This seminar begins from a simple premise: design does not happen outside power. It operates within social, political, and economic structures and actively shapes them in return. Design participates in the organization of spaces, labour, access, and material resources, helping make certain worlds possible while foreclosing others. For this reason, it is deeply entangled in systems of oppression and privilege. One of the systems design is entangled with is patriarchy.

Patriarchy is a historically constructed structure that organises every sphere of existence along binary gender hierarchies in ways that privilege men and masculinity over anyone and anything else. It is (re)produced and maintained through institutions, belief systems, language, technologies, and everyday practices—including design. Patriarchy makes inequality appear natural and even unavoidable. Yet, it does not operate alone; it intersects with white supremacy, coloniality, racial capitalism, heteronormativity, and ableism, shaping experiences differently across bodies and geographies.

Despite decades of feminist critique and activisms, the field of design continues to be disproportionately shaped by white, male, cisgender men in the Global North. From default users and ergonomic standards to design canons, typographic conventions, and authorship models, design often naturalises inequality while presenting itself as objective and universal. How do design practices reinforce patriarchal norms? How does design participate in extraction, exclusion, and invisibilization? How does it reproduce inequality? And what might it mean to design against these logics?

The seminar begins by understanding and unpacking patriarchy: how it shapes language, behavior, public space, ecological relations, the production of knowledge, and the production of things. Drawing from decolonial theory, intersectionality, and Black feminist thought, we will situate gender within broader regimes of power and understand how various forms of oppression operate together. From there, we will turn to design approaches that interrupt, refuse, and transform dominant design paradigms.

Methodology

Through weekly readings, discussions, and case studies, we will develop the conceptual tools and critical vocabularies to identify and trace how power operates through design processes and outcomes, question assumptions, and reimagine practices.

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