We look at Rosie the Riveter as the figurehead of emancipation. In reality, as women designers, we are expected to be rosy merely in appearance. Liberated from labour only at the hearth, most of us are now chained to our desks; dissuaded from the actual site and act of making with our hands; from wielding power tools, from shaping materials, from getting down and dirty. Why? So, that Masculinity and heteronormativity can remain secure. Most women. Not all. Rosie still has a tribe, and they are happily wielding tools, driving nails into skewed representations. What is it like to be at home, in the workshop? What is it make with your own hands? What is it like to learn from and be transformed by material investigations? How do we challenge patriarchal norms? How do we grow the tribe? Tune in to this week’s podcast, to find out how ‘crush’ is not merely the noun for a passive object of desire, but can be a verb for the active decimation of gendered stereotypes.
