Gendered Design - by Pinar Kaygan (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book bridges both normative and interventional design processes, methodologies and products under 'gendered design' as an overarching conceptual framework, with the goal of igniting reflexivity, awareness and action among design researchers, practitioners and educators on how designed things do and can have an impact on gender issues.

Book Synopsis

Gendered Design: An Interdisciplinary Framework is concerned with the feminist question of how products, both digital and physical, are and can be gendered by design. It proposes "gendered design" as a conceptual framework for the use of design researchers, educators and practitioners to analyze, critically reflect on, challenge and transform the ways in which design processes and methodologies contribute to the prevalent gender power relations. Presenting a comprehensive review of the extant feminist work, this book distinguishes between the normative and interventional gendered design practices. It identifies the explicit and intentional as well as the unreflexively and ultimately careless practices, which lead to, respectively, gender-stereotypical and gender-blind products. This book stresses that the prevalence of such practices should not prevent us from exploring the interventional forms of gendered design. Drawing on four case studies, Gendered Design attests that, if products have such an important role in gender relations, then they can also be shaped in ways that advance gender equity in society by integrating gender-sensitive, gender-responsive, gender-inclusive, and gender-transformative considerations into product design processes and methodologies.

Review Quotes

"This book, authored on feminist design, offers a groundbreaking exploration of how everyday objects are imbued with gender. Through insightful analysis and compelling case studies, Pinar Kaygan demonstrates how seemingly neutral products are deeply intertwined with societal norms and power structures, often reinforcing harmful gender stereotypes. This interdisciplinary work is essential reading for designers, scholars, and anyone interested in understanding the profound impact of design on our lives and the world around us." --Shilpa Das, Principal Faculty, National Institute of Design, India

"In her clearly written, easily accessible book, Pinar Kaygan succeeds with the difficult as well as important task of making the role of gender in and for design fully transparent for the reader. Not only does she propose a six-steps scale for illuminating various strategies of gendered design; she also conducts a full examination of gender and gendering in product language, design processes and user experiences. Un-concealing the otherwise concealed and acknowledging the power of design to create and maintain perceptions of gender, Pinar Kaygan makes a much-needed call for awareness, reflexivity and action in more gender-attentive design practices." --Mads Nygaard Folkmann, Professor of Design Studies, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

About the Author

Pinar Kaygan is senior researcher at the Art Academy of Latvia, Institute of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture.