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BackRAMBLE ABOUT DESIGNER EVOLUTION
THE AUTHOR: DANDAN ZOU
‘Until the appearance of female landscape designer, landscape design industry comes out from the initial trough.’ -- Alan Shipman (EllenShipman) Pioneer of USA women Landscape Architects
Male and female dominated, retreat
From earliest times to the present days, landscape, planning and architecture has always been the male dominated domain, the designers are nearly the synonymous with high strength. Working for a long time, great pressure and it’s a test of physics and brains. The design sense and abilities unique of women and their contributions in the past years can’t be ignored. Some of them are designer almostbecome The design industry pressure, is a great test of the physical brain. Women's unique and ability andcontribution to the industry in the past few years can’t be ignored. Some of them are successful, such as Dame Zaha Hadid and kazuyo sejima; others are hidden.
Female Strive, Charm Appear
The social development provides relatively free choosing space for the displays of women, they have the equal rights of being education, employments and social participation etc.. nature gives equalities and freedom to everyone, and this opens a vast sky to females.
Nowadays, more and more women designers enter into the design industry, there are more and more opportunities to make female succeed for the development space given by the society is more and more. The aesthetic demands of women bloom freely in every field, they’re pursuing perfection, and their works and design expressions are paid more attention gradually, which are of more corresponding recognition and praise, such as Lane Jacobs, Cornelia Hahn - Australian Bolundeer, Martha Fajardo, Zaha Hadid…
‘In the emerging design and creative industry where male ratio is 60%, female ratio is 40%, which in fact is very high in various industries in comparison. In the design and consulting industry, literary output, displaying and other industries the amount of women participating is bigger than the amount of men.’ The related statistical data of UK creative industry also showed that, ’the female ratio of occupation development is much bigger than that one of traditional filed, for example, exceeding 50% in the in advertising, fashion, nearly over 20% in design and architecture.’ The creative design industry needs the talents with innovative design abilities which are combinations of abstract and concrete, it’s the input of time & labor cost and the cooperation and acceptance of creativities output.
Understanding Her, Helping Her
The differences and diversities are the sources of human development. When people look at the wild growth of productivity, we also will not forget, ’innovation’ is the core of the updated times, representing the international comprehensive strength. It's also the key for enterprises to have a foothold in the fierce market competitions. Architectural and landscape design need both emotional and rational mind, it is the vocation with integration of technology and art. Women designers have a keen smell sense, paying attention to the humanities and history, having subtle cognition of the environment, used to breaking the barriers among different fields, where they can display their wisdom, imagination, unique taste, creation and expression.
‘For a woman who have knowledge, pursuit, well-educated and passion, giving up her own career is one kind of sacrifice to the society but also a waste.’
Trust Her, Support Her
Labels and Prejudice
Women encounter many challenges in the design industry, not only in the intelligence and economic, but more in the aspects of marriage, family and personal ideas.
‘Women have delicate emotions, refined scheme, but the depth and innovation is not enough.’
‘Communication is very patient, but problem considering is not of clear priorities...’
‘Once a woman have a marriage and bear a child, they can’t work desperately like men ...’
‘As a mother, it is difficult to focus on the work.’
‘The advantage or disadvantage is both on female.’
These words are more neutral without deliberately provoke or fabricate, Objectively speaking, men and women designers’ differences we think are not about the working abilities directly, but more about the social and cultural understanding on the deep level. Male is different from the female in the physical and also in the social scale. In tradition, people are born with gender label that different genders have its classified attributes, personalities and abilities, which is applied to both men and women. We often take the common-sense things for granted, where there exists misleading of views, the experiences are not pure or absolute, sometimes it’s more objective and accurate to consider and evaluate with the method of relative mind. Love and passion for the life and work is of the unisex.
‘For the educated, to those female landscape designers who can be with the male sits at the same table full of confidence, there is no particular advantage or disadvantage.’ Nelly Hahn -Aobolundeer sub
Domestic research shows that ‘In the current professional landscape design, the proportion of women is bigger and bigger. For nearly 5 years, male to female landscape undergraduate ratio close to 4:5, to the Master graduate student it is about 1:4, as similar to other architectural colleges, this shows a growing number of women engaged in landscape design.’ But the prominent problem is that few females are in the sharp Pyramid of the industry.
‘It was the best of times, it was also the worst of times...... ’
Around The Home
Most modern women have their own dreams just like ‘Nana left home’, break away from the decadent thoughts statute, eager to go out for pursuing their own careers and self realization. While a majority of women will continue job choice after marriage in reality, becoming one part of raising the family, facing the difficulties with men together, bearing the burden of ‘housing, education and health-care’.
There is no doubt that the rooted traditional consciousness of society requires women to take the duty on marriage and having children, and most of them have the instincts and self-consciousness. Multiple social roles such as designer, mother and daughter directly test the capacity of women's time allocation and event handling .
In the washing-up of the times’ tide, female designers are struggling in various social roles of love, marriage, family, career and so on, shouldering many responsibilities and challenges, such as child/husband/the old care, project design......
Finding the balances between family and career, possessing enough compressive abilities, not only taking care of life, but also focusing on work. They often need to make the measurement among satisfaction, happiness and each possibility, experiencing the progress of subversion, puzzled, acceptance, and then grand toss about yourself in the process of sublimation…The high requirements are the time endows with women, meanwhile inspiring them to strive to be a successful woman who can handle multi-roles well.
Enters May Attack, Draw Back May Defend
The landscape and architectural design industry is suitable for women's development field.
Women designers have different traits and skills from males’. Family can endow the female with pride and beauty. Only when women are in a family can show their gentleness and mildness prominently. There is no challenge contest between work and family, which constitute an integral part of their lives. Those who always love the design, innovation, and those who regard it as life work are all lovely women. They’re hard-working group, new-era females daring to make a self breakthrough and cross the traditional barriers.
The problems women encounter belongs to the category of human life, and the males should focus on it and confront it with the female together. ‘Women hold up half the sky’ shouldn’t be only a slogan or a feminist provocation.
The modern social labor division, is inseparable from women's pay. Design industry needs to give full play to male and female traits, only with mutual respect, help and growth, can appear more outstanding designers and fantastic design works.