Gender and design: How women-led design approaches can transform communities

The word ‘gender’ brings two images, two colours and multiple visuals to my mind. It also raises a question: Can gender influence Design? Apparently, it does.

- PROF SHARMILA SAGARA

Women empowerment

People often say that women are more sensitive to design than men. I choose to disagree here because I believe that our sensibilities are not gender specific. In fact, they are governed by the masculine and feminine energies that exist in all of us. These energies shape our awareness, our ways of seeing, and, most importantly, our mindfulness, an essential aspect of meaningful design.

Design as a discipline stands on the pillars of sensitivity, social awareness cul-turalawarenessand ideology. Design is much more thanit seems. Itis not, or cannot be, as simple as pink and blue. The pillars are the deep-seated conditioning of societal values, including caste, class, culture and traditions. Design is about broadening one’s boundaries by first acknowledging them, then challenging them, and finally breaking them. To understand design in the context of gender, we must first look within and recognise our deep social and cultural conditioning.

History tells us that design hasalwaysbeen about social transformation. It is one of the key forces behind human progress. In fact, we often understand the story of civilisation through its arts and designs, through how people shaped their tools, homes, clothes and communication. Yet with every cultural shift comes anew kind of conditioning that shapes how wesee both design and gender.