When dealing with gender relations, one finds that the plethora of institutions and projects that focus on this topic is astonishing. Even divorced from stereotypic images, their research and findings point in the same direction. The gender diversity of people working together, which has found its way into the German language in the form of the English word 'diversity', raises the level of acceptance of difference, increases people's creativity and performance and consequently that of their organisations and companies. One could assume that, in an economy built for efficiency and optimisation, these effects would be taken advantage of with pleasure. Certain major companies have already started to do so.
In particular, transformation projects towards more equality, climate protection and sustainability could profit from this. In practice, however, we notice only a few exceptions despite all of the insights achieved so far. Gender relations are chiselled in stone in many places; inequality and unfairness are hardly developing in a positive direction; and structures and stereotypes persist. The key topic of ensuring the fair division of care of children, the sick or the elderly between the genders continues to be unsolved politically and practically, even though sustainable development would require a major leap forward in this domain.
To steer attention towards the possibilities for achieving greater sustainability through greater gender justice, factory has collected a number of findings, phenomena and positions in this magazine: from an introductory interview on gender and sustainability to articles on toothpaste for princesses and resource-light consumption, down to a photo report on cotton producers in India; and from standpoints regarding careerists and changes of perspective to reports on women’s economies and female pioneers down to demanding more life through less work. In order to prevent this volume from getting lost amongst the countless publications on this topic, we have chosen a special title for this issue: S/he. The magazine can be downloaded for free.