AIBU to feel f****d off with a world built for men?

[DarjeelingDarllng]

I read** this article with increasing horror.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Many parts I recognise; the phone for example, I have a better camera but the phone is larger so harder to actually use.

I struggle to sit on most chairs easily as my feet don't touch the floor; this has caused some back issues.

I've known that most medical research has always been done on white men aged around 25.

The 'gender neutral' toilet thing is just obvious.

This quote, below, pissed me off the most, not least that there was once an AIBU where a pregnant woman was querying at what point did everyone stop driving as she was really struggling. 70% of people (roughly) said, just get on with it. The rest agreed it was challenging.

I very sadly know of a woman who was involved in a minor crash a week before her due date; the baby died.

The situation is even worse for pregnant women. Although a pregnant crash-test dummy was created back in 1996, testing with it is still not government-mandated either in the US or in the EU. In fact, even though car crashes are the No 1 cause of foetal death related to maternal trauma, we haven’t yet developed a seatbelt that works for pregnant women. Research from 2004 suggests that pregnant women should use the standard seatbelt; but 62% of third-trimester pregnant women don’t fit that design.

I’m left handed. Almost everything is geared towards right handed people. Ticket barrier? Right handed. Cash machine? Right handed. Microwave? Right handed. It’s a right handed world. But you start taking about it and it’s not taken seriously at all!

But being left handed is what, 10%, not 50%.

In my office tall workers (the vast majority males) are given special desks that are adjusted to their exact height. Small workers (the vast majority females) are given.....a really uncomfortable footstool.

@RandomMess

If it's so easy and cheap to fit a strap in a car boot, why haven't you fitted one yourself?

Nowhere to attach it to that I can see???

It's all moulded plastic.

My car came with a strap to pull the boot down. But that's the difference between an Audi and a Skoda obviously.

Audi = fancy automagic closing boot. Skoda - strip of rubber to pull down.

I'm fed up that the women's toilets always seem to be the furthest away, especially in service stations. Why can't ours be closest for once?

@RandomMess

I'm pretty sure screws don't care whether it's moulded plastic or not.

I doubt that would work long term tbh I don't want to risk damaging it when I'll need to sell it in a few years.

5'2, so averagely short for a woman. Fairly evenly proportioned. My hamstrings are horrendously tight because I do so much on tip toe to add a couple of valuable inches to reach life. The best chairs are school chairs because I can actually place my feet flat on the floor. Most sofas were clearly designed by torturers

Years ago I was on an admin bank in the NHS. The main reception was newly revamped and furnished including shiny new swivel chairs for the reception desk. I ended up sitting cross legged because it was too uncomfortable dangling my legs out the front with the edge of the chair digging into the backs of my calves. Over 90% of the admin workers were women, most of whom could not have been comfortable on that chair unless they were particularly tall.

Petrol pumps. I do have small hands for a smallish person, but most petrol pumps are designed so that I have to have both hands applying a lot of strength to hold the lever. (Increasing numbers are getting lighter to use). This has the complication that I end up queuing for ages for the right side pump because I don't have the strength required to drag the pump around the back of my car and pull on it with my modest body weight AND apply my strength in my hands to operate the lever. So no, I'm not an arse for pedanticly queueing on the correct side, I'm just being a small woman.

I'm dreading looking for my next car as I need a bigger one to accommodate two DSs through their teenage years... DH has had a series of large estate types and they've all been horrid to drive. Seats digging in to the backs of my legs, handbrakes behind me (a weak position to lever it securely) stupid accelerators pivoted from the ground. Not a problem for his size 11/12s. Bloody awful for my size 1/2s where I'm applying the pressure with the subtlest of movements from the tips of my toes because they are so low down the pedal. The latest beast offers me a choice of resting my heel as I drive or putting the seat high enough to see where I'm going. I can only drive it for 45 minutes before the cramp in my quads forces me off the road.

Why don't sun visors have sun visors to block out the sun??? I keep it down permanently to block out an excess of dazzling sky because I'm near the windscreen.

I stopped driving in late pregnancy because I was concerned about the airbag going off. I'd got my seat as far back as was possible to drive, but 26" legs and a large bump meant my bump was rubbing the steering wheel for months. The final straw was a hard winter with a prolonged period of icy roads and the risk of losing control, minor shunts etc just became untenable against the hazard of having a baby a few inches away from the air bag.

So many of the issues on this thread are pure thoughtlessness and can be designed or adapted out quite easily. Things like hand dryer position. Half the time kids can't even activate the bloody things without having their hands right above their heads (Or reach the sensors on taps).

Issues like tools often just need more leverage to compensate for the force of the user. Many of these adaptions would benefit people with additional needs as well as the majority of women.

One size fits all is a terrible lie
(My running drawer is filled with "small" running t-shirts from races. Size 8 is not a unisex/ mens small. They are only suitable as over layers because the proportions are so far off and would cause chaffing. Fortunately I'm not busty enough to get on to moaning about cutting for shape because I'm sure that at the XL end of the scale, they don't sit so well on women either!

Brexit is happening because 52% of the electorate wanted it. That 52/48 split is so close to the majority of women/ men that make up the population! Although more boys are born, genetic health, female life expectancy and premature male deaths mean that there are more women than men, so the point is that designing the world to an average man disadvantages the majority!

What does the average person look like?

What height, weight, strength etc are they?

Average female height+ average male height= true average. It would definitely be country dependant though.

Hand size should match body size, but TBF how would you get a strength average which is an interesting point.

Just had a look. According to ONS average male height is 5'9 average female is 5'3 so average between the two is 5'6.

Wonder how much difference that would make to the people on here?

I agree that the medical testing is lacking for women

But the rest? Height issues work both ways

Disadvantages of being 6ft1 (male or female) is that beds are too short and you can't stretch out if there is a footboard. Plane seats are so uncomfortable that my knees are wedged in at an angle, and my knees are in pain for 2 days even after a short flight. Most cars are uncomfortable (have steering wheel pressing into legs, it does not move up enough). You bang your head in lots of places. Clothes are too small. Women shoes above size 8 do not exist. And portions from ready-meals are way too small

The world is built for "average" people, and both petite/small men and women, and overly tall men and women, have disadvantages

While I get all of this.....how are ticket barriers designed for right handed people? Surely they are designed for right hand drive cars (hence on the right hand side)

Left handed people who want something that works well for them at the expense of right handed people should buy a Skoda Citigo.

The sat nav unit sat in the middle of the dashboard and in a UK RHD drive car was almost impossible to operate right handed as the steering wheel got in the way. So I was faced with either using my less dominant left hand or awkwardly reaching around the steering wheel, both of which were very difficult. Anyone left handed would have found it much easier for once.

There's a large medical testing company near me that advertises on buses and in local newspapers etc. They often ask for candidates who are male or women who are post menopause or who have had a hysterectomy or been sterilised, to comply with ethics requirements that won't allow any sort of research where there is even the tiniest chance that a woman will become pregnant.

Of course there's the argument that gay women, or those not in a relationship with a man and with no plans to have one during the testing process also probably won't become pregnant, but they obviously want absolute certainty for simplicity and their own piece of mind.

But why has this not been done? If it is such a problem why haven't designers addressed it? Women work in these fields now - if it's such
a widespread problem they would realise and could have designed
the problem out
Cos until recently no one has realised the world was designed for men. If you have never seen one, you won't realise one could be added.

Probably hasn't been carried out as there's a risk of the strap entangling with the locking mechanism or some other obvious
reason why not (that I can't think of)

For those that need one, it can't be that hard to affix your own one

It can be fitted so as not to tangle with any mechanisms.
Without some clip or hook already in place, it cannot be added unless gorilla glue.

Probably hasn't been carried out as there's a risk of the strap entangling with the locking mechanism or some other obvious

My car has a strap on the boot lid. It doesn't get tangled on anything.

Well, why doesn't someone start a business making popular items for women ? Surely with such demand for it, it would be a winner ?

I think it's just as likely that the car boot thing is something that's only really become an issue more recently as people have got bigger and bigger cars.

This was in a service station toilet (ladies) today. Middle of bloody nowhere. Painkillers, fair enough but a vibrater and "Mendurance" pills yet no pads or tampons?!?! Who the fuck thinks that a woman presumably on a long journey is going to buy a cock ring and some pills so her DH can have a raging hard on for the rest of the journey?!?!

I don't think they're for the journey! Besides, in a thread about a 'world build for men', I can't help but think that both cock rings and blue pills weren't really developed for the benefit of men (nor were vibrators at that!). I appreciate that having sanitary products would make sense but these machines are privately operated to make a profit and I guess the margins aren't that good.

Plus in the shop at the service station... One option of sanitary products, standard Always - £5.19. Madness.

They would have been more expensive coming out of a vending machine in the toilets! Plus EVERYTHING is massively overpriced in service stations, it's not a vendetta against women any more than it is against people who need to eat or drink.

This actual thread

I'm having to read it 5 posts at at time because I find something else to be infuriated about and need to go and walk it off.

Currently raging at heights of kitchen worktops from post #30. I might catch up with the end by 2021.

I just went to the ladies in a European airport today and the vending machine had: pack of 5 tampons; pack of 3 condoms; a "finger surprise" which appeared to be a little pink knobbly thing you stuck on your finger for some purpose or other.
Women have to take their children into these fucking places.

A very interesting read.

This was 20-odd years ago, so it might have changed now, but at a major European capital city railway station, it cost the equivalent of 30p to use the toilets (with cubicles), policed by a very stern-looking woman at the entrance with eyes like a hawk.

She would accept no excuses at all for non-payers, however young, old or disabled, and would point-blank refuse them access if they didn't have the right coins - even though it wasn't that far from several other country borders (trains between countries were very regular) and had close links to the airport, so many recently-arrived foreigners wouldn't have had chance to obtain any local currency yet (pre-Euro days).

There was also another room next to the main toilet block, containing only urinals. This was unattended and completely free for anybody in possession of the necessary equipment to make use of them to wander in and out at will, with no charge whatsoever.

Need to catch up on the thread; I got a bit fed up with a few posters being rather meh about the lack of research data on half the adult population.

The author of the book has just been on woman's hour today.

It's clearly a massive problem that mustn't be dismissed. I feel sorry that I've actually just accepted the status quo around many things that I struggle to access (driving cars has often been difficult at 5'2"/3")

Something she mentioned; researchers CBA or say it’s too expensive or difficult to test medicines on women because of their menstrual cycle.

There's a medicine designed to prevent heart attacks which actually is more likely to cause a heart attack at a certain point in a women’s cycle.

it’s too expensive or difficult to test medicines on women because of their menstrual cycle.

It makes me very angry when businesses don't bother to make perfectly doable simple adjustments for disabled people - usually just dismissing the relatively small amount of custom they might lose rather than caring about the fact that actual normal humans with feelings and lives to live (being disabled isn't their 'hobby', you know) are being needlessly prevented from doing so because you didn't want the 'faff' of putting in a small ramp.

However, to just write off 51% of the population as not worth the effort is utterly vile. Don't they realise that, if their own mothers hadn't 'selfishly insisted' on being female and menstruating, they would never even be here?