It is an obvious fact that the issue of gender equality has been at the heart of the contemporary debate at various levels. Despite numerous efforts, it is somewhat more doubtful that this discussion has also reached with intensity the university environment, where unfortunately certain inertias prevail that tend to segment the vision on the problem by “areas of knowledge” instead of favoring a holistic vision.

From Architecture and Urbanism, theoretical studies elaborated with a gender perspective are in full development, although they already have a certain scientific background. What they offer is an overview of the manifest inequality of the active role of women as professionals in these and related fields (design, art, fashion, etc.), either because of their late incorporation into the labor market in this professional sector, or because they have been hidden by the “official history”, always androcentric. We are currently tracing traces that were barely visible or that some people took care of blurring to the point of almost erasing them. The reconstruction of this historical account is, in itself, a necessary retroactive exercise of gender equality, that is to say, of justice.

This monograph is precisely that, a collection of rescued traces. Its purpose is not to offer an all-encompassing vision (despite the transversality of the contributions collected here), but to make this inequality tangible through episodes of modernity and postmodernity linked to women in their relationship with the domestic space. In some cases, the traces shed light on the active role of women as professionals, showing how women architects have had a decisive influence on the innovative design of modern housing or how their intellectual reflection contributes to the understanding of the urban phenomenon. In others, the focus is on women as passive objects addressed by architecture and urban planning, and how they are portrayed in these domestic places through architectural graphic representation or film.