Hi Eduardo

The whole perception of gender is a real challenge to change to something
more respecting of diversity because we are so led by our language(s), as I
have said in my paper 'Modelling Complexity of Gender as an Agent of
Change', in the UK Systems Society conference this year in Oxford.

While it is appreciated that in less literal ages we had simplistic models,
which in terms of gender were often binary, in order to simplify
decision-making and behaviour, now in the age of information and more
Inclusive forms of literacy many acknowledge the need for dimensional
models, as opposed to categorical models and terms of reference, for the
gender related contexts of gender, sex and sexuality. However, dimensional
perception lacks value if it cannot easily be communicated. There is a need
to effectively quantify and describe identity of people and artefacts, much
of which should now be seen a neutral. However, there is also an apparent
need, in the performativity of gender, to declare more masculine or feminine
characteristics or behaviours, and to acknowledge gender fluidity in that
time and context can change these performative needs. But what are we
declaring as masculine and feminine characteristics? The more I consider
Gender, the more inclined I am to perceive Gender as an implicit form of
Sexism, because so many things should just been seen in the neutral, such as
the V&A exhibition of 'Men in Skirts', though the point of that was to
create reaction and debate.

So, to return to the issue of language(s), it would seem that the only way
to increase literacy and deepen understanding is to start to devalue the
established semantics to develop more inclusive meaning(s). But is there not
an ethical paradox here, in that I am suggesting change and potential loss
of cultural traditions?!

What can you do? You cannot please everyone.

Thoughts?

Kev

Dr. Kev Hilton
Director of Research
The Centre for Design Research
School of Design
Squires Building
Northumbria University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST
 
Tel:  0191 243 7340
Fax: 0191 227 3148
[log in to unmask]
http://www.openfolio.com/users/kevhilton
http://northumbria.ac.uk/researchandconsultancy/Res_conf_06/kevin_hilton/?vi
ew=Standard

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduardo
Corte Real
Sent: 16 November 2006 16:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Gender 101 and design - Looooong post, sorry!

Dear Chris,

From Glorious Lisbon, really Lisboa (a female).
Our language genders everything. This is a totally different perspective how

our mind is structured.
There is a long controversy between two diferent kinds of cooking pans in 
Portugal: One is called Tacho (masculine), the other is called Panela 
(feminine). But the tacho is short and fatty and the panela is slim and 
stronger. Everybody confuses them.
What I mean is that All things, and I mean All Things (except for tachos and

panelas), contribute to stereotypes we dont have neutral . Even Feelings: A 
Saudade, (without translation) feminine. O Ódio (hatred) masculine. Even 
Cities: Évora (feminine), Porto (masculine). But some cities are slightly 
different like Moskow or London. I can write: Moscovo é lindo (Moscow is 
beautifull) but I can also write Moscovo é linda if  I'm implying the city 
of Moscow is beautiful since the word city is feminine. The same with London

or Paris. Rome and Babilon are clearly feminine.
Some words became feminine or masculine by linguistic hazard but most are 
really sterotyipical.
I wrote a about it in this list a few months ago. It is diferent to thing 
the artificial world with things that are galls and things that are boys. By

the way, thing (coisa) is feminine).
Academy: Feminine
Presentation: Feminine
Speech: Masculine
Question: feminine
University: feminine
Art: feminine
Science: feminine
Revolution: feminine
Dialogue: masculine (you didn't expect this one...)
Article/Paper: masculine
well,

discussion list... feminine
 Cheers,

Eduardo


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christena Nippert-Eng" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 3:46 PM
Subject: Gender 101 and design - Looooong post, sorry!


Cheers, everyone!  Especially my new wonderful friends from glorious
Lisbon!

Yesterday, I jotted down what turned out to be two pages! of text
related to a quick introductory lecture I'm giving in five minutes.  I
couldn't resist an attempt to address a couple themes that have been
introduced to the list recently.  So apologies, apologies but I'm going
to send this now anyway since everyone has the option to delete at will!

Sociologists distinguish between sex and gender.  Sex is a biological,
ascribed attribute.  It is dichotomous, and usually assigned for life.
Gender is a sociological, achieved attribute; it is about learned
behavior and it is distributed across an ideal-typical continuum,
ranging from behavior that is extremely feminine to extremely
masculine.

Note:  We sometimes use the word gender instead of "sex" in order not
to confuse it with sexual intercourse (or whatever Bill Clinton did or
did not do) but in my discipline, one's gender is analytically distinct
from one's sex.

We tend to roughly assume the gender of people on first sight, given
what appears to be their sex and the gender work they have done to
create a certain impression:  what they do about clothing, facial
appearance, body hair, smell, musculature, movement and then, if it
happens, things like styles of conversation, vocal timbre, face work,
etc.  Again, all of this is learned and we learn to do gender work in
accordance with what our culture, significant others, and we,
ourselves, expect of us.  Gender is extremely cultured, of course, and
what, precisely, constitutes femininity or masculinity changes around
the world.

Any given individual may be classified as more masculine or more
feminine in general, given cultural norms about these behaviors.
Certainly, for instance, any female can be surprisingly masculine and
any male can be surprisingly feminine in both their general way of
being and in how they behave during any specific encounter.  But it is
quite normal for any given individual to be more masculine or feminine
at given times of the day, in different places, with different people,
or at different times across the life course.  Each individual combines
femininity and masculinity and is therefore - at least theoretically -- 
able to emphasize more of one or the other as appropriate.

In the U.S., for instance, the ideal manager, employee, parent,
professor, student, president, janitor, athlete, conference attendee,
etc., etc., embodies both classically feminine and masculine
attributes, switching between them as needed in order to best achieve
the performance and goals expected of her or him.

Many of the world's most revered religious and political leaders
provide fine examples of this.  One may note that Jesus Christ, the
Prophet Mohammed, Buddha, and people like Mahatma Ghandi and Martin
Luther King, Jr. encouraged others to aspire to daily in practices that
must be considered extremely "feminine" by the classification
guidelines of Western European thought.

One cluster of their ideological frameworks (thinking is a behavior, by
the way) as well as their more visible behaviors certainly focuses on
the importance of unmitigated inclusion of all human beings as people
who matter, for instance, and they often conveyed this message through
provocative stories and remarks that require quite a bit of thinking in
order to understand.  They remain quite the political radicals and
visionaries for this.

It turns out this is also a very feminine way of thinking and being,
for Westerners.  Deborah Tannen, a sociolinguist, argues, for instance,
that more feminine styles of talk are not only indirect but they are
focused on connection and leveling social hierarchies - finding common
ground with the people we talk to, in ways that invite them to do the
same.  More masculine styles of talk are direct, however, and focus on
establishing individuals' status within a specific social hierarchy.
Men tend to focus on the question of "who's one-up on whom" in their
conversations, she finds, while women try to find the substantive
footholds that establish their equality and their care for each other.

Consider, for instance, people who 1) go (sometimes massively) over
their allotted time in conference presentations, 2) prepare and read
extremely closely argued and difficult to follow "papers," or 3)
provide a single, closely-controlled point of access to their thoughts
(say, only verbal delivery) and belittle individuals who might offer or
benefit from other ways of presenting.  These are people who, in other
words, refuse to make room for the audience, who perhaps even think
that a conference is not supposed to be about the audience, only about
the speakers.

Such individuals are simply behaving in a more classically masculine
way.  So, too, are people in the audience who make long expository,
corrective, constant, or aggressive statements, as these are also part
of a metaconversation about who's one-up over whom.  They also show
what Charles Derber calls the largely masculine behavior of demanding
and getting (not giving) attention.

On the other hand, consider people who 1) carefully adhere to their
allotted time, who 2) prepare and deliver their talks in an inviting,
accessible way  -- including those who 3) offer multiple points of
entry to accommodate those who are better visual learners, better
auditory learners, or who might find a certain style and rapidity of
English difficult to follow.  These are people who, in other words,
make room for the audience perhaps because they see their talks as part
of a conversation and they are at least as interested in what others
have to say than they are in what they, themselves are saying.

Such individuals are behaving in a more classically feminine way.
People in the audience who make succinct, supportive, sometimes
appreciative statements or who actually ask for more information about
something (the most attention-giving form of conversational support
according to Derber) are behaving in more feminine ways, too.

The feminist movement in Western scholarship also has led to the
assertion that women scholars are responsible for inserting the
legitimacy of a research interest in the classic territories associated
with their sex and with the feminine gender.  Everyday life, the home,
emotions, family relations, etc., etc., became important points of
interest and were properly problematized because women were finally
permitted into the halls of the Academy.  Accordingly, we understand
much more now about things like power, public life, politics, the
economy and economic behavior, the workplace, etc., because of the
insights gained from the problematizing, feminist, "outsider"
perspective that most of us now take for granted in our academic work.

Thus, it is quite conceivable that there are designers, for instance,
who are more masculine and designers who are more feminine, as well as
designers who are very good at being more of either, depending on the
situation.  Conference organizers, conference panels, conference
presentations, conference-sponsoring societies and conference-
interested communities -- any of these may contribute to, reinforce,
challenge, or constitute gender work as well as reveal the gender
assumptions and behaviors of those concerned.

Far less obvious -- and therefore of more interest to me -- is the
possibility that there are more masculine and more feminine approaches
to the practice of design, to the reward structures of design, to the
teaching of design, to the kinds of problems and solutions one is
attracted to in design, and to the designs, themselves, produced as
they are in their possibly variously gendered ways for variously
gendered people.

I have asked a number of my students about this and encouraged many of
them to pursue any of these questions.  I don't know much about it but
would love to know more!  If anyone knows a good article on the
subject, please share!  Probably the whole list would like to know, but
if we go off-list, I'll put the collective responses together and share
later.

Very best wishes,

Christena Nippert-Eng, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
Illinois Institute of Technology
312-567-6812 (office)
312-567-6821 (fax)
http://www.iit.edu/~socsci/faculty/nippert-eng.html 

-- 
This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous
content by the NorMAN MailScanner Service and is believed
to be clean.

The NorMAN MailScanner Service is operated by Information
Systems and Services, Newcastle University.



====
This e-mail is intended solely for the addressee. It may contain private and
confidential information. If you are not the intended addressee, please take
no action based on it nor show a copy to anyone. Please reply to this e-mail
to highlight the error. You should also be aware that all electronic mail
from, to, or within Northumbria University may be the subject of a request
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and related legislation, and
therefore may be required to be disclosed to third parties.
This e-mail and attachments have been scanned for viruses prior to leaving
Northumbria University. Northumbria University will not be liable for any
losses as a result of any viruses being passed on.