The Government’s back to work schemes broke rules the law court ruled last week. The story followed news that Cait Reilly, a 24 year-old  geology graduate was told by her local job centre that she could no longer volunteer at her local museum.

She was told she didn’t have any other choice but to give up the museum volunteer work- an area she wanted to go into and instead stack shelves in Poundland. After she took her story to the Guardian, the Public Interest Lawyers took up her case and the courts found Reilly, and others like her, were simply not given enough guidance about what they were entitled to do or not to do.

You can read more here. 

The creator of the Olympics aquatic centre and the world’s leading female architect Zaha Hadid said Britain must do more to help encourage women architects. She was speaking to the Observer following the results of a disappointing survey which explored the lives of working women architects. 

She said she noticed it was easier for women in her profession to work in European countries rather than here in the UK. She said: “There is a different dynamic. In the UK it is more difficult. They are very conservative. There is a scepticism and more misogynist behavior here. Although, while there were people against me, there were also people living here who were incredibly supportive.”

It is assumed that a woman architect can’t take on a big commercial project she said. “I am sure that as a woman I can do a very good skyscraper,” she said. “I don’t think it is only for men.” It’s this kind of bias that pushes women architects .into designing interiors.

Her remarks followed the publication of research carried out by the Architects’ Journal that revealed a “sinister and rotten kernel of inequality” in British architecture and the shocking fact that two thirds of women who responded reported “insidious” male bullying at work. Sixty per cent also said that clients in the building industry failed to recognize their authority.

You can read more here.