Women, feminism, sustainability
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Date
2020
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Mcode
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Language
en
Pages
115
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Abstract
This study discusses the need to incorporate feminist perspectives into design for sustainability. Feminism advocates for building an inclusive future free from discrimination and offers an alternative holistic understanding of sustainability, revealing patriarchal, racist and colonial power relations and gender-based bias. Drawing from the concerns regarding the absence of feminist perspectives in sustainability-oriented discourse and, and a relatively small number of papers addressing feminist perspectives in design for sustainability, it is assumed that there is a need to focus on this gap. To adopt a feminist lens and start incorporating feminist perspectives into design practice, education, and research designers first must be familiar with the aims of feminism. The objective of this study is to examine the attitude towards feminist perspectives among women designers, design educators, and practitioners working for sustainability. The main research questions are: How are women designers, design educators, and practitioners currently perceiving feminist ideologies, what attitudes do they have towards feminist and women’s movements and the role of women in sustainability, do they identify as feminists (or not), and to what extent do these perspectives influence (or not) their design decisions? To answer research questions semi-structured interviews with eleven women design researchers, educators, and practitioners from eleven countries were conducted. The findings indicate that the concept of feminism seems to provoke misconceptions and thus is given little attention. The biggest constraints are set by the biased attitude of the public, including academia, towards feminist ideology and perspectives as well as the existing threat of physical violence towards women fighting for equality in the context of some countries. Incorporating feminist perspectives into design education and practice can be challenging and thus requires a supportive environment. Therefore, being a feminist, and openly addressing biased practices, is a privilege that might not be available for all women designers equally. Nevertheless, regardless of feminist self-identification, based on the nature of participants' work, their understanding of the role of women in sustainability it may be concluded that participants share many perspectives of feminist ideologies indicated as important for the transition to sustainability in the work of feminist ecological economics and feminist political ecology authors.Description
Supervisor
Jalas, MikkoThesis advisor
Kohtala, CindyKeywords
design, sustainability, sustainable development, feminism, feminist theory, feminist research, sustainable design, women