" in 4" increments. And that is just the info on wide flange. I have so much studying to do. Wow.

2 comments:

Beverly Rice said...

Ah, the many lessons of life that college teaches. Stay strong, work hard and remain positive. Do not let any of the hard parts beat you. Use them to make yourself stronger. You are awesome! Believe it!

Taylor said...

wow, that is pretty intense. you'll do awesome though, no worries.