READING SUMMARY
The article, “If the Chair Fits: Sexism in American Office Furniture”, by Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler, discusses sexism in office furniture designs and the factors that contributed to office furniture being designed towards certain genders.
Chairs are meant to support the human body, but yet they also invoke a gendered human body. Designers’ use of human factors naturalized gendered bodies and forms of labor just from the design of furniture. An example of this is the difference between secretarial and executive chairs. A secretary job was mainly a woman’s job at the time and the chairs were designed for the average woman, but yet were also designed to not be as comfortable so that they wouldn’t be tempted to sit back and relax. The chairs were usually designed with a separate seat and back connected with a metal bar, and set on a metal base, and they were designed without arms further encouraging them to work the whole time. This design was common for typing chairs as well as sewing chairs.
An executive chair on the other hand is designed for comfort. They are made with high-grade materials and have a high connecting back and arms with a swivel function. These chairs allowed users to lounge back during a workday in a chair that was actually designed to accommodate movement. An example of this would be the Zapf chair.
BUILDING INTERPRETATION
Chair in Whole Foods
Looking at chairs in public places, it is clear to see what places want you to stick around and what places would rather you not. Take whole foods for example, it’s a very popular grocery store that also serves food for people to eat at any time. There is a large part on the farther side of the store dedicated to this area with plenty of seating problems. The only problem is none of them seem comfortable to sit in. As someone who has gotten food from there and wanted to eat it, I’ve looked at those chairs and never had the desire to sit back and enjoy my meal.
The chairs are fairly small in size, and have a very minimalistic and modern feel to them. It is designed to look like one connecting rod that holds the chair up with a separate back and headrest, and no arms. There are also bench seating options as well, but neither of those options really invokes a feeling of wanting to stay. Thinking about what the woman’s role in the past was, being a housewife, grocery shopping was common for a woman to do, and because of that, it’s interesting to see that although these chairs aren’t in an office they still can be seen as something that is gendered. A woman wasn’t supposed to take time for herself, but rather to provide for her family, and although times have changed now, it’s still interesting to look at these chairs through a lens from the past.