Gender has always had a dominant place in design. Kirkham and Attfield in their 1996 book, The Gendered Object, set out that in their view that there are attributable genders which seem to be unconsciously attached to some objects as the norm. Making the distinction between how gender is viewed in modern day design compared to twenty plus years ago is now radically different in that there is now recognition of this normalization. Having international companies recognise this change and adapt their brands and companies to relate to this modern day approach influences designers like myself to keep up to date and affect my own work.
When designing there is Gender system some people tend to follow very strictly, the system is a guide that works with values that reveals the gender formation in mankind. In the gender system you have binary opposition which takes action in colour, size, feeling and shape, for example pink/blue, small/large, smooth/rough and organic/geometric. Without even thinking the words give off synonyms of male or female without even putting them in context. Gender’s definition is traditionally Male or Female but modern day brands are challenging and pushing these established boundaries. They don’t think they should be restrictive or prescriptive as they have been in the past. Kirkham and Attfield challenge this by comparing perceptions in the early twentieth century illustrating that the societal norms were the opposite to what we are now made to believe by gender norms. A good example of this is the crude binary opposition implicit in ‘pink for a little girl and blue for a boy’ was only established in the 1930’s; babies and parents managed perfectly well without such colour coding before then. Today through marketing and product targeting these ‘definitions’ are even more widely used in the design and marketing of children clothes and objects than a few years ago. Importantly, such binary oppositions also influence those who purchase objects, and, in this case, facilitate the pleasures of many adults take in seeing small humans visibly marked as gendered beings. This is now being further challenged by the demands for non-binary identification.
This initial point made by Kirkham and Attfield in 1996 is still valid. Even though the designers and brands are in essence guilty of forms of discrimination by falling in line with using the established gender norms, they do it because it’s what their consumers want and how they see development of business and creation of profit, because these stereotypical ‘Norms’ are seen to be Normal, acceptable and sub-consciously recognisable. “Thus we sometimes fail to appreciate the effects that particular notions of femininity and masculinity have on the conception, design, advertising, purchase, giving and uses of objects, as well as on their critical and popular reception”. (Kirkham and Attfield. 1996. The Gendered Object, p. 1).
With the help of the product language, gendered toys and clothes appear from an early age. The products are sorted as being ‘for girls’ and ‘for boys’ in the store as identified by Ehrnberger, Rasanen, Ilstedt, in 2012 in the article ‘Visualising Gender Norms in Design. International Journal of Design’. Product language is mostly used in the branding aspect of design, how a product or object is portrayed, it’s not only what the written language says. Product language relates to how the object is being showcased and portrayed through colours, shapes and patterns. A modern example of this is the branding for a Yorkie chocolate bar. Their slogan was publicly known as being gender bias towards mens. ‘Not for girls’, there is no hiding the fact that the language the company are using is being targeted at men because they are promoting a brand that is strong, chunky and ‘hard’ in an unsophisticated way which all have connotations of being ‘male’ and actually arguably as ‘alpha male’ to make it more attractive to men. Their chosen colours also suggest this with using navy blue, dark purple, yellow and red which are bold and is typically a ‘male’ generated pallette. Another example would be the advertisement of tissues. Tissues no matter where you buy them do the exact same thing irrespective of gender so why are some tissues being targeted at woman and some at men, could it be that this gender targeting be avoiding neutrality helps sell more tissues.
Product Language is very gender specific when it comes to clothing brands and toys for kids. “Girls should wear princess dresses, play with dolls and toy housework products, while boys should wear dark clothes with prints of skulls or dinosaurs, and should play with war toys and construction kits”. (Ehrnberger, Rasanen, Ilstedt, 2012. Visualising Gender Norms in Design. International Journal of Design). When branding things for children having the separation between girl and boy is extremely common, using language like ‘action’ which has male connotations or ‘princess’ which has female connotations appeals to the consumer because they are relatable words to them and to their children as well. In modern society most people find it difficult not to identify blue for boys and pink for girls especially from newborns. If you were to walk into any department store/ toy store or any store that caters to children you will see the separation between genders no matter if it is clothes to toys or anything in between. The separation is so obvious through the colour branding used. Girl side, pink, yellow, lilac are used, soft bright happy colours being used on toy babies and dolls to hats and scarfs. Conversely on the boys side blue, green and black, bold, dark, more primary colours being used for trucks to a pair of trousers.
Some companies have begun to notice how detrimental the separation is developing into and how it could possibly create a hold in advancing and opening up our society, example being John Lewis Partnership.
John Lewis is a massive department store, that has been in business for nearly fifty years. In 2017 they decided to scrap the girls section and boys sections for the clothing range in their store, and name it ‘Childs wear’ a gender neutral name. Allowing them to design clothing that allows children to wear whatever they want without being told ‘no, that is a boys top you can’t wear that because you’re a girl’ or vice versa. Caroline Bettis, head of children’s wear at John Lewis, said: “We do not want to reinforce gender stereotypes within our John Lewis collections and instead want to provide greater choice and variety to our customers, so that the parent or child can choose what they would like to wear”. Possibly the only issue with this stance is the price point, John Lewis is typically known for being a higher priced, high street store which means it isn’t accessible for everyone to shop there. Campaign group Let Clothes be Clothes commented on this “Higher-end, independent clothing retailers have been more pro-active at creating gender-neutral collections, but we hope unisex ranges will filter down to all price points. We still see many of the supermarkets, for example, using stereotypical slogans on their clothing,” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/02/john-lewis-removes-boys-girls-labels-childrens-clothes/).
Having a very well-known brand make this move should only enforce, encourage and inspire others to join in with the development. This change is a bold way of using Product language, even though it’s not for just one specific thing its advertising and marketing as well, meaning it is a whole rebrand of company, by not using gender specific words it takes away the automatic stereotypes you get when buying anything for children.
Equality is the state of being equal, be it in status, rights or opportunities, so when it comes to design why does this attribute get forgotten about. This isn’t a feminist rant, gender equality is affected in both male and females in the design world, when designing, everything should be equal and fair to both sexes. “Gender equality and equity in design is often highlighted, but it often results in producing designs that highlight the differences between men and women, although both the needs and characteristics vary more between individuals than between genders” (Hyde 2005). Hyde’s point is still contemporary and relevant, having gender equality in design is very important, but gender isn’t the sole issue, things can be designed for a specific gender but even if you are female you might not relate to the gender specific clothes for your sex. Design is to make and create something for someone or thing, not just gender. “Post- feminism argues that in an increasingly fragmented and diverse world, defining one’s identity as male or female is irrelevant, and can be detrimental”. (https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/experiencingcriticaltheory/Satchell-WomenArePeople.pdf).
Recently many more up and coming independent brands and companies have been launching Unisex clothing brands for a multiple of years, most have been doing it and pushing the movement well before the topic of gender equality in design got into mainstream media as an issue. One company pushing out gender norms is Toogood London and another is GFW, Gender Free World. Gender Free World is a company that was created by a group of people who all think on the same wavelength when it comes to equality in gender. In fact their ‘Mission Statement’ sets this out as a core ethos (which incidently is obviously an influence on John Lewis when you look at the transferability of the phraseology) “GFW Clothing was founded in 2015 (part of Gender Free World Ltd) by a consortium of like-minded individuals who passionately believe that what we have in our pants has disproportionately restricted the access to choice of clothing on the high street and online.” https://www.genderfreeworld.com/pages/about-g. Lisa Honan is the cofounder of GFW, her main reason for starting a company like this was through ‘sheer frustration’ due to the lack of options for her taste and style on the market, with this she has shopped in male and female departments but never found anything fitted either especially if she was going for a male piece of clothing. During an interview with Honan by Saner she commented that the men’s shirts didn’t fit her because she had a woman’s body and iIt got her thinking, ‘ why is there a man’s aisle and a woman’s aisle, and why do you have to make that choice?’. She saw that you’re not able to make many purchases without being forced to define your own gender and this is reinforcing the separation between genders in fashion, if she feels this way many others must too, and they do or there wouldn’t be such a potential big business opportunity for it.
In my design practice of Communication Design, gender plays a huge role. Be it from colour choices, to certain typefaces being used, most work Communication designers need to create and produce, will either be to represent a brand or to actually brand a company, so when choosing options, potential gender stereotyping should come into consideration. The points mentioned above, showing how using the gender system, product language, gender norms and having equality and equity in design, reinforces graphic designers in a cautionary manner not to not fall down any pit holes when designing.
Designing doesn’t mean simply male or female, designing means to create and produce ‘something’ for ‘someone’ no matter their identifiable or chosen gender. If they are a company producing products targeted specifically at men and after a robust design concept examination I felt that using blue would enhance their brand and awareness to their target demographic then blue would be used, in just the same way using pink for them if it works for the customer, then put simply it works.
To conclude, exploring the key points of gender in the design world, only showcases the many issues there are.
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