Designing Women
There’s been a thought brewing in the back of my mind, brought to the forefront of my attention thanks to the #thatwoman hashtag which resurfaced some frustrating memories.
After experiencing some subtle inequities at my past place of work, and hearing from a substantial amount of former female colleagues who faced much more overt discrimination, I brought up the situation in casual conversation with a former male co-worker.
“[Company] has a woman problem.” I said.
“I think it’s more of a designer problem.” He corrected.
Now this is a totally fair rebuttal. I was the only designer there at the time, and a lot of my issues directly related to what I was working on rather than more commonplace examples of sexism such as unfair compensation or sexual harassment. In addition my friend wasn’t regularly grabbing lunch with the women on the operations side of the organization and thus wasn’t privy to what they were going through.
However, what I think about often is…. what are my responsibilities as a designer, and what exactly does this role entail? I think about this a lot for personal improvement and also for evaluating potential design candidates. The conclusion I always come to is that while we’re credited as inspiring ideators, any experienced designer is well aware that half the job is simply saying “no”. It’s more than pixel-pushing and it’s also even more than just “problem-solving”. A large part of the skill involves delivering objective critique, navigating egos, and challenging assumptions.
Which is exactly why a “designer problem” is in fact a “woman problem”.
Because if you are the kind of person who has preconceived notions of how young women ought to behave, then pretty much all female product designers are going to disappoint you.
