Design cities with women in mind

Sinks that are too low, seats that don't give you enough legroom are bugbears of mine as a 5' 10" woman.

'A few taller people may need to bend their knees more...' well thanks for that! So inclusive!

Perspex stairs with gaps between them are a bugbear of mine as it means women wearing skirts or dresses might not feel comfortable using them. I can remember us having to run up stairs with gaps at school because the boys would be trying to look up our dresses from below.

I'm only 5ft tall so buy petite clothes. I'm sick of needing to stretch my arms just to try to find out the size of petite ranges never mind being able to actually get the item off the hook. Often clothes are all at the uniform height that even some quite tall people struggle with.

Credit to a manager in my local (former) BHS who started to lowrt the rails on the wall immediately after I had to ask one of the assistants to get something down for me and pointed out this basic design flaw. (There was a series of slats on the wall and hooks got slotted in.) other shops have lost my custom as I couldn't be bothered to look or couldn't find anyone to help me reach something.

And at the same time, there's a thread running that says that 85% of purchasing is done by women - so why aren't 85% of shops etc designed around them?

It would be good to see city design proposals from both male and female perspectives and see then which ideas could be combined.

noblegiraffe It's always disappointing when I go somewhere theoretically aimed at young children, and they haven't even been arsed to chuck a £3 step stool into the bogs so that kids can wash their hands without standing on the sink. I just think "even if the architects couldn't be fecked to think about who they were designing for, you could still have figured out something...". Obviously a step stool wouldn't help someone in a wheelchair but at least some more people would be able to use the sinks.

Cars aren't as bad as they used to be, at least, more adjustable.

I find most mobile phones too big for my hands.

Noble

Same at some motorway service. But then, no soap was put next to the lower basin!

Not just children - anyone in a wheelchair as well.

And yes - there are a huge number of biological and social reasons why women need to go to the toilet more often, and take longer in the cubicle. When all of these are combined, it means that women actually require almost twice as many toilets, just for them to have equal access. So many people think that equality means being the same, rather than providing equal access.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11534042

Also, the trouble with female urinals is that women still need to take down knickers and tights/trousers. Which is why women will always take longer in the loo and should have more loos!

Scary, not sure if you are male?

According to google, average height of woman in U.K. Is 5ft 3 and man is 5 ft 9, so think a large swathe of the population would struggle with higher sinks (not to mention that children use them to wash hands for tea etc)

I'm 6'0 andSinks should be designed for taller people..my back hurts doing dishes. i also love it when toilets are higher.

I am always amazed though that there hasnt been a design for 'urinal cubilcles' for women though with perhaps a saddle type affair that could allow them to be smaller, thinner and used quickly...

Not a town centre but climbing Snowdon was ruined for me because so much of it was reinforced steps (they put in to stop popular paths eroding), which were a little too big to be comfortable. Have noticed this in various popular outdoorsy spots.

I wonder who is involved in designing and planning towns? If people who had more experience of 'using towns, shops and the urban environment' with buggies, wheelchairs and with conditions that make things more difficult, were more involved - would things be different?

People who have direct experience of using 'systems' and are aware of the issues should be more involved at planning and policy level. (Yes, Government Ministers, that goes for you with the NHS, education and social work etc). Otherwise you fail to truly appreciate the issues.

Ooh I liked that article, thank you giraffe

For me, these sorts of design questions are good for jolting me out of my own lazy assumptions too. I bet pushing a buggy around in a few months time (god willing) will open my eyes to how crap cities also are for people with mobility needs!

While i think the idea is on the right track, i do think it should be "no footballs" day, rather than making it a gender issue. There must be girls who like football, and boys who dislike it and would appreciate the space to get away from it

This. Otherwise it reinforces the notion that girls do one thing and boys do another.

What if the girls wanted to play football on the sports pitch on the girls only day?

A friends child's school has a "girls only" day for access to the sports field at breaks.

Specifically introduced so it wasn't taken up every break with footballs in every direction.

While i think the idea is on the right track, i do think it should be "no footballs" day, rather than making it a gender issue. There must be girls who like football, and boys who dislike it and would appreciate the space to get away from it.

Cars are always too big for me and very few phones are easy for me to operate, being too big. And I am 5ft6

Although space constraints can be a real problem, it doesn't mean that it all goes out the window. Things like the height of seats/handholds in public can be varied.

Accessibility for wheelchairs is hard, because they require quite a bit more space than a single human being, BUT we're talking public spaces, where lots of people are.

e.g near my parents there's a new health center, car park and shops being built, including a physio. It's intended to be used by families, elderly and sick people of the area. They have put in the minimum number of disabled parking spaces. In fact, there could be 8 people needing a disabled parking space at the same time and the doctors could cater for that, but there are only 4 parking spaces for them. So - person with a blue badge drives to their doctor's appt. and then cannot park.

All goes out the window when space is a premium - I agree on my commute I can't reach the handrails but when I sit I'm not crammed in. I think not being able to reach the handrails is silly though I'm 5.3 fgs it's hardly unusually small and it's a bit more dangerous.

Ditto the crash test dummy thing.

It's a mix probably of default man + minimising costs.