Major Project: Different manifestations of sexism

Domestic and sexual violence

Domestic violence is physical, sexual, psychological or financial violence that takes place within an intimate or family-type relationship and that forms a pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour.

Abusers choose to behave violently to get what they want and gain control. Their behaviour may originate from a sense of entitlement which is often supported by sexist, racist, homophobic and other discriminatory attitudes.

Rape

Research into the factors which motivate perpetrators of rape against women frequently reveals patterns of hatred of women and pleasure in inflicting physical trauma, rather than sexual interest. Feminists have argued that rape is not the result of pathological individuals, but rather of systems of male dominance and from cultural practices and beliefs that objectify and degrade women.

Pornography

Some feminists hold the view that pornography contributes to sexism, arguing that in pornographic performances, that conceived for male spectators, actresses are reduced to mere objects for sexual use and abuse by men. Other feminists argue that pornography contributes to violence against women by eroticizing scenes in which women are dominated, coerced, humiliated, or even sexually assaulted. Other view on pornography supports part of it arguing that some forms of it can be a medium of feminist expression and a means of women taking control of their sexuality.

Prostitution

Anti-prostitution feminists are strongly opposed to prostitution, as they see the practice as a form of violence against and exploitation of women, and a sign of male dominance over women.

Other feminists hold that prostitution and other forms of sex work can be valid choices for women and men who choose to engage in it. In this view, prostitution must be differentiated fro forced prostitution, and feminists should support sex worker activism against abuses by both the sex industry and the legal system.

Language

It is disputed whether certain language causes sexism, sexism causes certain language or that they are both caused by something else.

Occupational sexism

·      Gender wage gap: women have historically earned less than men even for the same position, although that is currently illegal in many developed countries.

·      Discrimination: Gender stereotypes are formed at an early age with men and women being identified with particular occupations. A typical female profession is nursery while some typical male professions are engineering or driver.

·      Glass ceiling: is used to describe a perceived barrier to advancement towards leading positions in general employment and government.  

Sexual expression

Accordingly to some feminists, the current state of commercial sexuality has created a “Raunch Culture” where there has been a commercialization of the sexual objectification of women and that, rather than being liberating it is a pornification of Western society that has reduced and equated the scope of feminine power to sexual power only. Also, a virgin/whore dichotomy has existed since long and entails unrealistic categories imposed on women by men. This dichotomy allows men to condemn women for their sexuality; it is a no-win situation and a double standard since that this does not apply to men.

Sexual objectification

Objectification is an attitude that regards a person as a commodity or as an object for use, with insufficient regard for a person’s personality.

Many feminists regard sexual objectification as objectionable and as playing an important role in gender inequality. Some social commentators, however, argue that some modern women objectify themselves as an expression of their empowerment over men, while others argue that increased sexual freedom for women, gay and bisexual men has led to an increase of the objectification of men. Such objectification, either for men or women, can lead to negative psychological effects like depression.

Mass media and advertising are accused of promoting the objectification of women to help promote goods and services.

Sources:

http://www.womensaid.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_sexism

Major Project: Choosing Subject

I decided that for my major project I should do something meaningful and important to me now that I have the opportunity to choose the subject freely so I started a general research about sexism against women.

Sexism is a belief or attitude that one sex is inherently superior to, more competent than, or more valuable than the other. Is a form of discrimination based on genre. It involves hatred of, or prejudice towards, either sex as a whole, or the application of stereotypes of masculinity in relation to men, or of femininity in relation to women. It is present nowadays and around the world, even in Western developed countries, however some may think that doesn't happen anymore.

I´ve been a victim of sexism myself (nothing mayor, fortunately) with little things like my landlord waiting for the only man living in the house to arrive in order to talk about some maintenance as if it were extremely difficult for me to understand; listening to my driver instructor saying that he wouldn't employ women as drivers because they get ill every month (it seems that menstruation is now an illness); or listening to a woman say to me that it is not ok for me to drink alcohol but it is ok for the men in the room to get drunk till they loose consciousness.

Society make women feel less of a woman if they are not mad about babies, don't care about fashion and make-up, don't like romantic movies, don't fit within the beauty standard of the moment or choose to have a typical male career.

Those are just the smallest things that happen in the considered developed modern countries where women legally have the same rights as men but in some other countries women are seriously repressed.

New Blood Exhibition

Upcoming D&AD New Blood Exhibition, 1 - 4 July 2011 at the Old Truman Brewery, London. I participate with the following 3 boards.

 

Critical Debates in Design | Task 8.2: 10 Things that I've learned

As the Critical Debates in Design Module is getting to an end we are required to describe and visualise ten things that we have learned while doing this module. During this time I have been able to define and fully understand important things for my starting career as a designer that I expose next, however they are not all the things that I've learned and the learning process is not stopping here.

The importance of scheduling

I‘ve never been good at organizing my time. I do organize my time in my mind but I don’t write it down so I don’t follow a strict schedule. Now I realize that it is important to write that down from the beginning of a project as it will give me a better idea of the time I have for every stage of the project.

The devil is in the detail

Caring for the smallest detail is what differentiates a good professional designer from a mediocre one.

Time for erring

It is part of the design process to make mistakes or investigate options with a dead end. Assume it, remember to include extra time on your schedule for that and don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t get in the first or second attempt.

Show confidence

To do good design is no longer enough to success in the designer packed field. I have to control my subject and be able to speak about it with other designers, clients and general public. However I can’t forget that it is necessary to change my speech in order to adequate it to the target audience.

Have principles

Designing a new product or campaign can have a huge impact in society and the environment so honesty and responsibility in practice will avoid to produce more unnecessary crap and misleading graphic material.

Be loyal to your principles

Don’t let money or commodity ruin what you can get doing meaningful projects.

Cultural awareness

Design it is not a subject on its own. Any project is mostly about something else not related to design so it is crucial to investigate that other subject too. A general idea of what is going on in the world gives me useful knowledge to understand the social, geographical, economic or political context of a new project. It also makes new research quicker and smoother.

Show your ideas

Sometimes I am so focus in my project that I may risk to do it from my only point of view. Talking about my ideas to friends, family, possible target audience and fellow designers will help me to have a broader perspective of the problem and potential solutions and ensure that my ideas are understood.

You are not alone

As designers we can put our brains to work in many different subjects so may need to collaborate closely with other kind of designers or professionals like web developers, engineers, etc. I think is important to know how to work in a team as it will allow us to work on projects that we couldn't work on otherwise. It will also generate richer solutions.

The designer’s role

What is the role of a designer is as undefined as it was at the beginning of the course, but I now learned to be comfortable with it. To design is for many a concept most associated to draw but I believe it is most similar to think. Although, drawing is a very powerful tool to easily and universally communicate what has been thought. The designer’s tasks and roles within a project are several and the areas of action countless. I certainly love that about design.

What I want my role as a designer to be is a role that helps society to progress in a more sustainable and less selfish way. I believe that if many designers adopt this role we will truly be able to get it.

Design Authorship | More ideas for the format of my book

The format of this book is very original and gave me a good idea for the binding of my own book. 

I decided that concertina folding would be the best as it allows you to see content little by little or everything at once if you unfold it completely.

Design Authorship | Giving format to my book

Here are some dummy books that I've made to find the best format for my book.

It is important to me to express with this book the concept of continuity as everything that happened before has consequences now and everything that happens now will have consequences in the future. That is why I though of using French folding or concertina, because that way the paper is continuous.

Regarding paper, I just need something that will support and show the photos in the best way. I am studying the possibility of using tissue paper between the pages to imitate old photo albums and to print some comments on.

Photo albums are a strong reference for this book as that is basically what this book is. I want a layout that let the pictures be the main stars. For the binding and cover I thought of something simple, neutral, timeless and elegant as it is holding a precious document to me that ranges from 1920 to the present.

Design Authorship | Getting pictures for my book

Here are some of the family pictures I've got after an initial research.

These pictures are at my family home in Spain so I've got them through my mum who looked for the photos I told her plus some she thought would be interesting, scan and sent them to me.

It is quite difficult to get pictures of the oldest generation for several reasons:

The access to a photo camera at that time was something more rare and the photographed moments were less, more special and prepared.

That material is now distributed among all my uncles and aunts and is very difficult to get track of them or get them to collaborate with me by searching for photos, scanning and emailing them when many of them are not computer literate.

In order to put them in my book I will need to retouch them but only to improve their quality not to change them. I will like to order them chronologically but the exact date is not known for many of them just a sense of sequence. It seems necessary to add a timeline to make the reader understand the sequence most of all when showing the historical photos.