Design and Feminism ― Re-Visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things

How well do our designed environments- the places and spaces where we live, work, and play- meet our aesthetic and functional needs? Increasingly, the distinction between the spaces considered public and private or work and home is becoming more blurred. As a result, innovative designs are needed to meet the challenges of our ever-changing environment. Our streets, parks, dwellings and tools are designed to a "one-size-fits-all" standard, and the responses of the design community to meet diverse needs have been mixed at best. Design and Feminism offers feminist critiques of these inadequate design standards, and suggest ideas, projects, and programs for change.

The interdisciplinary essays reflect the writers' diverse fields- architecture, planning, industrial and graphic design, and architectural, urban, and design history.

Essays cover such subject as rethinking the American city, graphic design and the urban landscape, working at home, theories of women and design, and a trio of essays on industrial designs. A review essay of the literature in these fields- the first of its kind- rounds out the collection.

Contributors are Amelia Amon, Wendy E. Brawer, Cheryl Buckley, Sue Cavanagh, Alethea Cheng, Roberta M. Feldman, Etain Fitzpatrick, Alice T. Friedman, Dolores Hayden, Ghislaine Hermanuz, Barbara Knecht, Ellen Lupton, Maggie Mahboubian, Francine Monaco, Nancy Perkins, Victoria Rosner, Joan Rothschild, Susana Torre, Lynne Walker, and Leslie Kanes Weismann.

Joan Rothschild is a research associate at the Center for Human Environments at the Graduate School and University of New York. She is the author of Machina Ex Dea: Feminist Perspectives on Technology; and Women, Technology, and Innovation.