Chairs as instruments in the construction of social roles and human bodies

Abstract
This study examines the chair as an everyday object that operates beyond its apparent functional neutrality. The research problem arises from the widespread assumption that furniture, particularly seating, serves purely practical purposes without social or political implications. The aim of the study is to critically analyze how chair design shapes embodied experience and reinforces or challenges gendered power structures. The objectives are: (1) to investigate the historical relationship between seating and authority; (2) to examine how scale, material, and form regulate posture and spatial occupation; and (3) to explore contemporary design interventions that question gender norms. The research addresses the following questions: How does chair design influence bodily behavior? In what ways does seating reproduce or resist social hierarchies? The hypothesis proposes that chairs function as subtle disciplinary instruments that organize posture, visibility and authority according to socially constructed gender expectations.
The study adopts a qualitative research approach based on visual, formal, and contextual analysis. The methodological framework in interpretive analysis informed by feminist theory (Butler, 1990) and theory of social performance (Goffman, 1979) through which chairs are examined as tools that regulate bodily behavior. The population consists of historically significant and contemporary chair designs, while the sample includes Laila Laurel's “A Solution For Manspeading” 2019, Anna Aagaard Jensen, ‘Boss Lady Chair’, 2018 from the “A Basic Instinct” series, the “Mae West Lips Sofa” by Salvador Dali and Edward James and the NAGABABA armchair by Mariusz Warsinski 2012, all representing both conservative and subversive ideological positions. Each case study is analyzed through its formal properties (scale, material and structure) and its effects on posture, performance and control.
Findings indicate that chairs distribute comfort and spatial dominance unevenly, often naturalizing gendered expectations of modesty and authority. However, contemporary critical design practices demonstrate the potential of seating to expose and challenge these norms. The study concludes that the chair should be understood not as passive furniture but as active in the construction of social meaning capable of both reinforcing and transforming embedded power structures.

Keywords: embodiment, spatial configuration, critical design, material agency, participatory practice