My mentor Paul Rustand recently wrote a post on his own blog regarding the Chattanooga design community entitled, “Designer Boy’s Club: Chattanooga’s Homogenous Community?” Since I missed my opportunity to add my perspective to the discussion I decided to post it here. I highly suggest reading this discussion, whether you’re male, female, black, white, or a goat you should definitely check it out.
My Post (originally written as an email to Paul Rustand, owner of Widgets & Stone):
I’d like to begin with my experience in Chattanooga (before leaving for the dairy state). You mentioned that the male percentage of graphic designers in Chat-town is about 90% and that many female designers may possibly be forced to
look elsewhere, and while I’m not exactly disputing that fact ,I do feel that my experience in Chattanooga was much different. My first “real” design internship was with a prominent firm in Chattanooga that at that time, was dominated by female designers. I was interviewed by 3 of them, and I still consider it one of the most grueling interviews I’ve ever given. Luckily I got the job, but about a month later they hired a female intern who I soon found was favored among the staff. She got the better hand-me-down jobs while I was stuck replenishing the paper supply in the printer. [I should interject here that I in no way intend this email to be a rant, nor is it my chance to complain about how I was discriminated against but what I what to show is that different perspectives can most definitely be found right in your back yard!] My internship soon faded due to time management. They decided to keep the other intern despite the fact that she had changed her major to Dentistry and was no longer looking for a career in design. My time there wasn’t easy (as a lot of internships tend to be) but I always felt like an outsider. I was rarely included and I tended to respond to this by resorting to introverted introspection. I often wondered if that was how women tended to feel in an all
male environment. The internship taught me numerous things. One lesson especially was that sometimes having a different perspective and not fitting is really just that; male dominated, female dominated it really doesn’t matter!
designers tend to be gated no matter what, no matter where you live.
My “all female” experience doesn’t end there by any means. I helped start a magazine where I was the only male designer. We valued good design over gender biased, but this was still another female dominated environment. I’ve never really felt like I was part of some “boy’s club” in design in any way, but I do know that I was never allowed to be part of a “girl’s club” that tends to form in such environments.
After school, I moved to Wisconsin as you know, I was all excited to be living in a truly progressive town and to become a part of said design community. I quickly realized that I was branded an outsider. I found it ironic that my first
design position upon moving to Wisconsin was given to me by someone who had only been living in the state 6 months longer than I.
This is the part of the story where I want to address the other topic that was brought up in the comments regarding racial bias. You see, my boss was a gay black man, who had moved here from Germany by way of New York. We talked often about the type of racial obstacles in Milwaukee as compared to say – the South or Europe. He was very interested in my background as i was intrigued with his. He said many times that he much preferred the racism of The South as opposed the North; that he loved the way it was out in the open instead of behind closed doors. He and I were the only males working in the design department , everyone else including designers, interns, illustrators, and all but one photographer, were female.
Jessica wrote, “seeing the problem. it is hard to step out of ones own for sure. I like to keep in mind that it is just by pure luck i was born white, middle class, with educated parents. had i been born black, gay, (or any other minority) in the South everything –EVERYTHING– would be harder. not just getting into the design network here – but just getting around things/obstacles like economics, southern heritage with its history of violence and hate, generations of terrible public education and intellectual segregation… and enduring socially acceptable ‘Southern Pride’ which at times embraces and reveres its ties to the dixie flag (violence)/the southern bell(sexism)/rebellious bad boyness (wreckless judgement) … and everything those icons imply.”
I like to think that not only have I “seen” the problem, I’ve had to the horrible luxury of being on both sides of it. Its taken time, and the birth of my first child to gain the patience needed to see the “other perspective.” The obstacles for women in Chattanooga is by all means real, however, those obstacles won’t go away just by moving. I got a totally different perspective in a town that by your numbers is 90% male, and the one gender based thing I learned from that experience was that designers of both genders are biased.
As designers we have a tendancy to be very gated. We surround ourselves with the things we find helps us continue to be creative. Unfortunately, those things can get wrapped up in who we are on the outside, and before long we’re a design community of 90% male, or 90% female. We as designers need to remember that its never going to be better someplace else. There’s always a fight going on somewhere, its how we choose to attack that which is in ourselves that makes us good at what we do.
sometimes it’s smoke and mirrors but when a real storm hits, it is truly like nothing i’ve ever seen. The wind, the hail, the speed! it’s so wild!!!