I don’t know how else to answer this, besides: the gendering of design as women’s work is why people don’t use the title “web designer” anymore. It’s been belittled and othered away. It’s why we’ve split that web design role into two; now you’re either a UX designer and you can sit at that table over there or you’re a front-end developer and you can sit at the table with the people that build websites.
What a great post by Heather Buchel: It’s 2023, here is why your web design sucks. She’s hitting on a really fundamental issue with how the worlds of web design and development have progressed. Huge gaps have emerged as the role of “web designer” has splintered into “UX/product designers” and “front-end developers”.
I describe web designers (or frontend designers, or front-of-the-front-end developers) as “mortar people” who ooze between the gaps in the design/development process. Based on a ton of first-hand experience, this role is desperately needed, but as Heather points out, it’s difficult to hire for because it doesn’t fit neatly into the stratified roles that have evolved over the last ~10-15 years.