The Reasons for Women Exclusion in Design History - Literature review Example

The Reasons for Women Exclusion in Design History Author’s Name Institutional Affiliation Instructor’s Name Date Design is a wide field with several areas of specialization like product, industrial, architecture, graphics and fashion designs. These areas have been characterized by gender imbalances in regard to enrolment and the work and nature of products produced. For instance, the representation of women in furniture design and product design areas is still low compared to that of men. Interestingly, women designers are the most in numbers in fashion and decorative areas. Despite active involvement of women in various art works and designs, as practitioners, consumers, historians and theorists, little attention has always been given to those women who did outstanding work. The intensity of seclusion has heightened and perhaps intentional as they can be traced back to the ancient historiographic methods. The mode of selection and classification designers and their respective work is entirely biased against women, hence excluding them from the history. This paper analyzes the possible reasons leading to exclusion of women from the history of design by examining the article titled Made in Patriarchy: towards a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design by Cheryl Buckley and Gendered by Design by Sue Clegg and Wendy Mayfield. Also analyzed is the article title Reflections of Feminism and Modern Architecture by Mary McLeod. To begin with, many institutions of learning have unequal recruitment of designers across their respective design course. Clegg and Mayfield state that “The unbalanced recruitment across design courses has sustained itself over time….” This explains how women are attracted to different areas of design in education sector despite creation of policies that calls for equal allocation of opportunities in school. There are stereotypes surrounding many design courses. An architectural course is believed to be technical and therefore suitable for men. On the other hand an interior design course involves more arty work thus preferred by women. Such stereotypes have seen many women designers who are engaged in technical design courses excluded from male dominated design courses. For a long time, women designers have led a low profile life. Young women designers do not want to identify themselves with issues that touch on the underachievement of women, stereotyping as well as feminism. The unwillingness of women designers to associate themselves with even their achievements depicts the design industry as a profession that is dominated by men. For example, the French female designer Charlotte Perriand is respected for her efforts in designing the three tabular-steel chair. However, Perriand did not want to associate herself with her achievements. “In addition, like many successful women architects of her generation, Perriand did not wish to perceive herself first and foremost as a woman designer; nor did she particularly identify with the feminist movement in France, thus complicating efforts to cast her as a “role model” for contemporary women practitioners”. However, viewing the problem of lack of interest by some women designers to lead a high profile life as their failure is not true. This is because there are instances whereby female designers have outperformed their male counterparts even in more technical design fields like the architecture. Patriarchal frameworks have also undermined the efforts of women designers. This is a situation in which the activities of men are highly valued than those of women. Buckley (1989) asserts that industrial design has always been given a higher priority and status than knitted textiles. Also, in an industrial society where culture is highly valued than nature, the roles of men are perceived to be more cultural than natural while those of women are contrary to this perception. Therefore, women cannot participate fully in almost all areas of the society, particularly sectors of design, as every opportunity is seized by the entrenched systems of patriarchy. Certain occupations like designs have been branded men designated thus delineating some ways of behavior as being suitable for women. The effects of such stereotypes have been felt women in such occupations both at work and even at home. The unfortunate thing with such women is that their work ends up being accounted for inside the patriarchal frameworks. Their gender also defines them as users or designers of feminine products, or their work is accounted for in the names of males in their lives (Buckley, 1989). Eventually, every idea or needs of a women designer emanates from patriarchy. According to Clegg and Mayfield (1999), gender in design matters and that the perceptions of men and women determines the choices of design field they pursue. This implies that the perceptions of men and women are different in regard to a particular area of design. This could be the reason as to why technical designs have relatively lower number of women designers than men. Likewise, arty designs have larger number of women designers than the corresponding number of men designers, hence leading to exclusion of women from areas of designs that are technical in nature. Women are seen to be much closer to nature than men due to the fact that they have the biological capacity to produce and patriarchal roles of nurturing and caring the family. Women designers are not locked out of this as their work of transforming nature to culture through design is biologically tied by the patriarchal ideologies, which classify their skills of design as a product of their sex. This is to say that, the design abilities of women designers are attached to sex-specific skills, i.e. decorative, dexterous and meticulous. These skills imply that women are suited to specific areas of design production like decorative arts which entails graphic illustration, jewelry, weaving and pottery. The linking of these activities to women leads to the use and consumption of products of these design activities by women designers, hence making them to be viewed as the designers of their own products and eventual exclusion. The failure of the design historians to acknowledge the historical governance and operations of patriarchy has led to the maintenance of the assumptions about the abilities of women designers. Due to this, women’s designs are ignored, hence attaining no representation in the history books. In order to realize the role of women designers, the design historians need to tackle the issue of patriarchy and its systems (Buckley, 1989). They can do so by analyzing and challenging the inferior position assigned to some design activities. This means that terms like delicate, decorative and feminine ought to be acknowledged with women’s design contexts. Design historians must acknowledge the patriarchal foundation of the division of labor based on sex which attributes certain design skills to women. Lastly, they should appreciate the fact that women and their respective designs accomplish an important role in the structure of the design history by taking up that could have been left vacant by men. In conclusion, the historians of modern designs should explore the issues underlying under-representation of women in all areas of design in order to improve the conditions of women designers. Acquiring deeper knowledge of the how gender was developed, maintained and how to challenge is essential in addressing the inequities that exist currently in the design industry as a large profession. More, the patriarchal ideology must be understood by the design historians and acknowledge the way the system operates in regard to the roles of men and women in the society. The various locations where the designs operate as well as the designers involved in production and consumption of the products must be appreciated. Last but not least, the design historians must stick to their central objective of developing and expanding the historical research which aims at accounting for the relationship between women and design. References Buckley, C. (1989). Made in Patriarchy: Towards a Feminist Analysis of Women and Design’, in Design Discourse: History, Theory and Criticism (Ed) V. Margolin, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Mary McLeod, (2004). Reflections of Feminism and Modern Architecture. Harvard College. New York Sue, C., &Wendy, M., (1999). Gendered by Design: How women’s place in design is still defined by gender. Design Issues. Vol. 15, No. 3(Autumn, 1999), pp. 3-16. Read More