Where are the women on TypeDrawers?

WH Typefaces

?

joeclark

Neither the typeface nor the type-discussion forum knows you’re a girl. The question is pointless.

Max Phillips

Joe, I think the question is far from pointless, and deserves a more respectful response. And Wei's gender is irrelevant.

TypeDrawers is mostly male, but so is the field of type and lettering design. I wish there were more balance in both the forum and the profession. There was a pretty vigorous discussion of gender and type design on Typographica a couple of years back. It did not, obviously, come to any useful conclusions.

I've got a half-assed sort of theory that good type designers need to be otaku and that men seem to be more wired for obsessive single-mindedness than women. But I don't have any great confidence in this notion. And even if it were true, it certainly wouldn't explain the ridiculously off-kilter ratio in this field.

John Hudson

I recall many versions of this discussion over the years, including at the first ATypI conference I attended in 1994. I've also witnessed, from the sidelines, attempts by women in typography to organise albeit in fairly informal structures; I don't have a really good idea how well these have turned out for the people involved, but wouldn't presume that they were pointless.

One thing I have noticed, on my regular visits to the MA programme at Reading, is that there's generally a pretty good balance of men and women, and if anything a slight imbalance in favour of women. And when I think about the graduates I know who are actively working in the type business, there is also a high proportion of women. That doesn't mean, of course, that they're equally well represented in online forums, which perhaps is where the 'ridiculously off-kilter ratio' really applies. Maybe they've got better things to do with their time?

Eris Alar

I've heard it said that in graphic design classes the ratio of male/female is in favour of women, with more and more women doing design courses.

WH Typefaces

Max, it's not true that men are wired for more "obsessive single-mindedness than women".

Sye, In my experience and anecdotally from peers in other schools, women outnumber men in graphic design courses — however in the industry itself it's more men at the top (or visible).

I'm curious as to why women don't engage in these kind of forums — it could be perhaps the internet is generally not as welcoming to women…

WH Typefaces

Addendum to my last post: Not implying that this place is unsafe and unwelcoming by the way!

kupfers

Before we speculate more – how about asking the women you are missing? For example email Verena and the others who commented under her post on typographica, and then share your findings with us.

Thomas Phinney

FWIW, at the three-day Crafting Type workshop in Portland that just ended a week ago, I think we had about 19 women and 4 men. So at least the interest is there.

I am perfectly willing to believe that there is not a single answer here

Sexism is an obvious and plausible answer. Even if the sexism has substantially evaporated, until recently there was a shortage of prominent role models for female type designers. Things have improved, but it takes time for beginners to progress. I am very curious as to what the gender balance in type design will look like in another ten or twenty years.

I do *also* suspect that there are more unilaterally obsessive men than women in the world. Looking at the gender ratios of people on the autism spectrum, for example, I see that in a big way. (And I do honestly believe that many type designers are obsessive a bit beyond the range of normal people, to the point that they probably are diagnosable. I am not excluding myself in this, either.)

So, I would not be shocked if among full-time type designers, *some* degree of gender imbalance continues indefinitely. But I also expect the imbalance to decrease substantially in my lifetime.

Nick Shinn

Perhaps Typophile’s reputation is offputting, and some of that has rubbed off.
There isn't a lot of moderation there, and things can occasionally become quite combative, which I would say is generally a more masculine trait. And those occasions are what is remembered.

I enjoy a good argument and can be quite severe in my criticism, but only go ad hominem (and never, as far as I can recall, ad feminam) once in a blue moon, after several drinks.

If women want an environment free of the online abuse documented in the articles Wei Hang links to, this is it. The Real Names stipulation makes a lot of sense in that context.

James Puckett

Sexism is an obvious and plausible answer.

In the April 2013 issue of the Atlantic Garance Franke-Rute wrote about sexism generating passivity in women; I thought it relevant to this conversation.

…It can take young women years to realize that the professional world is less of a meritocracy than the school world, and that the strategies that lead to success in one realm may not be enough to master the other. In the meantime, many suffer from what Carol Frohlinger and Deborah Kolb, the founders of Negotiating Women Inc., a firm that coaches women in leadership skills, call “tiara syndrome”—the belief that if they “keep doing their job well, someone will notice them and place a tiara on their head.” This tends not to happen.

and later in the article

The university system aside, I suspect there is another, deeply ingrained set of behaviors that also undermine women: the habits they pick up—or don’t pick up—in the dating world. Men learn early that to woo women, they must risk rejection and be persistent. Straight women, for their part, learn from their earliest years that they must wait to be courted. The professional world does not reward the second approach. No one is going to ask someone out professionally if she just makes herself attractive enough.

I suspect that, given the huge number of young women in design, there are a great many unreleased typefaces designed by women that just aren’t being seen.

James Puckett

FYI, Wei will not be making further contributions to this thread.

Deleted Account

Gender bender?

Thomas Phinney

It seems to me that the gender ratios of people posting on Typophile and TypeDrawers are not unlike those of TypeCon and ATypI conferences. Meanwhile, the high end of type design as a profession is even more male-dominated, while students coming in to type design are at least 50% female....

WH Typefaces

Yes, unfair dismissal. I know where I'm not welcome.

Kemie Guaida

Just thought I'd point out there might be other women who, like me, do not feel particularly threatened or discriminated by the apparent male majority, but are simply of a quiet nature .

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Meanwhile, the high end of type design as a profession is even more male-dominated […]

Last week the Dutch Type Library released DTL Valiance by the highly talented Finnish type designer Hanna Hakala. This will help to change the balance a bit, but above all it is a great typeface IMHO.