The Author’s Voice: MAN-MADE with Karen Korellis Reuther (BOS)

Join us for a conversation with Author and Designer Karen Korellis Reuther on dismantling gender bias in design.

The Author’s Voice brings leading authors, thinkers, and innovators in design to discuss their latest publications, creative philosophies, and the impact of design on the modern world.

The inaugural event in this new series features industrial designer and activist Karen Korellis Reuther, who will discuss her new book, MAN-MADE: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right. Drawing on over four decades of design experience—including her former role as Global Creative Director at Nike—Reuther reveals how everyday products, environments, and systems are built around male specifications, and shares actionable insights on how inclusive design can reshape our future.

Don’t miss this inspiring conversation with Karen Korellis Reuther. MAN-MADE will be available for purchase, and signing with the author on the evening of the event.

Registration is FREE, with priority registration for CoDeCo Members and Partners. Space is limited, and early registration is encouraged.

About Karen Korellis Reuther:
Karen Korellis Reuther has been a designer for over forty years and today is a practicing activist committed to inclusion by design and ending gender bias in the built world. She on the faculty at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, where she teaches in the Master in Design Engineering program. She was the Vice President of Creative Direction and Innovation at Reebok and served as the Global Creative Director at Nike for twelve years. A popular guest lecturer and public speaker at Harvard and across the world, Reuther also founded the Inclusion by Design event series, hosted by the Harvard Grid, which brings together students, faculty, and practitioners who share her commitment to designing a world that is safe, hospitable, and inclusive for women. She is a chairperson for the iF Design Awards and on the advisory board of the iF Design Academy. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

About MAN-MADE: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right:
Women and men inhabit the same world, yet it does not suit them both equally. Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a car crash than men. In the military, women suffer pelvic fractures at a much higher rate than their male counterparts. In construction, 90% of women are unable to find proper fitting safety gear.

These outcomes are not a coincidence—they are a result of products where the female population is an afterthought at best. Automobile crash test dummies used for safety tests are designed based on male anatomy, as is firefighting gear and personal protective equipment. Using a “shrink it and pink it” strategy, sneakers for women are scaled down versions originally designed for a man’s foot, and colored a stereotypical feminine color – like pink. In the design of products and places, the female body is often invisible and ignored. The result is a world less hospitable and more dangerous for women.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A designer for over 40 years at some of the world’s top corporations, including Reebok and Nike, Karen Korellis Reuther has witnessed the way women continue to be excluded from critical product design decisions. But Man-Made, isn’t a patriarchal lament; it is a rousing call to action drawn from research-backed insights, market analyses, and expertise from leading designers, executives, and economists.

From the simply insulting and uncomfortable to the dangerous and deadly, the effects of exclusively man-made designs are wide-ranging. Rethinking and expanding product design and architecture, Reuther contends, will not only create a world that better fits women, but a world that better fits everyone.