Ah Education, the Building Blocks of Learning.
A continued exploration of the disappearing female designers
From learning the alphabet to getting a degree, its a system that takes up around a quarter of your life before sending you out to fend for yourself in the working world. Unless, of course you choose to go into further education.
For now we’ll just focus on the further education, following on from the topic of my last post about the ‘disappearance’ of female graphic designers within the industry and if the graphic design workplace played a part in that.
You can read that one here.
As I mentioned in the previous post, the ratio of male to female designers in the industry is completely flipped when it comes to education.
So why is it that more and more female designers go into further education, is it for better job opportunities, fear of not finding a good job with out a masters or PhD or maybe lack of options?
Maybe all three.
Nobody really knows why, but from spending some time researching the matter it seems it could stem from a lack of confidence when it comes to self promotion. Studies show that men tend to be more confident in ‘blowing their own trumpet’ per say. What I mean to say is that male designers are more confident about pushing their ‘brand’ and thus finding themselves in the limelight and in having more impact within the industry.
Yet, it can also be said that female designers may prefer to be behind the scenes in managerial or leadership roles. Excelling in organisational and creative management skills; which could also explain why so many female designers go into further education to study Design Management at a Masters or PhD level.
But away from all this could it also be the lack of female roles models in those limelight positions that deters more women from pursuing bigger career opportunities.
Or having other responsibilities.
Till next time…
