Gender and Sexuality Studies

Biography

Dr Judith Glover is an award-winning design researcher, educator and Industrial Design practitioner at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Her PHD thesis “Taboo to Mainstream” (2013) on the sex toy industry explored the technical capabilities that Industrial Design process and methods could offer in improving manufacturing and design quality for the sex toy industry. It also explored how gender and sexuality notions are embedded within mass production to explain the lack of suitability of products for contemporary women and how Industrial Design process and methods are an important part of changing industry standards. She is currently exploring the possibilities for new design research, service and product innovation under the umbrella of Design and Sexual Health Innovation (DaSHI). This involves cross collaborative research between Design, Engineering and Health fields. In 2019 she was a finalist in the inaugural Good Design ‘Women in Design’ awards, recognised for her contribution to developing a new field of design in a taboo area. In 2024 her research team won an Australian Good Design award for ‘Cliterate’, an interactive sexual health model of the vulva, clitoris and pelvis. Her favourite t-shirt says, “I’ll be a post-feminist in a post patriarchy” and she considers herself to be a Feminist Designer. Having lived over half a century, she has been the beneficiary of so many activists who came before, who fought for gender and sexual rights in harder times. Feminism for her is about equality of access and opportunity, don’t give ground and being able to live an authentic life- whatever gender or sexuality you want to be.