Abstract
This paper begins by offering a feminist reading of the visible increase in design research within the category of “women’s health”. A critical feminist reading of menstrual cycle tracking technologies is then used to investigate how the way that we frame design problems influences the artifacts produced and their impact within society. I argue that by re-framing design problems from the perspective of third and fourth wave feminism we can develop women’s health technologies that are more affirmative, inclusive and which celebrate difference and reflect the complexity around what it means to be a woman in today’s society. I illustrate the potential of this reframing by presenting three approaches to the design of menstrual tracking technologies that better adhere to current feminist ideologies.
Keywords
women’s health; design problems; feminism; menstrual cycle tracking technologies
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.337
Citation
Homewood, S. (2018) Reframing Design Problems Within Women’s Health, in Storni, C., Leahy, K., McMahon, M., Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Design as a catalyst for change - DRS International Conference 2018, 25-28 June, Limerick, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2018.337
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Reframing Design Problems Within Women’s Health
This paper begins by offering a feminist reading of the visible increase in design research within the category of “women’s health”. A critical feminist reading of menstrual cycle tracking technologies is then used to investigate how the way that we frame design problems influences the artifacts produced and their impact within society. I argue that by re-framing design problems from the perspective of third and fourth wave feminism we can develop women’s health technologies that are more affirmative, inclusive and which celebrate difference and reflect the complexity around what it means to be a woman in today’s society. I illustrate the potential of this reframing by presenting three approaches to the design of menstrual tracking technologies that better adhere to current feminist ideologies.