Summary
The inclusion of women in research has existed in narrow and siloed ways, if at all. Usually we include women when the project has an active gender focus (often in international development projects), or in an effort towards more inclusive research. But, we are not practising inclusion of women unless it is deeply embedded in both, the way we do research and what we do research about. In this session, Mansi will share Women-Centric Design: a methodology and toolkit to equip designers and decision makers to actively design with and for women. Drawing from her research with gender and feminist practitioners around the world, Mansi will introduce researchers to themes that are core to serving women as equal users of our design — and the role research can play in broadening our project scopes so we can shift away from overlooking women towards truly including them.
Key Insights
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Despite many women-focused projects, women’s unique needs often remain overlooked due to assumptions and lack of aggregated learning.
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The concept of 'non-negotiables' provides a framework to consistently address core yet neglected women’s needs: safety, nonlinearity, trust, and the role of men.
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Safety for women extends beyond physical to psychological dimensions and includes concerns about the safety of others around them.
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Women’s lives are non-linear, facing interruptions like career breaks and different health needs, which conventional systems (like pension funds) fail to account for.
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Design that ignores nonlinearity unintentionally increases women’s financial, time, and health burdens.
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Trust gaps arise because women live in systems with harsher expectations and consequences, leading to systemic dismissal and internalized failure.
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Men’s roles are crucial in women-centric work, not just as problems but as part of the solution, with examples in caregiving design and youth sports.
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Intersectionality is vital for understanding how different women’s identities experience these non-negotiables differently.
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Measuring women-centric design should move beyond rigid metrics to embrace a nuanced spectrum from offensive to holistic solutions.
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Time, mental bandwidth, and entrenched systems are common barriers to implementing women-centric design, requiring dedicated learning spaces and communities.
Notable Quotes
"We forget about women a lot, even on projects that are supposed to focus on them."
"How can we start every project by asking, what about women?"
"Male universality is one of the leading causes of gender gaps because women are framed as a minority."
"Safety is often taken for granted, but ignoring it leads to disengagement, discomfort, and diminished access to resources."
"Women’s lives are nonlinear — they experience career breaks, biological cycles, and responsibilities that systems don’t account for."
"Women experience systemic inequality simply by navigating a world that isn’t designed for them."
"Women aren’t less confident; they’re living in a system with higher expectations and harsher consequences."
"Practicing women-centricity means including an active role for men, who can be part of the problem and part of the solution."
"We shouldn’t wait for perfect numbers; we already know women are often excluded, so we need to get more women-centric now."
"Start every project by thinking about safety, nonlinearity, trust, and the role of men — keep these non-negotiables close."
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