Play and Gender Expression: A Critical Design Exhibition to Generate and Measure Awareness About Gender Differences Within the Context of Children and Toys

The paper focuses on the exhibition, ‘Play and Gender Expression’, which showcases Critical Design artifacts to generate awareness regarding gender differences within children’s play experience through the objects of play, such as toys. It covers the methodology behind recording participants’ responses in physical space and digital mediums like a website and proposes a comprehensive analysis to measure the change in perception and knowledge. The exhibition addresses the problem of gender stereotypes and how they limit children’s early play experiences and may impact their skills and abilities. Several sociocultural factors, such as education, economy, politics, religion, rights, social duties, sexual expressions, and cultural belief systems, are touched through diverse mediums, from physical and digital products to t-shirts and photographs, to encourage open discussions. Additionally, it asks the participants to summarize their experiences by recording their responses in a closed voting system. The exhibition attempted to break the limitation of visual interactions in design speculation and critical approaches by effectively implementing perceptual understanding of the participants and translating into tacit knowledge. It was directed towards the public in a Portuguese academic setting in a physical space for a limited time. Further, a website is designed to extend the reach towards more participants by adopting physical data collection techniques. It aims to add a new dimension to the traditional qualitative approaches using digital interactions within the diverse mediums of exhibitions. The paper demonstrates the research and insights regarding gender-inclusive awareness by comparing human interactions in physical and digital platforms.