Design and Feminism: Re-visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things

How well do our designed environments—the places and spaces where we live, work, and play—meet our aesthetic and functional needs? Increasingly, the distinction between the spaces considered public and private or work and home is becoming more blurred. As a result, innovative designs are needed to meet the challenges of our ever-changing environment. Our streets, parks, dwellings, and tools are designed to a “one-size-fits-all” standard, and the responses of the design community to meet diverse needs have been mixed at best. Design and Feminism offers feminist critiques of these inadequate design standards, and suggests ideas, projects, and programs for change.

The interdisciplinary essay cover the writers’ diverse fields—architecture, planning, industrial and graphic design, and architectural, urban, and design history.

Essays cover such subjects as rethinking the American city, graphic design and the urban landscape, working at home, theories of women and design, and a trio of essays on industrial designs. A review essay of the literature in these fields—the first of its kind—rounds out the collection.

Joan Rothschild is a research associate at the Center for Human Environments at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. She has published many books and articles, including Machina ex Dea: Feminist Perspective on Technology, Teaching Technology from a Feminist Perspective, and Women, Technology, and Innovation.