CTS - Literature review
For our second presentation, we had to do a review presentation/workshop on our subject – gender. Therefore, each member of our team did a literature review of a piece of data or text. The main literary texts that we read and found related to our topic Gender were: It’s just a very male industry’: gender and work in UK design agencies by Suzanne Reimer, The End of Men And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin, Post – Feminism and Popular Culture by Angela McRobbie and Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema by Laura Mulvey. We found some relevance in all text in regards to what we wanted to present but found that It’s just a very male industry’: gender and work in UK design agencies by Suzanne Reimer had a lot of information in regards to our topic that we could analyse and speak about. The text that we specifically focused on was her research to do with males and females in the Design Industry.
In our presentation, we included four quotes: “The Design Council (2005), reported that 61% of designers and 79% of freelancers were men, whilst a follow-up study recorded that 60% of designers were male (Design Council 2010).” , “An absence of women working in senior design management positions often is attributed to the impact of women’s child-rearing responsibilities.”, “Male chief executive of a London branding agency suggested: design businesses tend to be very small. Because they’re small they find it difficult to take on the liability of someone who may go off and have a baby.” and lastly “Men and Women have been sorted into different types of design employment, with women predominating in interior design, whilst product design – often requires a particular sort of masculinity rooted in industrial tradition.” These quotes overall brought up a lot of questions and controversial points in what was being said. The percentages being shown in the first quote showed how male-dominated the industry is. This led us to think of why such a figure is presented in the first place, is it due to historical consequences? or discrimination in the recruitment process? The following two quotes gave us a possible reason for our second question but still, the quote was very controversial. The fact that a natural process i.e. reproducing could hold a woman back from progressing in her professional career is an unfair advantage that could potentially encourage women to not start a family. Despite, this being an advantage to younger women starting their career it certainly is not for more mature women. This brings another question: is such a reason a valid excuse in such a demanding, fast-paced industry? as it could it affect the progression of work. Not only this but does it also give a valid reason for a gender pay gap? However, according to Sex Discrimination Act 1975, a company would be violating the law if they discriminated against married persons and civil partners in an employment field or on the ground of pregnancy or maternity leave (1975 c. 65). The last quote is plain and simple sexist. This is proven by the industrial revolution as the labour force became more predominately female. Overall, the analysis and inferences made from these quotes brought up some interesting points.
After presenting these quotes, we decided to do a quiz for the class to test their understanding and gather qualitative feedback for our next presentation. Then, created a final slide to debate on a quote we found from our literature piece: More wives at the top are becoming the main breadwinners for some period of time, and as a result of this new freedom, more couples are describing their marriages as “happy” or “very happy” (H.Rosin, 2012, p.7) Do you agree with this statement? We realised as soon we started debating that no one besides the lecturer could voice their opinion on this because no one was married. However, people in our class had been in relationships so we changed the quote so it would be more suitable for our audience.
This presentation was an improvement from our last, as we took the feedback from our presentation. This resulted in more engagement with our class and us having more confidence in our presenting skills. Despite, not having all members of our team presenting.
Reference:
University of Phoneix (2016). Writing a Literature Review for Publication. Available at: https://research.phoenix.edu/sites/default/files/carouselhomeslide/literature-review-hero.jpg
Parliament of the United Kingdom. Sex discrimination Act 1975 c. 65.Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1975/65
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lRfGY3DzmGBwAH1TaPijyq1qIQTALS9yjDuhOlzX8Xo