Ocean State women are still struggling to make inroads in some traditionally male-dominated fields, including jobs that might not immediately come to mind, such as architects.
Released Sept. 14, the 2017 American Community Survey from the U.S Census Bureau found that among the more than 10,000 workers in architectural and engineering jobs in Rhode Island, only 11 percent were women.
That was a greater gender disparity than all other fields except law enforcement and construction. (And while Rhode Island is slightly ahead of the national average in construction, its 5.1 percent female employment in law enforcement is woefully short of the 19.7 percent national average.)
In architecture and engineering, women comprise 15.7 percent of the workforce nationwide. That’s nearly 5 percentage points higher than Rhode Island.
Laura Moss, a 32-year-old architectural designer in Providence, has lived the trend.
Moss has a master’s degree in architecture from Rhode Island School of Design, but she doesn’t call herself an architect because she’s still going through the licensing process. She and her husband, Gordon, an architectural designer and builder, started their own firm, Functional Aesthetic Design±Build in Providence. Fortunately for her career, they don’t have children.
“There’s a lot of 32-year-old women with kids and they have to choose” between raising them and a career, Moss said.
Keith Davignon, a principal at Vision 3 Architects in Providence, thought the percentage of women in architecture here would be low, but not as low as 11 percent.
Of the 19 architectural positions at Vision 3, six are filled by women, including three licensed as architects.
What often has been challenging for women is leaving the field temporarily to have children and then trying to get back in, as licensing requires continuing education.
Stephen White, dean of Roger Williams University’s School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation in Bristol, said women comprise about 40-45 percent of the school’s architectural students, up from about 10 percent when he was in school in the late 1970s.
After graduating, however, a lower portion of women go on to be licensed. “It’s a very complex thing,” he said.
Those who leave to have children and come back often find it harder to climb the company ladder. “They’ve interrupted that kind of trajectory,” White added.
It’s the same in engineering.
Dennis DiPrete, principal at DiPrete Engineering in Cranston, said engineering has been male dominated, but he sees that changing.
“It’s a big shift,” DiPrete said.
Larry Riggs, president of Pare Corp. in Lincoln, said engineering can be intimidating, but he’s seen more women succeeding in recent years.
Among Pare Corp.’s 100 employees, 18 are female engineers or other science-based professionals.
“Times are changing,” Riggs said. “To the extent that we can accommodate them, we will.”
Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Blake@PBN.com.
