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Ethical Charter for Gender Equality in the Architectural Profession

This ethical charter has been designed by ADA

• Sharing the Ethical Charter is a declaration of intent to help achieve the objectives set out above and to implement them through certain concrete actions:
  • identify the professional functions to which clear responsibilities for equal opportunities should be assigned;
  • dismantle gender stereotypes, through appropriate training and awareness-raising policies, by promoting professional growth;
  • training and professional career development are determined solely on the basis of individual skills, experience and professional potential, regardless of gender and origin;
  • periodically monitor progress in equal opportunities and assess the impact of good practices, both within the profession and in external relations;
  • promote the reconciliation of working time and personal life.
  • disseminate the culture of equal opportunities and the progress achieved towards a truly responsible and supportive community, including through periodic confrontations with other professions and associations involved in gender equality.

Presentation by Catherine Guyot, 2018 winner of the Femmes En Vue competition – source: voxfemina

In 2012, Catherine Guyot conducted a study on professional equality in architectural agencies in France and noted serious inequalities on issues of remuneration and the lack of promotion of women architects in France.

In 2013, it launched the French Prize for Women Architects, which is increasingly successful, with more than 300 applications each year. Since 2017 this prize has had an international component.

It is supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Ile de France Region, the French Institute, the Order of Architects and private sponsors.
In March 2018 she created Women in Architecture Fr by federating national and international associations of architecet women and contributed to numerous conferences in Europe on the question of the place of women in the architectural sector.

For 2019 she is the French representative of an international encyclopedia that aims to bring women architects out of the shadows with more than 50 women French architects.

After having worked for 10 years in project management, Catherine Guyot founded with Luc GIVRY the ARVHA Association pour la Recherche sur la Ville et l’HAbitat in 1993, which she has been managing since 1997.

It offers training courses for architects in order to reintegrate them into the world of project management, but also on business creation, then it launches many European projects, including the first on New Opportunities for Women on women architects. She created the first French prize for women architects in 2013, which continues to this day.

She works on the issue of professional equality in the building sector and, with her partner Luc GIVRY, she participates in European projects such as “A city for all”, “construction-durable.org”. She manages training and construction projects for project managers with regard to the issue of disability.

At the European level, it leads European projects (Equal – Leonardo – Culture 2000) with the support of the European Social Fund and the policy on continuing training for architects at ARVHA under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and with the support of the Ile-de-France Regional Council.

Since 1998, she has organized exhibitions on the promotion of women architects on an international scale and participates in the Women in Architecture group founded by Angela Brady, president of RIBA, she organizes conferences and exhibitions on women architects as in 2008 with Belgian, Moroccan, Algerian and French women architects.