Design for Gender Equity in The Art and Design
Teaching Workplace

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Evidence of gender bias isn’t limited to Hollywood or politics. A search on The Chronicle for Higher Education website, using the term “gender bias” resulted in more than sixty articles published since January 2017. Navigating the current socio-sexual storm is an opportunity to look at art and design education, especially our role in the preparation of the next generation of equity minded educators.

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The number of students in colleges and universities has now dropped for five straight years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. Lower birthrates, the cost of higher education, the increase in MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses that are free) and online education may be accelerators, but no one is denying the demographics.

This dark time in our gender equity culture, coupled with the higher education crisis of a shrinking pool of applicants, might be just the pain point educators need to begin a long overdue conversation about gender equity in the teaching workplace.

 

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Biology tells us that the animal species seem almost devoid of gender competition under circumstances of abundance. Genders commingle with no fixed rules for hierarchal behavior. Work is shared and collaborative; however, under periods of stress and shortage, things change. Male animals begin to dominate and subjugate females and the field becomes polarized. In addition human cognitive bandwidth decreases under stress leaving us vulnerable to binary decision making and processing shortcuts like bias.

 

The current climate of higher education is one in which stress is escalating, exemplified by competition for relevancy and applicants, shrinking budgets, faculty dissatisfaction and seismic shifts in the digital delivery of education. In times of scarcity, shortage and overload, cognitive bandwidth shrinks and bias may increase as a means of survival. 

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Driven by survival colleges are re-examining centuries worth of systems, practices and curricula, including those related to gender and equality. As faculty at a small art and design school, I serve on a diversity task force, which examines inclusion issues on our campus, one of which is gender. 

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Women in higher ed have historically been under represented, payed and acknowledged, but the current socio sexual climate has given both visibility and voice to this. Focusing on student gender issues has been on the radar for decades: but faculty gender issues and even student bias toward faculty is becoming a new focus of inquiry.

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What if the solution to this problem could be found in the problem itself? Women have historically been challenged to be taken seriously by a culture which is ambivalent about them in the first place. Academia is no different. The Bete noire is not so opaque anymore. What if the 

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Might A rich history of gender bias Be just what Higher Ed needs to reinvent itself and design relevance?