Points to Keep in Mind
1. When thinking about women, it is important to ask: Which women? Young women, old women; rich women, poor women, white women, Asian women?
2. When you think about men and women are you thinking of hetereosexuals? Or also gays? Or also gender-fluid individuals?
3. When thinking of occupation, are you inclusive, e.g., considering male nurses or female construction workers? What about left-handed surgeons?
4. Does your design work across cultures, religions, incomes, races and geographic locations?
Products
Intersectionality requires a human-centered and more participatory design approach, which draws upon the multiple needs of the users and communities you are designing for. Intersectional design considerations cover gender, age, religion, and ethnicity; as well as ability, education and awareness.
In the case of the Nike Hijab—first designed in 2001 by the Dutch company Capsters—the design solution takes into account the needs of female Muslim athletes. These include, modest sportswear, and a fabric that allows the garment to fit their head and their sport. The sports hijab has the potential to breakdown barriers preventing participation and spark a cultural shift to see more women embrace sports.
The gendered innovation here is the menstrual cup, a bell-shaped device made of medical-grade silicone or natural latex that is inserted into the vagina to collect (not absorb) menstrual fluid. Because most menstrual cups are reusable, a woman can use as few as four in a lifetime, reducing the burden to the environment and the cost to individual women. The menstrual cup promotes two social goods: gender equality and environmental sustainability, helping us all achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals #5 “gender equality” and #6 “clean water and sanitation” by the year 2030.
Design Methods
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How Sex and Gender Intersect: Sex and gender interact to shape the ways we engineer and design objects, devices, systems, cities and infrastructures.
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Analyzing Factors Intersecting with Sex and Gender: These variables can be biological, sociocultural, economic or psychological aspects of users/customers.
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Sensitive Language and Visual Images: Images and language in your design should embrace diverse users.