Title: Queering all aboard: challenging the maleness of the leisure boat industry

Authors: Magdalena Petersson McIntyre

Addresses: Centre for Consumer Science, University of Gothenburg, Box 606, 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden

Abstract: The concept boat All Aboard was designed to meet women's expectations of leisure boats. A constellation of firms worked together to find solutions that could lead to business opportunities by challenging the implicit male norms of the leisure boat industry. This article examines the cultural notions of gender and equality that mattered in the process and explores the relationship between bodies, technologies, design, and gender using qualitative ethnographic methods. Based on queer theory, this article argues that ideas of the female body and the female relationship with boats played a significant role in this innovation process. Although invisible (and male) norms masked by so-called neutral designs and technologies were challenged, new norms of what women are like and what it means to be a woman were simultaneously created.

Keywords: norm-critical design; gender equality; innovation; female bodies; somatechnics; queer theory; leisure boats; boating industry; queer studies; small firms; small businesses; business opportunities; male norms; invisible norms; ethnography; ethnographic methodologies; neutral designs; neutral technologies; queering of objects.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2015.066161

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2015 Vol.24 No.1, pp.4 - 22

Published online: 03 Dec 2014 *

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