#TangoTogether
A contextually inclusive medical system: redesign
Confronting gender-based bias by empowering our collective voice through awareness campaigns, policy redesign, and legal action to hold men equally accountable for family planning.
Client
A panel of representatives from the United Nations and Google
Timeline
4 weeks
Project type
Creative Direction, Strategy, Visual Design
My Role
Creative Director
Core Team
Allison Bouganim, Pratistha Sharma, Rose Bosteels, Felix Fricke
Empowering women and girls by involving men in the conversation (?)
The FDA calculates the possible health consequences for women taking the pill, against the possible health consequences of not taking the pill, which is pregnancy. The bar for men is higher because men don’t personally run the risk of pregnancy, so, any side effects would be more harmful to them than just not taking anything at all.
PROBLEM STATEMENT:
There is an oddly myopic view regarding women as solely responsible for family planning while also removing the responsibility of men from the conversation.
OPPORTUNITY:
Male contraceptives are incredibly limited by lacking demand and scientific research. Simultaneously, 3 million pregnancies in the USA, every year, are unintended. That’s 6 million individuals affected by the lack of family planning, and it’s not just a ‘women's issue.
How might we:
Include men into the conversation of family planning, by creating equal spaces, for both men and women to take responsibility.
DELIVERY:
North Star vision, roadmap, campaign.
UN Sustainable Development Goals - 5 Gender Equality
When girls and women do not have access to sexual and reproductive health care, gender inequality is perpetuated.
“Without access [to contraceptives], women lack the power to make decisions about their own bodies, including whether or when to become pregnant.” “The lack of this power — which influences so many other facets of life, from education to income to safety — leaves women unable to shape their own futures.”
Design Process
Through primary research, we identified that to create meaningful interventions and systems change, we need to include policymakers, regulators, doctors, and people on the front line.
We needed to find stakeholders that have the power, and can take responsibility, to make a change in the USA (and beyond).
Strongest point to Intervene
Federal agency in the USA responsible for approving or rejecting food and medication and it is appointed by the President.
The FDA is responsible for testing new medications and determining whether or not they make it to market.
They influence the medical community globally.
The Calculated Risk in Health Care
The FDA calculates the possible health consequences of taking the pill against the possible health consequences of not taking the pill, which is pregnancy.
The bar for men is higher because men don’t personally run the risk of pregnancy, so, any side effects would be more harmful to them than just not taking anything at all.
Misconceptions & Mental Models
This is not just an issue about contraceptives. There are underlying misconceptions and mental models deeply rooted in misogyny, the patriarchy, and power dynamics with the way we police both men and women's bodies.
Throughout our research, we identified masculinity-threatening misconceptions that acted as barriers for men to consider a shift in contraceptive responsibility and family planning.
Some of those misconceptions include; becoming 'more feminine', hair loss, fertility loss, breast growth, and sterilization.
These misconceptions are entirely false, and there needs to be a shift in the conversation and broader education for anything to change.
We recommend a shift from individually focused care towards ⇨ holistic and contextually inclusive care.
How can we improve the health of people if we don’t take into consideration a complete picture?
How do we create a complete system which gives continuous care beyond just concentrating on physical health?
How can we get the answers, if we don’t ask the right question, to people who are being affected?
Medical Inspiration
As previously mentioned, the risk calculation made by the FDA concludes that contraceptives are necessary for women because, despite the numerous adverse side effects, those risks are still better than inaction [pregnancy]. However, since men are unable to get pregnant, the use of pharmaceutical contraceptives has no direct benefits for them, deeming the risk of use to outweigh the benefit. This logic is oddly myopic and flawed.
For example, a healthy person can walk into a hospital and voluntarily donate an organ to someone in need. Any competent doctor would allow them to do so. That is because doctors recognize that despite no value given to the organ donor, there is a significant value gained by a collective.
Precedent
In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Reed v. Reed, extending the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect women from sex discrimination, in situations where there is no rational basis for the discrimination.
Constitution
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security."
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Due to the interconnectedness of complex problems, this intervention touches upon not one, but five of the SDGs.
Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being
Goal 4: Quality Education
Goal 5: Gender Equality
Goal 10: Reduce Inequalities
Goal 17: Partnerships for the Goals
Awareness campaign for #TangoTogether
Project Pitch and Q&A session