just struck me are these questions:
do female industrial designers have a better advantage when working in a make dominated environment ?
do you think females get pushed down in a male environment or otherwise ?
do men get jealous about one another ? But less so if the designer was a lady ?
do you think there would be jealousy among the females if one particular female does outshine the rest in a male environment ?
ok i’m out of here or i’m late !!!
see ya all !!
do female industrial designers have a better advantage when working in a male dominated environment ?
i don’t think so. i mean theres certain generally female personality charictaristics that are deirable in a designer, but i think most male designers have them too, just in a more masculine way… yes and no…
do you think females get pushed down in a male environment or otherwise ?
only if they let themselves, just like the guys.
do men get jealous about one another ? But less so if the designer was a lady ?
men communicate differently then women… (theres a great book i was told to read by my human factors teacher about this called ‘you just don’t understand’) guys tend to think that jealousy is a disease for the weak. we can admire our colleages skills without being jealous, regardless of gender.
i hope im not way off base here,
do women designers perceive their experience as being more difficult than that of the guys? (ofcourse i could see why - communication barriers, old boys network , prodiminately male proffesion…)
Can’t speak for designers in the general sense, but in my book the only thing that counts is ability. Gender doesn’t play a factor.
I’ve never found myself jealous of someone else’s abilities or accomplishments, but I always actively seek designers that are better than me in certain areas to aspire to and work toward… I have been jealous of other people’s projects though! Like I wish I worked on the Wii, I love that thing! Just to have the experience of going what that team went through, it would have been cool.
I think the world would be better off if we thought a little bit why we gender stereotype.
Are certain qualities/personality traits masculine or feminine? Really? Which ones? To say that women can empathize with a consumer better or that men don’t get jealous of colleagues’ skills is, well, sexist.[edit: s.e.x.ist]
I’m wondering if I’m going to get a bunch of replies, “But all men I know are….â€, “but all women I met in ID are…â€
I, personally, have a certain set of qualities that gives me some advantages/disadvantages, my male colleagues have similar/different skills/personality traits. It depends on a person, not what gender that person happened to be.
From my experience, I do not get any extra perks from working with dudes only. And if a company would give me some kind of different treatment just because I got a set of ovaries? I wouldn’t be too happy about that, ‘cause I’m like totally for equality…like for realz. In my experience, I don’t get pushed down, but I have encountered some stupid jokes that stereotype females ( well, technically, promote women-hate, the “I won’t trust anything that bleeds for 7 days and doesn’t die†type of jokes). And dudes, having pin-ups in your cubicle is like borderline on sexual [edit: s.e.x.ual] harassment. I don’t want to deal with objectification of women at work, K THNX? I get my dose of that through pop culture and that’s more than enough.
ID is not only male dominated, it’s white male dominated occupation. But it’s oh-changing.
P.S. Way to go censorship!
Spam crawlers look for words like S.E.X… not to say they don’t look for sex …
I wished everyone were like you.
Just to share a persoanl experience in a quick way.(ruuning for time asusual and am typing damn fast) : I used to work at this large MNC where there are only 2 female IDers. So it was a sort of ‘prize’ there. My boss had told me about her and encouraged me to email her in another country where the head office is. So I did in a very amicable way. Sadly she never returned email. And in fact from then on, she always earmarked me as her sole compeititor. I had thought I wasn’t sincere enough, but as time passes it was dead clear she was on the defence. My boss sensed it and so my colleagues and all just remain very diplomatic at her presence.
In a seperate case, I also noticed that there were ‘cat fights’. I tried to tone down the work I produce. But I was suffering in terms of progress. So now I don’t care about people getting jealous or not. I just do what I want to and be careful about how people think in general. I don’t buy personal jealousy.
I hope I have done correctly. but really I feel there is a sort of compeition here. Its almost like women fighting for a man, or a group of male suitors aftering a woman.
Maybe all this is just primal and natural ?..
Cheerygirl,
What country are you in? That will have an impact on your situation as well. A good parallel example is the statistics for percentage of women in government around the world: Sweden has the highest proportion of women MPs (Members of Parliament) with 45 percent, followed by Norway and Finland (each 38 percent), Denmark and the Netherlands (each 37 percent), and Spain (36 percent). Australia (25 percent), Canada (21 percent), the United Kingdom (20 percent) and the United States (15 percent) The data is from 2005.
In a perfect world gender does not play a factor. In reality it does, especially if you are living and working in the US. Anyone claiming otherwise would most likely be of the male gender. Although the number of women in the ID profession is very disproportionate it is changing rapidly in your favor. Many companies today are actively seeking out women designers. That is the good news. The bad news is that there is still a long way to go.
In regards to your situation I think you handled it correctly. I have seen examples of the situation you’re talking about in the past. Take the high road and do the best work you possibly can.
What you just described is what I would call “being pushed down”. It is unacceptable, unprofessional and inappropriate behavior.
thanks silent star for your reply !
I’m from Singapore (over the rainbow, on the equator)
Anyway I am surprised that there are only 15% women in the industry.
I would have thought it would be much higher than that ??
Any stats for people in Asia ?..