At the University of Kansas, only one third of the freshman in the industrial design program are female students. Because of reinforced gender roles, many women are steered away from completing a degree in the STEM fields. Gender diversity in industrial design is essential as it puts forth new ideas due to the way women experience the world. It is vital to examine the variation of reasons preventing women from pursuing an industrial design degree and then to construct methods to encourage more women to go into this field. The degrees girls choose to go into, “is discursively constrained by gendered definitions of the technical” (Clegg). To create gender equality in the design field, “We need women at all levels, including the top, to change
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Perriand’s determination to work for Le Corbusier was a key factor in the advancement of women in industrial design, as well as diminishing gender oriented furniture. She gave credit to Le Corbusier for creating the basic forms of their furniture designs, but then she and her partner, Jeanneret, worked out the, “full scale details, and then she took charge of the execution herself, fabricating the first prototypes in her studio apartment” (Adler 176). Le Corbusier’s design and architecture has made a major impact in design history, but it would not have been possible without the help of Perriand by his side. Their relationship can be seen through the physical furniture; Le Corbusier has a colder modern design while Perriand adds softness to different aspects of the product. Not only did Charlotte Perriand advance the amount of women interested in industrial design, but she influenced other designers to stray away from gender stereotyped furniture. During the time she worked for Le Corbusier, “as late as the spring of 1927, Le Corbusier was still distinguishing between male and female furnishings, but by 1929 those …show more content…
It is important to examine why there is so few women in industrial design by looking at women’s childhood from a sociological standpoint. Since gender is a social construct, gender often, “influences parent–child conversations about science and career path options, with parents often discouraging their children from pursuing gender nontraditional subjects” (Lockhart). Many parents apply gender stereotypes to their child’s life, influencing girls to follow stereotypical female jobs. Not only do many parents discourage their daughters from pursuing a stem field, but some parents have lower expectations for their daughters compared to their sons. Since there is more pressure on males to persist in STEM, females feel less pressure from parents to complete a STEM degree and often do not follow through with their chosen major (Shapiro). In a study examining female student industrial designers, the accounts given were, “actively constructed as a personal narrative from childhood in ways that suggested that pleasurable, visceral, hands-on experiences were central to the way they expressed themselves as a person” (Clegg). Through research of child development, it is shown that children should be engaging in creative and design-oriented activities like crafts and drawing for early on exposure to industrial design (Lockhart).
Perriand’s determination to work for Le Corbusier was a key factor in the advancement of women in industrial design, as well as diminishing gender oriented furniture. She gave credit to Le Corbusier for creating the basic forms of their furniture designs, but then she and her partner, Jeanneret, worked out the, “full scale details, and then she took charge of the execution herself, fabricating the first prototypes in her studio apartment” (Adler 176). Le Corbusier’s design and architecture has made a major impact in design history, but it would not have been possible without the help of Perriand by his side. Their relationship can be seen through the physical furniture; Le Corbusier has a colder modern design while Perriand adds softness to different aspects of the product. Not only did Charlotte Perriand advance the amount of women interested in industrial design, but she influenced other designers to stray away from gender stereotyped furniture. During the time she worked for Le Corbusier, “as late as the spring of 1927, Le Corbusier was still distinguishing between male and female furnishings, but by 1929 those …show more content…
It is important to examine why there is so few women in industrial design by looking at women’s childhood from a sociological standpoint. Since gender is a social construct, gender often, “influences parent–child conversations about science and career path options, with parents often discouraging their children from pursuing gender nontraditional subjects” (Lockhart). Many parents apply gender stereotypes to their child’s life, influencing girls to follow stereotypical female jobs. Not only do many parents discourage their daughters from pursuing a stem field, but some parents have lower expectations for their daughters compared to their sons. Since there is more pressure on males to persist in STEM, females feel less pressure from parents to complete a STEM degree and often do not follow through with their chosen major (Shapiro). In a study examining female student industrial designers, the accounts given were, “actively constructed as a personal narrative from childhood in ways that suggested that pleasurable, visceral, hands-on experiences were central to the way they expressed themselves as a person” (Clegg). Through research of child development, it is shown that children should be engaging in creative and design-oriented activities like crafts and drawing for early on exposure to industrial design (Lockhart).