Crunching the Numbers: Women in Design with ThinkLab

This transcript was made in part by an automated service. In some areas it may contain errors. 

Jon: [00:00:00] Welcome

Verda: to break some dishes, defying the rules to inspire design. I’m John Rasner. And I

Jon: am Virta Alexander, happy Friday. Virta. You ready for another weekend of Wild Madness, crazy activities with everything you’ve probably got planned.

Verda: It already feels like Saturday, but you know, we do have an interview to every day Saturday.

We do you have an interview first to make and then I’m gonna, and then I’m gonna call it a day, I think. And we have a, a good one today. So. So we’re in the Be start. We’re kicking off our season with these first couple episodes, laying some groundwork for a season of talking about women and women in design, women breaking dishes and showing us a different way, right?

A different path or a better path. And, and I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see how we do, right? Yeah. But Amanda Schneider is founder and president of Think Lab. Think Lab is an arm of Sandow. Sando is sort of our parent, our parent company of surround podcasts. Right. And she also has a podcast. So we’re, we’re talking to a fellow like she’s in our family of podcasts and so she’s probably a much better podcaster than us and she’s show us that.

But you know, we always, we always like having people smarter than us on the episode, and, and she’s smarter.

Jon: She’s like a triple threat. Right? Because she, we wanted to talk about research today. Yeah. That really pertained to women in interior design and you know, some of the challenges and some of their perspectives.

And so she is a researcher and she’s a woman who’s a researcher. And her perspective I think is gonna be really fascinating. This is gonna be a season that challenges both of us because we’re both very comfortable talking about the planet and climate. And, and all of those topics that surround that very, very big issue.

But now we’re getting into things like, you know. What are some things that women are facing in the workplace and you know, what’s going on out there? And it’s, it’s kind of an uncomfortable position for a white man to be in.

Verda: Yeah. And why have we not gotten parody yet? Right? And why in the last decade have we made so little progress, or the last 50 years, or a hundred years?

And why does it at this very moment in time, we feel like we’re going very backwards. Right.

Jon: Well, and Amanda Schneider is going to answer some of these questions for us today, right? She,

Verda: yes. I think this one’s gonna have a lot of. Sources because we do have a lot of statistics and a lot of reference material, so definitely check out the show notes for this one and let us know what you think.

Hi, Amanda, we are so excited to have you here. I’m excited to be here. Another surround podcaster with us here,

Jon: breaking dishes. Amanda, you’re breaking dishes today.

Verda: I’m

Amanda: ready, OPPA.

Jon: Hey, Virta. I’m excited because we’re ver, I’m always excited, but we’re gonna be very data-driven, very research driven today.

That’s right. No bullshit today. It’s all facts,

Verda: man. We’re not making anything up. Amanda runs Think Lab, which is the re research division of Sandal. And actually that’s a great place to start. We’d love to hear how you got into research and a little bit about your journey and how you got to sandal. And think loud.

Amanda: So I am a product designer by background. Uh, I graduated, not to date myself, but graduated in 2001, which, uh, for anyone listening who was, uh, in the industry back then, it was not a pretty time for the industry that was, uh, what many affectionately called the dot bomb. I started my career on the office furniture side.

It was really tough for designers. I was working for a company located in the middle of Iowa. They really went from a model where they had a lot of. Industrial designers internal to their team and started to realize that might not be the smartest approach moving forward. So about a year into my career, they had laid off basically the entire department.

It was down to myself and the director of Design at that time. My boss sat me down and said, Amanda, you seem to have an aptitude for marketing. Do you want to stay in design or go more marketing? And I’m thinking, well. Designers get fired and marketers get promoted, I’ll do that. Uh, so they paid for me to go back to school, get my MBA, and that’s when I really discovered what got me into product design in the first place was really the research side of design.

I love the setup to really understand the context, understand the brand implications. You know, design and the beauty of it is so important, but help them start up. The first ever [00:05:00] market research group, work through a variety of different roles, and ended up as a sales rep calling on architects and designers, which is really where I saw this gap between the interior side of the industry and the product side of the industry.

So, left my formal employment. In 2011, there’s a much broader story than that, which we may or may not get into. And started what I thought was a side step in my career, which accidentally grew and got discovered by Sand out. And in 2018 my little brand was acquired by Sand Out. We became Think Lab and we have been scaling as a part of sand out, really to bring our research and data and insights to the world of design ever since.

Verda: Oh, it’s so important. Yeah. It’s so important to have. Research as a base to make our decisions on what a concept, right John?

Jon: Yeah. What a concept. But I also, I also just want to start this episode out by saying that you know, Amanda, your brand isn’t settled nicely in the realm of sustainability. Verde and I traditionally break some dishes is an environmental climate change type of, of podcast and.

I think Virta, you and I have talked about this a lot. Our conversation has gotten, um, more sophisticated, more complicated because sustainability has gotten more complicated. Sustainability has gotten, climate change has gotten, it’s a much bigger conversation. Right? And so, you know. Uh, equity and inclusion and diversity now are a very big part of sustainability and climate action

Verda: and women.

I kind of took a little bit of a pivot. I’d been doing a lot of research around climate and just was kept coming back to women and girls and how important they are in, in, in, in the big scheme of things. And we decided to do a whole season about this and we wanna. And what we wanna do is bring women on that are powerhouses that have done some really amazing things that have, that have paved some really interesting roads and broken a few dishes along the way.

And yeah, it’s kind of great. You’re, you’re that plus you’re, you’re gonna give us some really great data.

Amanda: Absolutely. And, and I wanna just comment about the sustainability piece. Too is that sustainability is not our sole focus at Think Lab, but we do have some amazing stats about sustainability, about the impact of design.

And in 2025, we are partnering with Metropolis Magazine to do a pretty big future of sustainability study that really helps the industry look at not only the trendsetters, not only those top 10 firms that are really driving a lot of the sustainability conversations, but um. We do all of the interior design giants of design work as well.

So on behalf of the magazine, we are the number crunchers behind the scenes. Mm-hmm. And we wanted to look at firms 11 through 200, how are they looking at sustainability? You know, really what’s the Maslow’s hierarchy? So just throwing that out for your listeners too. We’re gonna have more information on sustainability, but I love that you’re expanding this to include Yeah.

Uh, the idea of women, and this is. As you probably heard in my recent TEDx talk, a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, and I’m thrilled to be invited to your stage to talk about it.

Verda: Yeah, we’ll put your TEDx talk in the show notes. It’s a great talk for all of you to check out. But let’s just start with some of these numbers that I’ve pulled together for various reasons and.

John and I have been looking at this for a little bit. So about 50% of architecture students are women, but only about 26% end up getting licensed as architects. And then if you look at ethnicity, those numbers get even lower. Maybe 1% at the most are black women in architecture licensed. And then if you look at leadership roles, those numbers get even starker.

Only three of the largest firms are headed by women. These are architecture firms and so that’s just 10% and that mirrors Fortune 500 companies that have less than 10% of their CEOs as women. And I know you pulled some numbers together and please correct me if those stats need to be updated or are old, but, um, you pulled together a few interior design numbers for us to compare that to.

’cause the industry is quite a bit different.

Amanda: It is quite a bit different. We have an amazing chart in our recent US design industry benchmark report for 2025 that actually benchmarks architecture design as well as really dividing commercial and residential to really kind of bring some clarity around those stats.

You can find a link to that on our website. We can also put something in the show notes here. Um, but it’s really interesting looking at architecture verse design. Architecture tends to be a lot more male heavy in the profession. Uh, design, as we all know, tends to be a lot more female heavy. I. But as we look at those stats, uh, if we back way up to students, about 87.5% of interior design students are female.

Yet when we look at the industry as a total, 85% of the industry is female. But then when we benchmark those top 10 firms, just really looking at what is the [00:10:00] makeup of their leadership, uh, only about 40% of those top firms end up being female. So you see this real, uh, attrition. As they kind of move up in the ranks.

And very similarly, if we were to benchmark, uh, people of color, it would look, uh, even worse, I would say. Unfortunately,

Jon: that doesn’t blow anybody’s mind, right?

Amanda: Sadly, it doesn’t.

Jon: When we first saw it, we’re like, well, yeah, we would expect, because women do face so many challenges in the workplace, and we’re gonna talk about it a little bit.

Verda: It doesn’t shock us. But as somebody from that generation of thinking that we were headed towards equality, right? And then right. Looking at the, the very stark numbers, especially as you look at. Even other industries too, right?

Amanda: Yeah, and I think that’s a really important point. I don’t know if any of you read, um, McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report, but it’s a study that they do, uh, every few years, and I think it’s really, there is some encouragement out there.

I guess, you know, one thing I would say, first of all to your listeners is that this is not a problem wholly unique to our industry. I think this is a definitely a. Nationally wide problem. I would guess even outside of our country that this is the case too. And I think the good thing about that McKinsey report is that we have seen some progress in the last decade, so things are moving in the right direction, albeit I.

Not fast enough. Uh, one of the lines from their report is Progress is not parody. Uh, and I would love to read just a quote from that that I think is really interesting. Um, ’cause they talk about some of the, the great stats about the progress that’s being made. Um, and here’s what it says yet, progress is surprisingly fragile.

Especially for women of color who continue to be underrepresented at every level and who view gender and race as obstacles to their advances. It goes on to say, in many instances, we also see that women’s outlook and day-to-day experiences are not much different or sometimes even worse than they were a decade ago.

Um, there’s about 29% of the C-suite on average. This is the women in workplace support from McKinsey that are women, but men still outnumber women. At every level. So they say at the current rate of progress, it would take 22 years for white women to reach parity, and it would take almost 50 years for women of color in senior leadership to reflect their share of the US population to get to that true parity.

So progress is happening, but progress is not parity.

Verda: So I think the question we should ask is, does it matter that. We don’t have as many women leaders and, and should it matter? And, and if it does, why should it matter? My number one thought is, is I think of diversity, right? I think that we’re, as architects and designers, we’re addressing problems and issues in society.

A society that’s very diverse that has is half women and that we want. Those designers representing their constituents, their clients in some way equitably. Right. And I think that they’ll address those needs better if they are, aren’t just a bunch of. White men, right?

Amanda: Yeah, I was gonna say, I was at a conference this past week and the speaker, uh, who was a speaker on creativity and sparking creativity, asked everyone in the audience to draw a house and gave us a very short period of time to draw the house.

And then he had us show the picture of our house to those around us. And not a shocker. It was quite a homogenous audience. A lot of us probably had, uh, the same upbringing background. You know, not a lot of variety in gender or ethnicity and a lot of our houses looked very similar, and I think that that’s a real metaphor for this industry.

That is a bit scary. ’cause if you think about it. The architecture and design industry is literally designing not only the houses, but the buildings where we work. As we look at these gender discrepancies, and if we’re all thinking the same way, how are we going to create spaces where people that don’t look and act and behave like us, feel comfortable?

How are we gonna help create spaces that address some of this disparity that we’re seeing? So if we talk about why it matters, it matters because we can’t have creativity if we’re all. Singing from the same playbook.

Jon: We just did an episode with a really, really fascinating young woman who’s from an indigenous tribe here in the Northeast, and she was sharing with us the indigenous perspective.

We were, and we got into design a little bit and she said, you know, we used to design our homes. Everything was rounded. Then we got away from that [00:15:00] because the roof was wound, uh, was round, and everything was related to the womb because that’s where you felt most comfortable. That’s where you, that’s where you began.

And so we’ve moved away from that. Right? And it could be because functionality, who knows, maybe it’s easier to, easier to make a box and live in that than it is to make something with a round roof and live in that. But I think that. A lot of what we’re talking about too is like generational, like Virta, you said like, we hope that our generation had turned the corner and, and I, I love Virta, your perspective, that progress isn’t linear.

Like you can go two steps forward and then one step back. But when we look at the generations, like, are the generations getting better at this or are we still, it feels like we’re just still fighting over the same things. I don’t know.

Amanda: I’m gonna tell you a story. I’m not gonna tell you a stat here, um, but I’m gonna tell you a story that kind of, uh, relates to this, I guess is, you know, this topic of women in the workplace and, you know, really advocating for things to change has been something that’s near and dear to my heart.

Uh, but I am also the mother of three little blonde haired, blue-eyed white boys. And it’s really been interesting for me to kind of have to look at this as a mother of three boys because. It’s helping them do their part to see how the next generations need to change. We did some research on behalf of one of the industry associations, especially in 2020 when all of the George Floyd issues were happening, and it was really around, you know what that particular.

Industry association needed to do to help with diversity, equity, and inclusion. And as a white woman, it was a very eye-opening moment for me to kind of understand my role in the racial issues. And I think that that’s something, as we talk about gender, that is also everyone’s role. This is, you know, one of the challenges that came up in that research was the problem with the DEI discussions right now is it’s typically labeled DEI discussion and it’s in conference room d.

Rather than being labeled the future and put on the main stage. So simply by titling, what, what happens is the people that most need to be in that room think, oh, it doesn’t apply to me because we are all blind to our own privilege. And you know, a, a book that I was reading recently also talked about this, that women would never have had the right to vote.

If it were not for men voting to give that to them. So I think regardless what underrepresented population we’re thinking about, you know, my job is to advocate for what I can. Um. You know, for the issues I’ve experienced and hopefully do what I become aware of as I become aware of it for issues that I have, not that I’ve had the privilege to not personally experience.

And when it comes to kind of these issues, I think having three little boys that I get to give as my lasting gift to the world, it’s really framed my mindset as a mother and what I hope they realize for their future wives or husbands or whoever they choose to be with.

Verda: Yeah. I love that and I, I think it starts to get into why we have that disparity, and I think being a mom is, is challenging.

In this industry in a lot of industries. Right. But we, we are known for longer hours and mm-hmm. And in general, America of course is not known for great parental leave and childcare support or anything like that. And you pointed us towards a book called Pay Up the Future of Women and Work, and Why It’s Different than You Think, and a quote from there that I’d like to add right here, despite the fact that.

Women comprise 51% of the labor force in America. The modern day workforce is built around and for men, we are forced to exist in a workplace that tacitly stipulates we can only succeed if we act like men. And I think there’s, I think there’s a number of things. You know, there, there is these gendered expectations of women and of men.

And the the expectations are, are that we’re nurturing, that we are community builders and those. I think, uh, associate better, fit better with managerial roles. So maybe women, as they climb the ladder, they get to a point, right? And that’s where they kind of end up. And, and, and the, these leadership roles, you need a little more, uh.

Maybe will to win and, and succeed and beat others and things like that. Right? That maybe boys that were handed guns and women that were handed easy bake ovens, right? It, we were already kind of socialized to, to, to go one way or the other, right? And so there’s that, and then there’s this, this domestic inequality.

Which I, you know, I think comes back to, to, I, you know, I raised a son in the height of [00:20:00] our O plus a, my, my workplace design firm. And it was challenging to be a mom and a lot of that work, it just fell on me, or I just took it on. I, you know, I can’t, I. Quite remember now, so long ago. But, um, but it did affect my ability to show up at the office.

And we, women do put in still today a lot more of the domestic care and housework than men. Lots of numbers, but maybe around twice as much. I think it all depends, but there’s, but there’s that too, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jon: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a big burden. And you know, and I, listen, I raised along with my wife, three daughters and one son.

And so when we were in that. Phase of childcare. I always thought of myself as, you know, I’m very equitable, right? I’m not that much of a traditionalist, but guess what? The childcare, the, the bulk of the childcare and all the stress around childcare fell on my wife. Right? And it wasn’t like we ever sat down and had this decision like, Hey, listen, I’m a little bit more important than you and you need to do this right?

Or, my work is more important than you. We never did it just. It just like evolved that way. Right. Which isn’t fair, but I think that’s, that’s the reality.

Amanda: I would say a lot of that are these unwritten rules of society. I was watching a, a show on Netflix, uh, that I love the Lincoln lawyer. I dunno if anybody other Lincoln lawyer fans out there, you know, but they’re is two.

It’s like this power couple, uh, husband and wife. They’re both lawyers and in one scene in that the wife. Has a deposition. And so she says to her powerful lawyer, husband, oh honey, thanks so much for picking up the kids tonight so I can go to my deposition. And I like, I found myself getting angry because I feel like these are some of the unwritten rules that are out there that are kind of holding things back.

You know, it’s his kids too. Why is she thanking him for doing what she would’ve done? Because she was expected to. And would he have thanked her? Right? Would he have thanked her? Yeah. I think these are some of the invisible things that are just woven into the fabric of our society today.

You know, when I travel, I travel a ton. I get deliver about 30 keynotes a year. I can’t tell you every city I go to, I’m gonna have, it’s typically an older white man that asks me, well, who takes care of your kids while you’re on the road? My husband travels as well. Guess how many times he’s asked that?

Never.

Verda: Yeah.

Amanda: You know, um, and, and I don’t know if anybody heard this too, but this is, uh, Nate Barki, he’s a comedian, uh, getting pretty big right now ’cause he was just recently on Saturday Night Live and he’s got a little comedy skit talking about how he got in trouble with his wife because he got her, uh, I think it was a oven for Christmas.

And um, that was super offensive to her. And. All of us women listening understand why, but he was like, but here’s my logic. Like from the beginning, you women, you are trained to like grow up and be a wife. You know, you are handed a baby doll when you’re a baby. You are given an easy bake oven, which was, you know, his wife’s favorite toy when she was younger.

So in his mind, he was fulfilling her childhood dream, right? Because he was like, well, if somebody gave me like a transformer, like a car that turned into a robot, like that would blow my mind, right? So I, I think these are just. All really great examples of some of the things woven into our society that nobody looks at, as, you know, intentionally derogatory, but they still happen and they still happen on a regular basis.

And that book Pay Up is from a woman named Rashma Cha Johnny. If you’re not familiar with her, I would encourage you follow her on LinkedIn. Um, she founded Girls Who Code, which is, you know, really trying to bring up girls in the coding environment. She’s a powerhouse entrepreneur. And then. She had kids and she hit her, you know, oh shit moment.

Or you know her, what’s the point moment, uh, that I talk about in my TEDx talk and really is when she started advocating in government for women. And her book Pay Up is really about very technical tools about how to do that. And I think there’s some things our industry could learn from all of her efforts as well.

Verda: Yeah. Half of her book is very action oriented, like how to take action and it does. Talk a good bit about legislation and thank you for reminding us that we’re not trying to blame anyone. It’s really, this has just been baked into our who we are as men and women in our society.

Jon: So here’s, here’s the other thing to keep in mind. I think that we fight because we’re fighting this cultural, this cultural boundary that’s keeping us from feeling like we’re progressing. And part of it, I was just reading that, I don’t remember what it’s called, but you tend to lean into people [00:25:00] that. Act like you, right?

So like if you interview somebody, oh, I really like this candidate because, well, because they’re a lot like me, right? So we struggle to promote and hire people that don’t and don’t look like us. And if the majority of the leaders in workplace are men, then that’s just perpetuating this, right? We need men to step outside of that.

Again, I don’t know what’s happening to, to force that, to force that issue. I, and I think while, while none of us are surprised that there are fewer women in leadership, I think that with the design industry, like my intuition was that it’s a very much a female industry, right? It is female driven.

Verda: It may be that we need to work towards getting more men into the industry.

I feel right, especially at the college level. I’d love to see more men. Mm-hmm. Studying interior design. Mm. Right. Yeah. Because again, I don’t, I think, I think it goes both ways. We don’t want one-sided teams balance it out. Agreed. It’s not about more women, right. And exclusively women, or it’s not about more men and exclusively men.

Amanda: You know, I think some of this goes back to observation, especially as we look at upbringing. Something John said kind of triggered this for me, you know, that we all, we’re all a product of the environments that we’re raised in, you know, and there’s a reason that we have terms like mom guilt. We don’t have terms like dad guilt, right?

Because we observe, like in my home, my mother was a homemaker. You know, she did teach, but only up until we were born and then after we went away, right? And so, um, I have always been very career driven, but there’s a piece of me that kind of feels this obligation that my husband is an amazing dad, very, very involved dad.

And, and he doesn’t struggle with, he doesn’t, you know, he doesn’t. Struggle when he leaves and miss the kids. Like I still definitely do. And I think some of that is the product that we are raised in. And, you know, I do think some of this comes down to pay disparity as well, uh, in combination with this weight that women naturally carry a bit more than men.

You know, when I was a a and D rep, I can’t tell you how many designers. Like came to me crying because they were like, what am I doing this for? Like, I literally am away from my kids from the time that I wake up until the time they go to bed. All of my paycheck is going to their daycare. What’s the point?

And unfortunately, that’s the time when a lot of them leave this industry. And I think that attrition is, again, one of the things that leading to the disparity at the top levels. So some of that pay equity, um, is a piece of it. Also it is breaking some of those cycles and really sharing those roles. So, um, I know we’re probably not to the point to talk about, you know, some of the solutions yet, but, um, there is a small group here in Chicago that has started to really look at some of those disparities, uh, with a data-driven standpoint.

What are the best practices? It’s led by a woman named Ashley Delano here in Chicago and her husband that you guys probably know, Scott Delano. And what I love about this is it’s a parents collaborative. This is not about women in the workplace. It’s really again, about a shared initiative. We were doing some panels, uh, discussions as well.

So I’d love to provide a link to your listeners, to their website. It’s IL wpi.org. They’re titling it, the Illinois Working Parents Initiative, but they’re doing a lot to really gather best practices of firms and policies, and their goal is really to share what the next generation of, not just women, but.

Boys and girls that wanna be parents. Some days, even as you’re looking at your next role with your next firm, you know, what are the parental leave policies that you should be looking for, that you should be asking for? And you know, to your question, John, I do think we’re seeing some progress there. More firms are having paternity leave.

So this is not only a gendered issue, it’s really looking at both sides of this. So we’ve got a long way to go, but we are seeing some progress and people like. Scott and Ashley that are really trying to mo push these things forward almost as a hobby for the good of the next generation. Give me a lot of hope.

Verda: Yeah. I think again, men and women working together, right, to come up with solutions and going to this idea of generations and if we’ve made progress, one of the books I’m reading. It’s holding it together how women became America’s safety net and the preface talks about in World War II in 1942, the United States very quickly set up a national childcare system so that women could take the jobs that men had to leave to go to battle.

And as soon as the war ended, they dismantled the program. So when there’s energy behind something. This is what can can be done and it can be done quickly. So I think we just need to not give up and know that these types of things are possible and keep having these conversations, I think, and keep having them in a [00:30:00] positive way.

Right.

Jon: I. Yeah, Amanda, I really loved your idea of, you know, why have this conference where you have a seminar on DEI in conference room D and you know, it gets 15 people that wander in to sit and listen and they’re probably 15 people that already know quite a bit about DEI and they’re big fans, et cetera.

You know, you get the same thing with sustainability work a lot of times, right? And. I think that’s part of the problem is, you know, why are we labeling it like something, like it’s something different or it’s an alternate course that you should pursue. Right? It’s more of a, a balance that every, everybody should be trying their best to achieve.

I. I think that’s, I, you know, I would love to see more conferences and trade shows where there were talk tracks that talked more about balanced perspectives. And I mean, I would love to hear more about indigenous perspectives. Right. I, I, I just think we need to open that without, without putting it in neon.

You know, in neon lettering, Hey, we’re gonna talk about something really different,

Amanda: right? Which I think the barrier to that is lack of time. You know, things are moving faster today than ever before, and I don’t think that you’ll meet any, well, I don’t know. I wanna believe that you won’t meet anyone who thinks they’re intentionally sexist, racist.

Right. You know, insert your is form here. You know, I think most people believe that they’re open-minded. Most people. Want to believe that they’re doing their part,

Jon: which is the first problem,

Amanda: right? E. Exactly. Exactly. And, but as things are moving faster than ever, I think this is where it becomes, you know, a big challenge is we have a hundred problems we can focus on and, and how do we prioritize which one is the biggest, when they all feel urgent, vital, and important.

Jon: That’s a good point. Yeah. Dammit. Reality. Well, I, you know, and I did put in my notes, ver and I were talking earlier that, you know, as a white man specifically who’s been in this industry for longer than I care to share, I can tell you that I didn’t have the intuition. To be sensitive to the challenges that we’re talking about.

It didn’t occur to me naturally to be empathetic and say, wow, you know, gosh. ’cause, because I, you know, I ran an a and d division for many, many years for a manufacturer and was going in and out of design firms. I. Multiple firms every day of the week. And I wasn’t coming out of those firms looking around going, gosh, where were all the female principals there?

Right? How come there weren’t more women at that table where we were talking about, you know, some of the programming opportunities and stuff. And so, you know, to me there’s a real opportunity for our industry. To, to continue to raise awareness so that, because I mean, I never thought of myself as somebody who was crass or, or not sympathetic or, you know, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s the bros or nothing.

I was never that way. I, I always felt like I was very open-eyed when I looked at workplace. Um, but, but clearly I wasn’t, you know, I don’t think that it’s a natural intuition. I don’t, and we need, we need help with that.

Amanda: I would agree. I would agree. And I don’t think you’re alone, John. Like I, yeah, I think we’re all, that’s the beauty of privilege is it’s invisible to those who have it, and myself included.

You know, there’s other issues that, that I’m not aware of and I wouldn’t think to ask because I haven’t, I. I’ve had the privilege of not experiencing it myself, and so I think that we all need to have kind of a welcoming patience with one another too, for people that want to say like, I am aware that I am unaware of this and I want to know more and not get frustrated when people try to learn.

Jon: Grace. Yeah. We, we all need to have some grace here.

Verda: And just like with climate change, one of the number one things that you can do is just talk about it with other people. Right? And same, same here.

Amanda: Yeah. I, I would say, talk about it, socialize it, you know, if, if you’re not uncomfortable going to someone, I mean, I’ll use as an example, one of the things that I always did, because I was a rep when I started.

Having kids when I started having these three boys. And the worst day of a working mom’s life is the last day of maternity leave when she has to go back into the office. So I would always buy flowers for that mom that we’re waiting on her desk when she would come back that first day because it’s such a monumental day.

Such an awful day. Such a, a emotionally lain day. And you know, so for any reps listening to this like do that. ’cause that’s a really easy way to kind of connect like ICU with some of your clients. ’cause that’s a, a super hard day. But how do we kind of look for those moments and understand the things that are happening in other people’s lives and, and work things into our culture to make sure that some of those women don’t decide [00:35:00] this is too much and, and leave the workforce and.

I think in addition to talking to it and kind of normalizing some of those actions, I think, you know, you can’t improve what you can’t measure. Of course, coming from the data nerd, uh, on your show here is we have to really kind of keep looking at some of these basic stats and measuring the progress.

Virta, to your point, even if it’s not linear to say we are or are not making progress and celebrate the successes, acknowledge the things that are not working, and the more that we measure those. The more that we measure those, the more that we normalize them, I think that’s when we can start to make progress maybe a little bit faster.

Verda: Yeah, that’s great. And I, and I think talking stats is a great way to start a conversation because you got some, some hard numbers.

Jon: So what do you guys think? Do you think that? We’ve, we’ve made, we’re making progress in this industry. I know Virta, I, you know, I really keep coming back to when you said it’s not linear and I, I really, that’s helping me get my head wrapped around this.

I’m cur like, what do you guys think? I just think the

Verda: progress is very slow. It’s just like from in the last decade it’s improved like 1% or something crazy. And then I’m just really worried about the. Just the, what’s in the air right now, the kind of the environment of how people are talking about corporate America.

I have not heard, I can’t remember the last time I heard the word masculine or aggressive so many times in the media.

Jon: Yeah.

Verda: You know, and these people, these tech. Guys advocating for more, a more aggressive masculine energy in, in the workplace specifically.

Amanda: I would also add, you know, I’ve spent the better part of the last two years really focused on a study around specifically Gen Z in our industry and, you know, to kind of put some, inject some positivity into this conversation too.

I, I don’t think it’s all hopeless. I think, you know, there is a lot. Coming from Gen Z where they are going to demand this. I think, uh, gen Z, you know, there’s a lot more gender fluidity happening in that generation, or at least a lot more awareness and open dialogue around it, which is leading to less gendered roles and less gendered expectations.

And I think that’s gonna be a really positive thing for our industry and our world. You know, one of the interesting things is coming outta the pandemic as we think about Gen Z, it actually moved a lot of Gen Z years more towards the conservative route because some of the more conservative cities actually fared better through the pandemic.

So there was a great article, I can’t remember where I read it, how to Look for the Source that really talked about how, you know, politics is, you know, what’s happened in their short tenure as voters has really shaped them. Because the more liberal cities actually didn’t perform better during the pandemic.

But I do think there’s a lot of hope in Gen Z.

Jon: We’re putting so much pressure on poor Gen Z. It’s like save the planet, save the women, and the inequalities. Come on Gen Z, they’re ready. I love that and I love ending there. We’re gonna speed things up. I love. Progress is not parody. I love that. Progress is not linear.

Another good point. We’re gonna stay optimistic. It’s gonna, we’re gonna keep at it.

Amanda: I love that. If I could close with just one more invitation too. I know we’re talking about women, we’ve kind of danced a little around, um, people of color too, but doing my job to kind of advocate for what I can too. We did have a couple of amazing episodes on my podcast Design Nerds Anonymous, really trying to bring.

People with different experiences and people of color to this stage. So I’d love to include maybe a link to a couple of those that really talk about ethnic diversity in design, um, because I think, you know, I certainly learned a lot from our guests on one episode that I’m thinking of in particular, and I would love to have the opportunity to share that with your listeners as well.

For anyone that wants to dive. Deeper into not just the gendered side of this, but the ethnicity side of this as well.

Verda: All right, listeners, make sure to check out the show notes for this episode. A lot, a lot of ground to cover. Thank you, Amanda. Thanks, Amanda.

Jon: Okay, Virta. She did it. She answered all of our questions. Problem solved. Check the box. Okay, let’s move on to the next big crisis. What do you think?

Verda: I said it was only so simple, John. I think, I think that this conversation is hard because it’s right under our noses and we’re all, you know, half of us are living it and the other half are, you know, we’re trying to figure it all out and it’s, it’s not easy, right?

’cause it’s, it’s. We’ve been socialized to, to. For it not to be part of our awareness for it to just feel like it’s natural, but none of this

Jon: necessarily is right. You know, we talked a little bit about, you know, can, can we see generational improvement [00:40:00] in this? And I think there’s a little bit of disappointment that I.

Our generation hasn’t picked up the load and made the change that we expected we should be able to do. But you know, we all, I think, fall back on tradition and what you’re used to and what you were raised with, and it’s really hard to break free from that. It really is without somebody poking you and, and, you know, giving you that push in the right direction.

We just, we settle into these tracks and we go, right. I.

Verda: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I think, um, it’s insidious, right? This gender, this, the gendering of men and women and, and how it fits in with larger society.

Jon: I mean, I think social constructs of how we interpret skills and strengths, right? My god. I mean, just.

Maybe if we can just continue to talk about it and build awareness and make it more evident. You know, to me that seems, it seems to help me, um, get my head wrapped around it. And

Verda: we talked a little bit about this too, just that my generation, our expectation was that if we worked hard, we would get to equality.

We would have jobs, we might make a few cents less per dollar, but we had every opportunity. That a man had to get into leadership roles in all types of different industries, and that’s just turning out to be absolutely not the case. There are so many barriers and so many different kinds of barriers.

It’s, it’s crazy, right? And so we need to work towards. Solutions for all of that so that we, and bringing this back to climate change, and this is why I got interested in this topic a couple years ago. I, my, my kind of, my research and my reading list has been shifting a little bit more to women’s issues is that, you know, climate change.

It exasperates, scarcity and, and resource scarcity. And we’re in this period of time right now where every country is feeling like there aren’t enough jobs. There’s, yeah. The price of eggs is too high. There’s too many people competing for the jobs that we have. We wanna close our borders. We right. Want women to go back home so they’re not.

And take care of the kids. ’cause we want, we need traditional values and, and they’re taking jobs that maybe somebody else could have. And, and this is directly linked, I feel, to climate change. I think you’re right. I wanna keep that in the back of our minds and, and Yep. For the audience as well. Like, let’s connect these.

’cause I think they’re, yeah, they’re, they’re connected.

Jon: I think it’s gonna be a reoccurring theme. I think we’re gonna, we’re gonna, it’s gonna rear its ugly head more than once, and so I’m glad you brought it up. I’m glad we talked about it today.

Verda: Yeah. I hope, I hope we hear from the audience. Please email us.

Jon: Yeah,

Verda: why don’t we do our credits. John, thanks to Amanda Schneider for joining

Jon: us today.

Verda: We’d love to hear about the issues that you’d like us to address. Be sure to let us know by leaving a positive review Wherever you listen to podcasts,

Jon: break Some Dishes is a surround podcast by Sand Out Design Group.

Verda: Thanks to the team behind the scenes. This episode is produced by Rob Schulte and edited by Rob

Jon: Adler. Thanks to Master and Dynamic. For the official headphones of the surround network, you can hear other

Verda: podcasts like [email protected].