A Design Anthropological Study Of Gender Reflexivity

As gender theories and movements continue to evolve,the traditional binary gender structure is being questioned,and fluid notions of gender and sexual orientation are becoming better understood and accepted.Consumer products,as a medium between social culture and individual perceptions,are embedded with gendered features in the design process,causing individuals to continuously consolidate and reinforce gender stereotypes in the process of consuming and using the objects.Based on postmodern gender theory,this study adopts the practical approach of design anthropology to investigate the influence of gendered design of objects on the perception and expression of individual gender identities and the dynamism of designers in the expression of gender identities,taking the gendered design perception of objects in different social relationships as the object.Based on the literature analysis,this study establishes a framework of gendered design that includes four visual elements: color,shape,material,and metaphor,and then conducts cultural probe research and semi-open-ended interviews from the perspective of visual perception.The gendered sensory features in objects are the main basis for users to judge their gender temperament,where masculinity and femininity are opposed to each other,and there are more feminine visual expressions than masculine ones.This asymmetric distribution brings gender expression anxiety to people of different gender identities in social scenes,manifesting as women being tired of maintaining femininity,heterosexual men being unable to express femininity in public,and gay men being caught in the dilemma of pursuing or concealing femininity.Based on the gender temperament characteristics of items and gender identity dilemmas summarized by the research,this study organized participants with different gender identities to conduct two rounds of design game experiments: designing items with anti-traditional gender temperament in the context of strong relationships and solving gender identity dilemmas in specific contexts in the context of weak relationships,respectively.Combing the results of the experiments and retrospectively analyzing the research and experimental process,the designers’ design strategies for the three elements of people,objects,and fields in the process of gender identity expression are proposed: updating the expression of objects,analyzing the rules of fields,and influencing the perception of people.This study focuses on the relationship between gender culture-designed objects-individual identity,and explores the possibilities of designers as a dynamic force in promoting individual freedom of gender expression and advancing gender culture in society,while using design anthropology to extend the breadth of design theory research and provide a reference for design practice and research to continuously explore gender issues.