The andro-chair: Designing the unthinkable-men’s right to women’s experiences in gynaecology

In this paper we explore how design may be used as a critical and creative tool to discuss how design is gendered in the contemporary gynaecology examination in Sweden. The aim of our paper is to uncover the veiled gender norms in this problem area and discuss the consequences for women. Our methods include a Gender Swapping Approach, centred around the chair currently used in most female gynaecological examinations. We used the results of our conducted interviews together with related previous research, which reveals that a majority of women have negative and sometimes even traumatic experiences of the gynaecology chair. These empirical findings were applied to our design concept - a male counterpart: the Andro-Chair. The initial reactions to our design concept points towards great potential for using gender critical design to uncover and discuss this particular problem.