TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE: December 2007

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Designing Women

Metropolis Magazine

Do you think we’ll ever be able to have just “people in modernism” panels? Or is sexism just always going to be de rigueur? In other words, is there hope?

I think it goes far beyond architecture. When will we be beyond the period of identity politics? I suppose in the way you initially think about the conference, there’s a little bit of a sense of exhaustion about it, even if in many cases the work is not completely done. And I do think that discussing gender issues or race issues or anything at all independent of the economics issues is a little bit artificial.

There’s another taboo, which I don’t know how much it will be discussed but it’s the question of when architects—men or women—already have enormous personal resources, and when they don’t.

Will Enough Men Stand by This Woman?

Hillary Clinton's Fight for the White House Reflects the Battle of the Sexes
By Lois Romano
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 20, 2007; C01

Watching Hillary run is making me nervous. What is she wins? What if she doesn't? What if its really true that this country isn't ready for a female president? What if we still don't see women as capable leaders? I've been reading a lot lately about this issue of gender equality being dead or over discussed. If it weren't still an issue would we still be talking about it?

"Women's rights advocates attribute male skepticism about Clinton to long-ingrained sexism -- and a sense that men, no matter what they say, just aren't ready for a female president. And political conservatives have exploited those often-unspoken fears of female power to caricature Clinton for years. But in several interviews with Democratic men across the country, the stated reasons for their aversion to Clinton seem more complicated, and in many cases, far more visceral than substantive.

They just don't like her, some say. They don't know what she stands for. They believe her word is no good, that she doesn't believe that she can be held accountable. They see her as intellectual snob who lets you know she's smarter. They say she sounds like everybody's ex-wife. They can't tell if she's the loyal, traditional wife who stayed with her husband for love after his humiliating extramarital affair -- or a canny politician who stayed because it was politically expedient. Even: Is she a Yankees or a Cubs fan?"

The Good Fight

Now, more than ever, there are fewer rules to being female. Fewer guidelines that make clear what is feminine, what is acceptable and what is successful. We at TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE believe that there is liberation in that ambiguity. We believe that beauty and innovation come out of contradiction. We believe that as designers, we can be, all at once, feminists, daddy's girls, mothers and activists. We believe that if the world which we want to inhabit doesn't exist, then it is up to us to create it, to design it, to figure out a better way.We are of a generation that was raised on optimism, dot com promises, trickle down economics and the belief that we can and will do anything. We were raised to believe that we are men's equals. That the women who came before us - our mothers, our aunts, our grandmothers - fought the good fight for us and passed down to their daughters the promise of a better life. We were molded to believe in a dream - to believe that we were born into a world where women can "have it all." That if we choose to put our minds to it, at our fingertips are: groundbreaking careers, stable marriages, a houseful of children and the ability to carry it all off with a Martha Stewartian air of perfect dinner parties and coordinated towels. However, the burden of being female in the 21st century hasn't been lessened; it was expanded by this progress and by our entrance into professional society. We are now just as likely to be judged for the degrees listed after our last names as for the cleanliness of our bathroom floors. And so, the mantle of responsibility that our predecessors have passed down to us is choice. Seemingly limitless opportunities for advancement, diversification and progress have been handed to us. We are "Generation Y-ers." We are team oriented, naturally collaborative, more likely to take initiative, less sensitive to organizational constructs and often compelled to reach out across boundaries. So here we are: reaching out. We are a generation of intelligent, beautiful, open-minded young women who have been asked to navigate a complex, unclear and sometimes discouraging world. There is nothing to be gained from shifting the responsibility of the uncertainty of our position to our brothers, financees, husbands, fathers and friends. There is nothing to be gained from demonizing men. It is up to us, in the face of what is sometimes an oppressive amount of choice, to stand together and unravel what is chivalrous and what is chauvinistic. We are designers committed to achieving in our work a balance and beauty, which we find difficult at best, to design into our own lives. TWELVEINCHTEESQUARE supports women who are living the duality of hard-ass creative genius and the reality of being everything else that is typically female.

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Designing Women

Will Enough Men Stand by This Woman?

The Good Fight

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