The Final Smash: Women, Design, and the Future We Want

The Final Smash: Women, Design, and the Future We Want

From Once Upon a Planet by Jon Strassner

November 19, 2025 · 33 min · Season 6 · Episode 10

About this episode

The episode explores the challenges women face in design and leadership, revisiting key conversations about equity and gender dynamics.

For the season finale of  Break Some Dishes , Jon and Verda wrap up a challenging but rewarding season about women; women in design, in leadership, and in the climate movement. Why do women still hold far fewer leadership positions, even as they are earning more college degrees than men? What happens when we define the world through the rigid binaries of masculine versus feminine, and does that framing ultimately limit everyone? In this episode, Jon and Verda revisit some of the season’s most thought-provoking conversations to examine what true equity could look like in design and beyond. Referenced Work: Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women are not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex  by Carol Tavris And for the last time, the book Jon and Verda have mentioned in almost every episode:   Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men  by Caroline Criado Perez See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

People in this episode

Host: Jon Strassner

Guest: Verda

Topics covered

  • women in design
  • leadership
  • climate movement
  • gender equity
  • binary framing
  • education

Keywords

  • women
  • design
  • leadership
  • equity
  • gender
  • climate
  • education
  • bias
  • society

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Mismeasure of Woman: Why Women are not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

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