How to Cite: Noguerón Maldonado, Lesly Yanely. "Simple Graphic Scales, Complex Bodies: Exploring the Impact of House Measurements on Gender Roles". Dearq no. 41 (2025): 139-146. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq41.2025.06
How to Cite: Noguerón Maldonado, Lesly Yanely. "Simple Graphic Scales, Complex Bodies: Exploring the Impact of House Measurements on Gender Roles". Dearq no. 41 (2025): 139-146. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq41.2025.06
Lesly Yanely Noguerón Maldonado
Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Spain
Received: December 1, 2023 | Accepted: June 12, 2024
A house is more than just a collection of spaces, objects, and people; it is also shaped by hierarchies, roles, and tensions influenced by the broader context that permeates its boundaries and manifests in human relationships within it. Whether it is a room, an apartment, an anti-refuge, or a domain, these dynamics are ever-present. This research presents a quantitative analysis of the representation of gender roles in anthropometry and ergonomics manuals commonly used in design and architecture. In the manuals by Neufert, Fonseca, and Panero & Zenik, over 90% of service spaces in homes are depicted using graphic scales of women, while recreational and rest spaces predominantly feature men. This study critically examines how these representations reinforce structures of domination and highlights the need for more inclusive design alternatives.
Keywords: Anthropometry, domestic architecture, ergonomics, gender perspective, housing.
Housing and the collective conception of it, both in form and content, "Has its origins in the Victorian family home of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when the family structure and the physical structure that houses it were formalized" (Fonseca Salinas 2014, 84)1. Despite today's diversity in family structures and various models of collective living, the traditional concept of housing—linked to the nuclear family composed of a heterosexual couple with children—continues to be the predominant basis in contemporary market-driven housing design.
A house is also a model of gender construction in architecture: "Domesticity therefore is a construction of the nineteenth century […] the term refers to a whole set of ideas that developed in reaction to the division between work and home" (Heynen 2016).
The "cult of domesticity" described by Connellan (2016)2 as the forced appropriation of domestic space by women, is a dynamic rooted in the social value attributed to the roles of wife and mother. This phenomenon is closely linked to the idea of domestic respectability, an important social marker in which "the presentation of the home, both interior and exterior, was considered a woman's responsibility, although it represented the wealth and status of the man" (Oakley 1974)3.
In the housing design process, architecture and design professionals frequently rely on ergonomics and anthropometry manuals that are outdated and do not reflect new housing models or recent research on the influence of these factors on the health of inhabitants. Dimensions, the way the body must move in space, and even appropriate furniture for each area of the home have been documented in numerous manuals by various authors. "Anthropometry, situated at the intersection of anthropology, social sciences, and biology, emerged with the aim of detecting patterns and identifying bodily characteristics related to crime, race, and pathology" (Pujals 2019).
These manuals establish universal measurements without considering the complexity and diversity of human bodies, including factors such as gender, cultural contexts, physical conditions, and spatial relationships. By imposing standardizations, the designed spaces may exclude those who do not fit into the established patterns and their limitations. The form and dimensions of architectural spaces promote gender roles and favor industrialization, as standardized housing facilitates mass production.
Authors such as Neufert and Panero utilize human body measurements in manuals that are considered "classics" in architectural academia and replicate typologies that follow a "two-dimensional geometric proposal" (Cervantes 2015).
Since the first edition of Architect's data by Neufert in 1936, no alternatives have emerged to challenge the patterns of a house that has not evolved. It was not until 1972 that a group of women artists, led by Judy Chicago, intervened in a house set for demolition in California, filling it with exhibitions, critiques, and performances. This became known as Womanhouse (fig. 1).
Figure 1_ "Sandy Orgel, Linen Closet, Womanhouse, mixed media, 1972. Source: Balducci (2006).
The intervention represented a critique of the domestic space as a technology for the production and domination of women's bodies, as well as marital and sexual institutions as systems of confinement and discipline. Vicki Hodgetts intervened by hanging eggs and breasts from the kitchen walls to denounce that cooking, feeding, and nurturing are activities socially assigned to women, not determined by biology. Sandy Orgel stated, "Mannequin wives spend more time cleaning, drying, folding, and organizing laundry in the washroom than enjoying a fashionable dress behind store windows and on the streets" (Barba 2015).
Books and images play a crucial role in perpetuating ideas, and some "classics" continue to serve as key references in academic circles. This research focuses on reviewing three of these books, particularly the housing sections, to perform a quantitative analysis of how human scales and gender roles are represented in them.
This research employs a bibliographic review to analyze the percentage of graphic representations of human scales performing service tasks or being served, considering whether the graphics reference specific gender roles. Although it is common to associate bodies with a particular gender at first glance, the traits considered typically masculine or feminine have changed significantly over time. Historian Thomas Laqueur (1990) argues that modern understandings of sex and human sexuality were established in 18th-century Europe during the Enlightenment, when religion took a dominant role in discussions about sex and gender differences. Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000)4 further notes that "biological sex can be interpreted as a spectrum, with most grouping as female or male, but there is a range of intermediate possibilities." Judith Butler (2007) agrees, adding that gender fluidity can vary over time depending on circumstances and can occupy different points on the spectrum at different life stages. While these theories have gained prominence and relevance in contemporary discourse, this research will begin with the premise that genders have historically been divided into two major groups: men and women, with women subjugated to serve men, as noted by Montaner and Muxí (2020):
Androcentrism is based on two worldviews that have not yielded positive results: anthropocentrism, which considers humans, an animal species, at the top of the species pyramid, and androcentrism, which makes men the measure of all things concerning their species, meaning that half of the species sees their counterpart as dependent, existing to serve them.
To classify the scales, two groups were defined based on the following characteristics:
It is important to note that the initial chapters of the books specify which scales correspond to men and which to women, and thus the characteristics mentioned were defined by the authors themselves.
The books analyzed were the following:
Given the frequency of re-editions over time and their ongoing relevance, these three manuals were chosen for analysis and compared with other available texts (fig. 2).
Figure 2_ Evaluation of reprints of anthropometric manuals over time. Source: the author.
The analysis was limited solely to spaces related to housing and the search for graphic scale representations in these sections corresponding to:
The percentages were obtained by counting the total number of scales represented in each section and determining how many of them are associated with women or with men.
It is noteworthy that in "served" spaces, cleaning and service tasks are carried out by scales representing women (fig. 3 and fig. 4).
Figure 3_ Sketch of "Woman cleaning a bathtub" based on an original illustration from the book Architect´s Data (Neufert 1995). Source: the author.
Figure 4_ Sketch of a woman serving a dish based on an original illustration from the book Las medidas de una casa (Fonseca Xavier. 1991). Source: the author.
Figure 5_ Expression of results in Fonseca, Neufert, Panero and Zelnik. Source: the author.
Figure 6_ Global results. Source: the author.
The kitchen and its related tasks—storing, preparing, cooking, and cleaning—account for the highest percentage of graphical scale representations of women performing these tasks. "Although kitchens are associated with home ideals, warmth, gatherings, and family, they are also the space of labor and female subjugation" (Villarreal-Pimienta and Ríos-Llamas 2020). On the other hand, there is a higher percentage of representations of men being served, resting, or engaging in recreational activities in the bedroom, living room, bathroom, and TV room.
Although not included in the list of housing activities, figure 7 highlights an image showing the view from a green roof to another building, where the importance of increasing the feeling of well-being in these spaces is noted, with the possibility, for example, of spying on women while they sunbathe naked.
Figure 7_ Sketch of "Physical-psychic value of green surfaces" based on an original illustration from the book Architect´s Data (Neufert 1995). Source: the author.
There is a notable difference between spaces such as the laundry room and the kitchen, which are represented by women in more than 98% of the cases, in contrast to the dining room, living room, and TV room, which are occupied by men in more than 98% of cases. Despite referring to a nuclear family home, the following image (fig. 8) shows a group of men gathered in front of the television, making other family members invisible in recreational activities.
Figure 8_ Sketch of a group of men in front of the television set based on an original illustration from the book Las medidas de una casa (Fonseca Xavier. 1991). Source: the author.
In the Panero and Zelnik manual, graphic scales depict not only women and men but also children and people with disabilities. Although gender roles are evident in spaces such as the kitchen, compared to the other two manuals analyzed, this one stands out for presenting more balanced percentages.
The graphic representation of spaces in a house and the graphic scales in anthropometric manuals reveal the gender roles assigned to domestic activities. The dynamics of private spaces impact the public lives of their inhabitants, extending the control over bodies to the cities where women receive orders and constraints on their movements. Questioning the domestic sphere implies imagining new worlds, new bodies, and new ways of inhabiting spaces.
Our societies, still androcentric, and with them, academia and, by extension, the way housing is proposed and constructed, have prioritized and simplified the relationships between people and their habitat. Housing models tend to, for example, schematize the activities undertaken inside, undervalue life cycles, overlook temporal circumstances, erase spaces that accompany domestic labor, and even disregard personal aspirations and contingencies, etc. (Fonseca Salinas 2014, 84).
Designing the habitat without a gender perspective is outdated. Families have reconfigured, and with them, the stipulations of domestic activities and responsibilities that were once subjugated to the members of the family.
Those involved in architecture and design must question prototypes in order to create non-standardized devices that address the sociocultural reality and the current times. From different perspectives, even adding gender as a specificity can be questioned. Judith Butler (1990) argues that "gender is not a noun, but neither is it a set of floating attributes; it is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an external space through a stylized repetition of acts."
Are we witnessing the decline of the cult of the domestic? How can we propose alternatives that acknowledge the complexity of bodies? Can the body naturally and genuinely inhabit spaces? While Neufert's intention was to establish order and structure, it is worth considering whether it is within chaos that art is truly found in design. As he clarifies in the consultation instructions of his own manual: "On this basis, the designer can develop their work according to the specific requirements of the task and in accordance with the spirit of their time [...]. If the reader misses any important information for the design, please communicate it to me so that I can take it into account in future editions" (Neufert 1936). It may be fitting to submit the observations described in this research in anticipation of the 17th edition.
It is clear that a quantitative analysis alone is insufficient to fully explore this topic. Therefore this research was further developed as part of a Master's thesis titled "ManuAll: Creation and Compilation of an Anthropometric and Ergonomic Manual for Design" (Nogueron Maldonado 2023), which also incorporates qualitative aspects.
* This work arose from a project carried out in the Scope and Methods of Theoretical and Critical Research in HCCSS on Design class under the supervision of Professor Sandra Bombillar Valladares, associate professor ETSAB of the Master's Degree in Advanced Studies in Design, whom I thank for her valuable guidance and contributions to this article.
1 Unless otherwise specified, all citations in this article have been translated from Spanish to English by the article's translator. Citations marked '(original English)' indicate texts originally written in English.
2 Kathleen Connellan, The Wiley - Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies (original English).
3 Ann Oakley, Housewife (original English).
4 Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality (original English).