The 1970s was a key decade in the path towards democracy in the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal and Spain suffered deep social, cultural and political changes, with Salazar’s and Franco’s Totalitarian Regimes ending in 1974 and 1975 respectively. In both countries, located side-by-side in the Western end of Southern Europe, democracy was finally established, marking a turning point in the liberties of all Iberian citizens, but especially in regard to women’s life and work. As the Editorial of the Special Issue ‘Becoming a Gender Equity Democracy: Women and Architecture Practice in Spain and Portugal’, this text aims to briefly present this panorama to appreciate the particularities of Portugal and Spain in relation with the delay incorporation of women to the architecture profession. It explains the gender stereotypes of Salazar’s and Franco’s Regime in order to understand the discrimination against women that they produced and how it maintained women far from the architecture profession. Therefore, it provides useful data on the incorporation of women into architectural studies in order to understand the feminization of this gendered profession in both countries. This Special Issue aims to create an opportunity for researchers and scholars to present discussions and ongoing research on how democracy affected women that wanted to practice architecture as well as architectural analysis of women architects.

Recent global events have highlighted a special emphasis on an awareness for women's rights situation worldwide. A renewed critical reflection claims a place in all fields of knowledge regarding fundamental human rights, and so in architecture and related disciplines. There are different approaches to the understanding of both the social dimension of art or design practice and the figure of the architect itself. This is a scope full of tensions and contradictions, uncertainties, possibilities and discussions. Architecture operates at the intersections of various elements depending on contingencies, on contexts at a particular place and time. This field deals with a wide sets of power and production relations and has to face a complex set of cultural, political, economic factors as well as systems of representation, objects, forms and meanings. Following these premises, the first three International Conferences on Gender and Architecture (ICGA), opened in Spain in 2014, have created a pioneer space to meeting and debate about this need of questioning hegemonic positions to be able to meet unattended challenges. A debate that has arrive to stay.

Editorial