Project: AIGA Vermont Design For Good Poster Show
on Gender Equality
on Gender Equality
Women have made a lot of progress in the workplace but society still has a lot more work to do. According to the The Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012 report, women only made 77 cents to every dollar a man earned. This statistic has not changed in 10 years. Only 24% of CEO's are women. Women hold only 18% of seats in Congress. A 2010 study by the Harvard Business Review found that most businesses could and should be doing a lot more in treating men and women equally. We can go and find so many more sobering statistics. It is time to start asking why and what we all can do. Where does this stereotyping and biased-thinking start? As a designer and parent, I am disturbed by the way toys have a similar stereotyping and biased-thinking. Toy producers and marketers frequently separate their toys by subject matter and color. We are led to believe it is fact that girls only like pink and purple. Boys only like blue and red. Girls like nurturing dolls, home care, baking. Boys like science, math, sports, building with blocks. Recently LEGO created an entirely new line of building blocks for "girls" that are pink and purple and do "girl" socializing activities.
The design of my poster questions these decisions and would like to start a dialogue for change. Change in what we shop for as parents. Change in what we encourage both our sons and daughters to play with. Change in our perception of pink. Change in our perception of blue. And maybe that change will make its way to empower society to embrace gender equality in both our homes and workplaces.
