The quiet feminist

This is quite a departure from my normal articles, but it’s something that I feel strongly about and have wanted to write about for some time.

I want to talk about the role we as men need to play in the support, encouragement and equality of women in our industry. Specifically the product/industrial design industry, but equally applicable to many others.

Let me set out my stall.

I am a father to two teenage daughters. From well before they were born, I knew that I wanted them to be as able as any other human being to choose their own direction in life, unencumbered by gender bias or the obstacles thrown in their way by gender influenced roles or society at large. As they were growing up, we provided them with equal options for playing with whatever they choose. If there were pink and blue clichéd options for any toys, we went for the green one. Dressing up was whatever they wanted. Trolls, princesses, spacepilots, strange hybrid dinosaur ninjas….you go for it. And we've got more Lego than you can shake a stick at...from Star Wars to Friends to Boost to Mindstorms!

When they were older we gave them the opportunity to play musical instruments and try riding ponies (thank goodness that didn’t come to anything…too bloody expensive!) but we equally took them to climbing walls and highwire adventure forests. We let them try scuba diving and archery. It’s actually quite hard to avoid your children treading society-prescribed paths if you take your eye off the ball for a moment.

My youngest daughter chose to bravely cut her hair ‘pixie’ short at the age of 9 years old when all her friends had ponytails and bunches. She regularly gets called ‘son’ or ‘mate’ but we now see it as an in joke within the family and she deals with it with such maturity and confidence (incidentally, we politely correct anyone who makes this mistake). My eldest decided she wanted to wear trousers to secondary school because she felt more comfortable and less vulnerable – at a time when her peers were wearing ever shorter skirts. They’ve both decided to do something that isn’t expected or ‘conventional’ but is hardly extreme. It’s my job as their father and ours as parents to absolutely support their decisions and I’m proud that they feel like they can do these things despite society and convention bombarding them with images and messages to the contrary.

The hard bit is attempting to be balanced. Giving them the breadth of opportunity without overtly steering them too far either way. Giving them the keys to the supermarket and allowing them to confidently and freely navigate whichever aisle they choose.

As they approach GCSE and A level choices respectively, we discuss how to keep their options as wide as possible whilst encouraging them to follow the subjects and the teachers they enjoy. We never entertain the possibility that any career is off limits and all discussions are about possibility and open doors rather than limitations and closed doors.

But our children inhabit our immediate world. We can protect and nurture them the way we see fit, and to a greater or lesser degree, control and mitigate any external influences to their benefit. Admittedly this gets harder as they become teenagers and they are glued to their personal internet portals, but you can still create frameworks that at least maintain a positive influence over their day to day exposure to societal pressures.

So as I encounter talented women in the design industry, my initial reaction is one of paternal protection. Not in a patronising way I hasten to add, but my de facto stance as a Dad – as I’ve explained earlier - is to ensure that equality and opportunity is maintained.

Which is why I call myself a ‘quiet feminist’.

I have always preferred to be the silent, supporting figure who helps in any way I see possible, and sometimes without the recipient’s knowledge. I have actively and positively hired talented women into my businesses (and assisted in helping them get into other businesses if I’m not in a position to hire directly) whenever they have been available to appoint and where they have been the best candidate.

Which is an important point to make.

This isn’t about appointing women over men for the primary sake of female advancement. This is about choosing to support the best candidate for a role but being mindful of the differing skills and approaches that both women and men bring to the table.

Our industry has traditionally been attractive to men, possibly due to the original ‘hard’ skills that so dominated the discipline and the fact that it has emerged from an engineering mindset, albeit quite different in many ways. From my experience, if you simply look to those hard skills when hiring, you will typically find more men and in the same mould as the person hiring…so often a man themselves. However, if you widen your outlook and include the really important softer skills, you find that women – broadly speaking – do better by not only delivering on exemplary tangible output, but with a greater depth of empathy and generally a more balanced view of society, often because they have had to adapt a little more than the average white male. I would urge you to read ‘Invisible Women’ by Caroline Criado Perez as it will open your eyes to quite how much of what we do and interact with has been created using data derived from, by and for men.

I make this point carefully as I don’t want to appear indiscriminately in favour of hiring women at all costs. The best candidate should get the job, but on the basis that the criteria for selection and shortlisting has been considered within the context of how a modern design project should be run and the breadth of skills that a flexible and nimble design team should include. In my experience, women tend to adapt to changes in design practise much more easily than men and have a much greater sense of the bigger picture in many cases. I fully appreciate that within different design disciplines, the scope and requirement of skills varies significantly but the point is still broadly valid.

I’ve spotted and hired some amazing male designers over the years and am in awe of much of what they can deliver. That is still the case and will continue to be the case, but I feel that our industry – and the product/industrial design sector specifically - could do with better understanding the benefits of hiring through a balanced male/female skillset lens. In truth, I’m not sure an all female design team would be any better or worse than an all male design team (in terms of collaborative balance) but I firmly believe that having true parity in a team between male and female mindsets, attitudes, outlook and empathies makes for a killer combo.

Solidarity breeds comfort. So if there are equal representations across a team, there is less likelihood of individuals withholding views for fear of reprisal or less risk of missing points of view from all sides. Design is about balance and empathy, yet typically design teams are often imbalanced and more focussed on productivity and output than empathy and genuine understanding.

The main problem is that we are still not seeing enough women coming through the design industry fast enough to fill positions of positive influence and creating this balance in design team gender. Where I’ve been able to I have tried my hardest to correct this but there’s still shitloads to do.

I’ve had the privilege to hire, mentor and work with some amazing female creative talent throughout my career, and have done my utmost to positively support these wonderful individuals and to help them manoeuvre themselves into their rightful places of influence where I can. But we shouldn’t have to fight as hard as we are or search as hard are we do to get here…which is still woefully behind where we should be.

I see incredible female design talent coming through the University system. Incredible young female graduates trying to break into design teams. Incredible developing female designers trying to break through glass ceilings but a dearth of positive female leaders lowering the ladder to allow others to climb up and aboard. There are obviously notable exceptions but the stats need to be improved, and it is for men and women to improve them.

Maybe it’s the education system? Are there too many white male university course tutors who are teaching the same repeated course structure which may invariably favour male students and hard skill sensibilities? Is the industry doing enough to encourage women to confidently take time out if they want to start a family? Is there too much bravado and male ego swimming around the competitive landscape? Are we as men too inclined (or possibly generationally conditioned) to offer a solution rather than allowing ourselves to listen a little more?

I am a firm believer in ‘quiet feminism’.

Just because I’m not a flag waving feminist (and I say that with respect), it doesn’t mean I don’t care about the development and encouragement of women in the industry. Far from it. I care a great deal. Ultimately it makes me a better designer.

You could argue it’s in my own selfish interest!

The more I can do to make my own industry more balanced and equal, the better chance my daughters have of entering a workplace with genuinely equal opportunity for all. Thankfully, it is unlikely they will follow in my footsteps (which I am glad about – I’m looking forward to learning about a different set of professions from them) but if we can make our industry better, it’s one less industry for them to have to fight against if they did choose that path.

I will continue to do what I can to encourage, convince, influence and steer people within my reach to improve, and I know there are plenty of other quiet feminists out there doing the same.

Comments – as always – welcomed.

Russell

*It should also be said that I’ve had the displeasure of working with and for some awful individuals throughout my career, both male and female. Equality…albeit ironic.