In her book “Patriarchy of Things” published in 2021, Rebekka Endler traces the androcentric design that dominates the material world we live in, providing a comprehensive overview of how the world around us is built for cis men.
Why do women have to wait longer in the toilet line? Why do men use electrical appliances more easily? Why do the majority of computer games appeal to men’s interests and whims? Could it be that patriarchy itself is the designer that shapes our material world and all our belongings?
In her book “The Patriarchy of Things” published in 2021, Rebekka Endler traces androcentric design that dominates the material world we live in. She holds a magnifying glass to many areas including the configuration of public space, medical diagnosis and treatment, technological development, and the formation of culture.
“The fight against patriarchy must also be an anticapitalist fight”
She shows that not only everyday items such as office furniture or jeans, but also the architecture, infrastructure and transportation that make up the public sphere, even the diagnosis and treatment methods applied in Western medicine are designed around the need of cis men.
In her book Ender, frequently emphasizes the relationship between capitalism and patriarchy. She explains why these two systems form the framework as follows:
“Patriarchy evolved before capitalism and in certain ways, capitalism is one of the results of patriarchal power. In a nutshell, the transfer of accumulated wealth to sons, as well as husbands holding all the economical power in a marriage, all in all, the uneven distribution of economical power, are two factors necessary for capitalism to succeed. To this day the two systems are interconnected and depend on each other. So looking into the future, the fight against patriarchy must also be an anticapitalist fight, as well as a fight for ecojustice and preservation of our planet.”
“A feminist guidebook”
“Patriarchy of Things” looks at the built environment we take for granted from a feminist perspective – and invites us to a new awareness of the male-dominance embedded in things.
In her review of the book in Manifold, Arter Communication Director İlkay Baliç says that the book should be seen as a feminist guidebook:
“Patriarchy of Things is a feminist guidebook that brings together striking historical and contemporary data on how an entire life is designed by men, for men. The author, Rebekka Endler, is an independent journalist and writer based in Cologne. In her book, she traces patriarchal thinking, implicit and explicit sexist prejudices in various aspects of life, from fashion to landscape design, technology to the workplace, sex toys to hospitals. She deepens her research with examples from everyday life and popular culture, and grounds it in the history and present reality of capitalism.”