Category: Interviews

For this discussion I invited my undergraduate classmates who are now working as jewellery designers around the world. We discussed around my research questions – how can jewellery design help women improve their image to reduce the impact of the male gaze on self-objectification in the age of social media？

They gave me some helpful advice and points to consider：

1. Which part of the woman’s body is the most suitable for wearing jewellery to improve their image?
2. Is it possible to have some interaction between the jewellery and the body？
3. If presented as virtual jewellery, AR interaction design can be considered.
4. If presented as a physical jewellery, it is possible to think about how to incorporate new techniques in addition to using traditional crafts.

I contacted women of all ages from different industries to find out how they perceive the male gaze on social media and how it impacts them. Four people were interviewed separately, as follows

A: Postgraduate student in Transportation Management, Beijing Jiaotong University, Age 22

B:Restaurant Manager, Age 46

C: Ogilvy Shanghai, Account Executive, Age 25

D: Educationalist and Designer, age 38

The inescapable topics are body management, appearance, dressing and fertility rights. Under the male gaze, women are objectified as commodities that can be sold at any time. The value of women themselves is ignored. This is particularly evident for women who have just entered university or society. One interviewee told me that she considered young women to be more valuable reproductive tools, and that when the optimal reproductive age is passed and they lose their youthful appearance and body, they have no value in the eyes of men. This point made me want to try to target young women between the ages of 18-25 in the next intervention.