That image is from Beyonce’s “Flawless”. And that quote is from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book “We Should All be Feminists”.
What’s the deal with this so-called book that Beyonce includes passages from it in her single?
OK, then sample this: Sweden gifted all their 16 year olds a copy of this book.
So, really, what’s the big deal?
Morgan Shoaff says on Upworthy: “In the book, Adichie explores the complexity of feminism, what it’s like being a woman in today’s world, and why we must think about the ways we treat each other in order to live in a fully productive society.
“You won’t find any preachy, “blah, blah, blah” moments in the book. It’s personal, easy to digest from all backgrounds, and a sensible call to action. And it’s short! With only 52 pages, it goes by fast, but its words are quick to strike a cord with many.” (http://u.pw/1Xo6A1z)
What’s happening here? Why would a country have all it’s sophomores read a specific book? Not in the curriculum, not a text book, just a random book?
Age 16 is more or less a formative year. Mentally. Emotionally. Teenagers are starting to form opinions around what they’ve observed from before birth. They’re going to start making their own notes, build perceptions of the world around them; perceptions of what’s right and wrong; perceptions of how class plays out in society; perceptions of how gender plays out in the world around them.
Clara Berglund, chair of the Swedish advocacy group Women’s Lobby, said “this is the book that I wish all of my male classmates would have read when I was 16.” Adichie’s book, she said, will be “a gift to ourselves and future generations.”
Do you hear strains of nation building there? A gift to future generations?
There’s a reason why Sweden is considered the best place for women to be. And it’s not so much about the laws and the enforcements. It’s about how they take nation building seriously. How they use design thinking principles to prepare their future generations to be better citizens; indeed better humans.
Design thinking to prepare future generations to be better citizens? So, for nation building?
What is Design Thinking?
In its simplest form, design thinking is a process—applicable to all walks of life—of creating new and innovative ideas and solving problems.
Note the emphasis. Problem solving. Design thinking, at its core, is a problem solving process. A simple process that helps solve the most complex of problems.
“Say you want to change behaviour. Like getting people, a lot of people, to use less energy in their homes. How would you go about it? Design thinking is a powerful tool to tackle the unknown. It’s a means of going on an expedition without a map.”, paraphrased from video on http://www.whatisdesignthinking.org
So design thinking is a powerful tool for tackling complex challenges. And nation building is as complex a challenge as it gets.
Let’s try and break down what Sweden (or the Swedish Women’s Lobby, together with publishing company Albert Bonniers Förlag and the UN Association of Sweden) did.
It’s as though the nation of Sweden was saying, we want an equal world. We would like Sweden to be a country where ‘men and women are happier, where they’re not constrained by gender roles’, ‘where men and women are truly equal’.
To quote Morgan Shoaff, the book explores ‘what it’s like being a woman in today’s world, and why we must think about the ways we treat each other in order to live in a fully productive society.’
Easy to see the synergies between Sweden’s ambitions to build a truly equal nation, and what Adichie has to say.
How is this a design thinking exercise (conscious or otherwise)? Let’s make the connect.
Between Sweden’s nation building vision, and the 5 key elements of design thinking: Understand, Observe, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.
UNDERSTAND:
The first phase of the design thinking process, Understand is the learning stage of the problem solving process. It involves research, talking to experts, develop background knowledge through experiences. This is the spring board to start addressing core challenges.
In Sweden’s context, the process starts with an understanding of where their men and women are at currently, from the point of view of how they look at each others’ roles. What are the positives, and what needs to improve.
OBSERVE:
Observe is the phase where you watch how people behave and interact, you observe physical spaces and places.
Being an already fairly gender-equal country, Sweden needs to work more at a cellular level, in forming young minds, rather than make specific legislations. How do you get people to start thinking equally, to start thinking not in terms of mean and women, but in terms of humans?
Put together, the Understand and Observe phases help to build empathy. Which is what Sweden perhaps did?
DEFINE:
This is the phase where you start asking the “How might we…” questions.
How might we shape young people’s minds, such that they become better, more equal citizens in Sweden?
IDEATE:
Here, you explore a whole bunch of ideas. The key is to suspend judgment. No idea is too far-fetched, so no idea is rejected. You’re encouraged to become silly, wishful, dreamy, practical, anything that you like, so long as you have some ideas as to how this challenge can be addressed.
Can it be that a small, 52 page book moulds how people of the future think? The book is not a preachy, jargon-dropping thesis on feminism, but a simple, easy to relate-to, passionate feeling, rooted in the reality of our everyday lives.
Social experiment at it’s very best!
PROTOTYPE & TEST:
Consider that Sweden’s been conducting social experiments in gender equality for years already. Over half a century. They’ve been testing and prototyping the concept of using various tools and approaches to ingrain a gender-equal society. Including regulations, legislations and policies.
Several pre-schools in Sweden, for example, avoid the use of gendered terms when speaking or teaching. Their libraries are “carefully calibrated to contain the same number of books with female protagonists as those with male ones. Boys and girls alike twirl silken scarves during dance class, and they have equal access to pirate and princess costumes…” (http://bit.ly/1X5YWbC)
Lotta Rajalin, Director of a pre-school in Stockholm says “it is all about giving children a wider choice, and not limiting them to social expectations based on gender.” How do they achieve this? “Most of the usual toys and games that you would find in any nursery are there – dolls, tractors, sand pits, and so on – but they are placed deliberately side-by-side to encourage a child to play with whatever he or she chooses.” (http://bbc.in/1n0UI6V)
“How gender equality was conceived in Sweden
During the sixties, it was assumed that men and women were both expected to fulfil their obligations equally as parents and workers.
The aim was not only to liberate women from the world of home and family and to allow them to participate more fully in the world of markets and politics, it was also to free men to play their role of fathers more fully.”
Excerpted from “Work and gender equality: the Swedish experiment” by Anne-Marie DAUNE-RICHARD of the CNRS, Laboratoire d’Economie et de Sociologie du Travail, Aix en Provence
And therefore, Sweden made conscious changes to policy, whether it was implementing the “gender equality contract” or changing income tax regulations to be inclusive to women, or extending the terms of full time working people to those on part time owing to child care.
Doctors’ behaviors, is another example… “It was intriguing that there was no real interest from the doctors in what sex the baby would be (we already knew from an ultrasound in the US). When our daughter was born the doctors paid no attention at all what gender was. I asked a few minutes after she was born just to make sure the ultrasound was correct. Also, my wife and I have noticed that baby clothes here are much more gender neutral. You would be hard pressed to dress your baby girl in all pink, something that seems to be very easy in America.”, Jeff Coulter who moved to Sweden with his wife when she was 7 months pregnant says. (http://bit.ly/1X5YWbC)
Many are critical of this gender-agnostic approach, but the alternative (our world divided and riled by violating gender politics) is not an alternative.
So Sweden has prototyped and tested the idea of using lateral methods to imbue their society with gender equality.
The proposal to gift Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book “We Should All Be Feminists” to all 16 year olds was, therefore, a natural. An idea that was prototyped and tested for decades in multifarious forms.
To conclude, I quote Morgan Shoaff again, for how succinctly she sums up this design thinking social experiment: “It’s not your typical high school reading, but perhaps it should be. The gesture could greatly benefit Sweden’s future — its health, economy, happiness, the whole shebang (yeah, she-bang seems about right). That’s exactly why they’re doing it.”
The power of design thinking. Extends to beyond design. Beyond process design. Beyond business process transformation. The power of design thinking extends to beyond solving complex business problems. Design thinking is a tool that’s so powerful, it can be used for changing behaviours of an entire people. Thank you, Sweden, for showing us how.
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