WOMEN AND INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Martha Zarza

INTRODUCTION

Women remain a minority in the academic and professional field of industrial

design. Despite the equal opportunities that universities provide to male and female

students, the profession of industrial design has remained male dominated. The feminist

theory of women in design suggests that this discrepancy of males and females within

industrial design reproduces the stereotypical dualism whereby women are associated

with the body and the decorative while men are associated with technology and the

shaping of nature.

This conception implies that women possess sex-specific skills that determine

their design abilities; they are apparently dexterous, decorative and meticulous. These

skills suggest that women naturally fit with certain areas of design production, like

interior design, jewelry, embroidery, knitting and pottery.

Based on this framework, the aim of this paper is to explore three major studies of

women in design which suggest that industrial design is seen as a “male” profession and

presupposes the existence of gender stereotyping of skills within the professional and the

academic contexts.

The importance of this paper underlines the assumption that gender-stereotyping

research in design will help to understand and reshape the actual under-representation of

women in the industrial design field.

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Feminist theory of women in design

Buckley (1989) points out that women interact with design in a patriarchal

context. Further, she suggests that central to an analysis of women’s role in design is an

examination of patriarchy.

Buckley’s concept of patriarchy is based on Pollock's (1982) definition, which

does not refer to the static oppressive domination of one sex over another. It refers to

patriarchy as a net of psycho-social relationships that institute a socially significant

difference on the axis of sex, which is so deeply located in our very sense of life and

sexual identity that it appears to us as natural and unalterable. This definition suggests the

existence of a kind of subconscious patriarchy within our society.

By analyzing the history of design, Buckley (1989) theorizes that this unconscious

patriarchy has determined the framework for women’s roles as designers, limiting

women’s opportunities to participate fully in all areas of society and, more specifically, in

all sectors of design.

Buckley believes that design historians play an important role in maintaining

assumptions about the roles and abilities of women designers. She suggests that design

historians have promoted a patriarchal conception of design where men’s activities are

valued more highly than women’s, establishing a hierarchy of values and skills based on

sex. For example, industrial design has been given higher status than knitted textiles.

Attfield (1989) indicates that this conception prioritizes the machine (masculine) over the

body (feminine). It assigns men to the determining, functional areas of design, like

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science, technology and industrial production, and women to “soft,” decorative fields of

design, excluding them from the determining spheres of science, technology and industry.

Buckley (1989) theorizes that the resulting female stereotypes delineate certain

modes of behavior and certain occupations as being appropriate for women. Based on the

research carried out by the Design Innovation Group of the Open University since 1979,

Buckley reports that British art and design education at the degree level show this

hierarchical and gendered split between male and female design activities. She speculates

that because of gender stereotypes, few women industrial design students survive to the

end of their courses, which are outside the female stereotypes. They succeed well with

fashion and textile courses, which are considered to be suited to female abilities, but fare

badly with industrial design, which is considered male.

This feminine theory of design offers the theoretical framework to explore the

ways in which gender stereotypes exist within education of design. Roberts (1991) points

out, when referring to the inequality of male and female students in architecture, that in

professions where the number of women are so small, stereotyped responses are

common. Roberts also suggests that when gender inequalities are exposed, these tend to

change into a more equal balance. This conception provides understanding on the

importance of exploring gender stereotypes within design.

Under-representation of female industrial designers

Literature relating gender and the history of design expanded substantially in the

late 1980s and early 1990s. However, insufficient evidence relating gender and design in

the academic and professional environment exists. After extensive research, only three

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studies relating to females inequality in the field of industrial design in the educational

and professional context were found.

Occupation is an important dimension by which gender attributes are categorized

(Deaux & Lewis, 1984; Unger & Crawford, 1992). Although all occupations are now

formally open to both men and women, some fields, such as architecture and engineering,

remain male dominated. The concentration of the great majority of women into a few

fields is one indication of the gender stereotype involving occupation. Jacobs (1995)

points out that over seventy-five percent of women received their degrees in one of six

fields: English, fine arts, history, home economics, nursing, and teaching. A more recent

statistic of the U.S. Department of Education confirms the persistence of this pattern

(Table 1).

Table 1. Bachelor’s degrees conferred by gender of student

and field of study: 1997-98

Field of Study Total Men Women

Architecture and related programs 7,652 4,966 2,686

Education 105,968 26,302 79,666

Engineering and engineering related technologies 73,910 61,440 12,470

English language and literature 49,780 16,477 33,231

Home economics 17,296 1,980 15,316

Nursing 43,593 4,699 38,894

Fine arts and art studies 21,197 7,680 13,517

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), “Completions” survey, 2000.

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 Shephard & Hess (1975) conducted a study of stereotypes of occupations and

activities, which consisted of a multiple-choice test of 43 occupations and work related

activities. The participants of the study were children in grades 5, 8, and 11; college

students; and adults. The task of the respondents was to indicate whether a male, a female

or either one should perform each occupation. The results suggest that gender stereotypes

of occupations are manifested in the belief that certain occupations (e.g. nurse, teacher,

secretary) are “women’s” occupations and others (e.g. automotive mechanic, engineer,

medical doctor) are “men’s” occupations. Bruce (1985) points out, after analyzing the

areas of employment women and men are typically involved in, that in its grossest form,

all domestic and caring work within the “private” sphere of the family is classified as

women’s work, while all economically productive, waged work in the “public” sphere is

classified as belonging to men.

A number of studies (Freedman, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 1993; Shepard & Hess,

1975; St. Pierre, Herendeen, Moore, & Nagle, 1994) have previously examined

occupational gender-stereotyping. The findings of each of these studies concluded that

gender stereotypes of occupations do exist.

According to Whiteley (1993), industrial design is one of those gendered

occupations, which depict an overwhelming male dominance. He indicates that only

about two percent of British industrial design graduates are women. The percentage

worsens when looking at the design industry, in which less than one percent of industrial

designers are women. The work of the Design Innovation Group (DIG) between 1982

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and 1984, which surveyed one hundred British manufacturing companies, reported that

companies employing from twenty-five to two thousand people showed that in a typical

sector (office furniture), seventy-two percent of firms employed in-house industrial

designers, but only one company employed a woman in this capacity.

In United States, the situation is not as extreme as in England, but it still shows a

male dominated profession. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, the

percentage of female designers, which includes all designers with the exception of

architects, jumped from twenty-five to fifty-six percent nation-wide during the years

1980 to 1999. Despite this dramatic growth, Perkins, (1999) points out that industrial

design, as opposed to graphic or interior design, is still a male-dominated profession. She

bases her perception on two statistics: women made up only ten percent of the

membership of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). Women represent

only twenty to twenty-five percent of the country’s undergraduate industrial design

students.

In the Student Mentor Directory of IDSA 2000, over four hundred professional

industrial designers are registered. Female professional industrial designers make up only

eight percent of the directory, showing the constancy of a gendered pattern in the

profession.

DIG conducted a survey of over one hundred British firms in various areas of the

manufacturing industry, including domestic heating appliances, office furniture and

electronic office equipment (Bruce, 1985). The survey consisted of interviews with senior

management staff (marketing managers, industrial design managers and managing

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directors). The findings show that characteristically, the industrial designer’s job is

represented as “masculine.” The interviewees in the survey reiterated the views that

industrial design requires the ability to work with production engineers, who would not

take orders from or listen to a woman. Other frequent answers were that industrial design

requires the ability to work with “industrial,” “dirty” or “technical,” aspects of

production, which are “not for women.”

The participants of the DIG’s survey, when asked about the skills of female

industrial designers, were emphatic that women “do not” or “should not” have different

skills from male designers. However, sometimes women were perceived as having

different and better skills in “styling,” “color,” “coordination” and appreciation of the end

user. One man suggested that female industrial designers should be employed in kitchen

design, since, “women have practical knowledge of kitchens and could enhance design in

this area.”

Based on DIG’s findings, Bruce (1985) theorizes that these attitudes and

perceptions of which roles are suitable for men and women are deeply rooted, culturally

and historically, and act as barriers inhibiting women from choosing technical and design

careers, even when women have the appropriate knowledge, when they want to do such

work and when employers are not discriminating against them. Bruce suggests that these

attitudes reinforce the ideas that women do not typically perceive themselves as being

“technical” and suitable for “industrial design.”

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 Bruce finally speculates that the situation is unlikely to change quickly because of

the gendered nature of occupations and the historical and cultural factors, which act as

barriers excluding women from the profession of industrial design.

The findings of the DIG’s survey portray industrial design as a highly gendered

profession. These findings are consistent with the results of the survey 2000 conducted by

the Association of Women Industrial Designers (AWID).

The AWID conducted a survey via e-mail with women designers working in the

United States, as well as in Canada, The Netherlands, and England (Yong, 2000). The

ultimate goal of the survey was to find out patterns in the professional practice. The

survey consisted of a questionnaire of open questions related to gender issues. Twenty

female designers participated in the survey reporting interesting patterns and comments

that suggest the existence of gender stereotypes in the practice of industrial design.

According to the responses of the survey, the ratio of male to female staff in the

various firms is overwhelmingly masculine. Seventy percent of the participants reported

working in a firm dominated by male designers. Moreover, the findings of the survey

reported that female designers find difficulties to achieve a level of respect comparable to

the male counterpart. Gender stereotyping attitudes toward occupation and skills were

frequently mentioned, depicting a male dominated profession where it is belief that

female designers are more emotional than men and men are more rational than women. It

also suggests that men and women approach differently a design solution, presupposing

that females are less “enthralled in the romance with technology” and show more

“sensitivity to materials, colors, and form.” (Yong, 2000)

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 Respondents recounted incidents in their work life as female designers, providing

meaningful comments that depicted stereotypical gender conceptions. For example,

participants reported that they often receive the “feminine” projects of the company

because it is believed that they possess gendered skills that make them fit better in

projects that are related to home, kitchen, and children. Some participants also reported

that in the professional environment of industrial design women designers are perceived

as “not as talented” as men designers.

Overall, from this survey we can perceive strong gender stereotypes of occupation,

skills and traits that shape the context of industrial design professionals. However, it

should be considered that the study has a small sample size of only twenty female

participants (at the time this article was written) and it does not explore male’s perception

toward gender issues of design. Therefore, further analysis of gender stereotypes in

design is required.

Clegg & Mayfield (1999) studied gender and design in the educational field, and

established that women are under-represented in product and furniture design, and over-

represented in fashion and jewelry. Clegg & Mayfield believe that this discrepancy

reproduces the stereotypical dualism through which women are associated with the body

and the decorative and men are associated with technology and the shaping of nature.

Clegg & Mayfield suggest that there is a lack of empirical work looking in detail

at gender relations in design practices. For that reason they approach the problem of

under-representation of women in industrial design through a case study of students who

have chosen design courses in one higher educational institution in England.

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 The study was structured to allow both male and female participants to tell the

story of how they chose their courses. Researchers conducted taped interviews with open

questions. The interviews allowed participants to construct a biography of their route into

higher education; it focused on previous educational experiences, hobbies, and leisure

interests. A number of questions were asked about their expectations, and whether these

were being met, in relation to work demands and their experiences of the gender mix in

their courses. The questions did not assume gender as problematic.

The most noticeable cross-gender pattern that emerged from the data was the

pleasure of making things or drawing since childhood. A range of different hands-on

activities was cited. For example women typically mentioned knitting, decorating

dollhouses and using plasticine, showing clear gendered skills learned in infancy. Female

references to domestic crafts and knitting are especially interesting.

Most of the students of the workshops, as well as the technicians were male.

Therefore, a frequent comment from the female students involved in shop activities,

mainly from furniture and product design, was that men frequently thought that because

they were females they wouldn’t be as skilled as men. This male attitude depicts a clear

gendered bias of natural abilities or skills.

Particularly interesting is the statement that a female student of product design

makes when describing her uncertainty about functioning in this male space: “I think a lot

of men are more scientific or technically minded than some girls are.” Another female

student from interior design explained that on the “architectural side of things, the

technical side, men are usually better, whereas women are usually better at the

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furnishing.” These type of comments reveal that certain sorts of competence are treated

as gendered, indicating the belief that men and women possess sex-specific skills that

determine their design abilities, suggesting that men and women are considered to be

naturally suited to certain areas of design production (Clegg & Mayfield, 1999).

Clegg & Mayfield point out that not all the men in their study were comfortable

with such a view. One male product designer commented on the predominance of males

as being undesirable. Furthermore, the student refers to the presence of women in product

design as desirable because the artistic part of the product is as important as the technical

one, still showing gendered stereotyping of skills.

The study revealed that both men and women viewed Interior Design as more

“feminine,” and the frequent gendering of technology by the interviewees revealed that

industrial design was seen as more “masculine.”

These studies suggest that conceptions of gender do exist within the educational

and professional environment of industrial design. Occupational gender stereotypes

toward industrial design depict a masculine profession that enhances gendered

perceptions of design skills and abilities. Therefore, further research on gender

stereotyping in design is needed to better understand this crucial issue, which will help to

reshape the unbalanced presence of female industrial designers.

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