must have been invented by a man

[Lottle]

AIBU to hate this phrase?

It wouldn't be acceptable to say "must have been invented by a woman" or "a [choose a different race to your own] person"

I'm sure lots of good stuff has been invented by men.

I used to say it a lot when I was wearing a really bloody uncomfortable bra! But I was young and naive then.

I always think really badly designed toilet cubicles, the type you have to be a contortionist to get into because there is not enough space between the door and the toilet, must be men.

I have always thought that on desktop pc's whoever thought that putting the open/close button on CD-Rom trays under the tray so that when it was open it was harder to access was a bit dim. Don't know if it was a man or a woman though.

Same with them always putting the USB and cable ports at the back.

I know I've used it - latest being 10 days of carrying around a piece of medical apparatus attached to me with about 18" of silicon tubing. Women's clothes don't have pockets and nightwear certainly doesn't. The hospital suggested I used a shoulder bag to carry it about all day( it was about the size of a cigarette packet)

In the end I taped the wretched thing to my hip with micropore tape.

I also use it regularly when it comes to cars. I have to take my hand off the steering wheel to reach some of the control levers on the steering column and I need both hands to put DHs car into reverse.

@Lottle

Yes they do. Which is why you generally only find them on one side, not on both.

i dont get periods at all on my pill
whoever invinted it thanks

Just came here to add: urine sample pots. Pregnant right now and they are ridiculous.

*I always think this when wearing a seatbelt"
Yes! I'm fine as the driver but when I was the passenger last week I was thinking this. Always slides up my boobs and digs into my neck.

“Designed by a man” is a fairly common phrase from me. I look at a lot of building designs and am never surprised when the logistics of how a building is going to be used seem never to occur to them.

My gym - you have to walk out of the pool area, all the way through the changing rooms, maybe about 100m in total, in your costume, dripping water, to the entrance corridor to the changing rooms, where people in the gym bit (including men) can see in through a glass in the door (the actual changing room is round the corner so they can't see all the way in), to get to the toilets, hoping your tampon hasn't been leaking in the process. I've often commented this must have been designed by a man. Why aren't the toilets near the pool?

I think men with cope with this injustice.

I watched a programme recently about seatbelts. (I know, my life is an endless round of thrills and excitement). However, one thing that came out or it was that seatbelts are designed to keep an average height male safe. They are not designed for a women’s build. In a car crash, a woman is far less safe than a man in the same seat in an identical crash. Similarly crash test dummies are based on men so all the safety data is for men not women.

I use it in the context of things that have zero consideration for women.

I always despair when I see toilet cubicles where the sanitary disposal bins are touching the toilet seats as there's not enough space. Yet, if you were to move the toilets to be off-centre, rather than right bang in the middle, the space would work much better... I mean, it's a simple solution which involves no additional cost if you just think about it at the planning stage.

I fail to believe any woman old enough to design a toilet doesn't understand how periods work, even if she doesn't personally experience them.

phys.org/news/2018-10-women-obese-passengers-worst-car-crash.html

A link for my statement above, and an extract.

They have made substantial progress. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled decreased 32 percent between 1994 and 2016, the last year statistics are available.

Building Women into the Equation

Now researchers are beginning to move beyond the consensus choice – the 50th percentile male – to look at other vulnerable populations, and the University of Virginia's Center for Applied Biomechanics is taking a leading role. Foremost among these groups are women. In 2011, the center's researchers published a study demonstrating that women wearing seat belts were 47 percent more likely than male seatbelt-wearers to suffer severe injury, even after controlling for age, height, weight and the severity of the crash. The discrepancy is especially pronounced for lower-extremity injuries.

"For years, we used a technique called geometric scaling to forecast how human beings of different sizes would respond to crashes," said assistant professor James Kerrigan, the Center for Applied Biomechanics' deputy director. "Not only does extrapolation not work for males, but it particularly doesn't work for females."

Among the many dissimilarities potentially affecting results are different ligament laxity and bone shape.

This may all be in the invisible women book recommended above, but I hadn’t come across it before and was shocked.

Another one - those stupid little clippy things for work IDs/visitor passes. Some of them are still designed to be clipped onto a shirt pocket/trouser belt loop. In an environment where a man wears a suit, quite often a woman if she so wishes, can wear a dress. Where do you clip the damn thing?

Oh, I know, what about on the pocket?

No, because women's clothes never have pockets.

In recent years, I've seen more of those stupid clippy things offered as a lanyard attachment, which is helpful. Or as a badge. But often you don't want to be poking a safety pin through women's clothing for fear of damaging the fabric and/or you don't fancy sticking your name right above your boobs, which seems to be the acceptable place to put it.

I hate name badges. I hate them a lot.

I've often commented this must have been designed by a man. Why aren't the toilets near the pool?

Yep - designed by a man.

Same as lockers. When using the disabled changing room, the only lockers available are either inside the disabled changing room (no use if someone else is in there when you need to get your stuff out) or you have to use the ones in the main changing room.

I mean, what idiot decided that sanitary pads should be fragranced? Not a woman, that's for sure!!!

This!! Cystitis in a brightly coloured packet anyone?? Same goes for scented toilet roll.

I’m struggling to find ones that aren’t scented. I’ve looked and every bloody time I get home and find I’ve just bought a different scent...

I think it's fair enough where the male designer hasn't bothered to think about how other people, not like him, will interact with the design. That's the job of a designer. And it's important that any designer considers a diverse set of people because otherwise you won't meet a wide range of needs.
But I'm not keen when it's just used as a way to dismiss people. And I think it's counterproductive as it normalises the idea that it's okay to judge or dismiss a person because of a characteristic like sex or gender. And that's not a helpful way to work together. It just alienates people.

Major issue in medical research too. Medical trials aren’t adjusted for differences between men and women, and there aren’t enough women included in trials. Many drugs used are based on how well they treat men.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/30/fda-clinical-trials-gender-gap-epa-nih-institute-of-medicine-cardiovascular-disease

I’m struggling to find ones that aren’t scented.

Tesco’s own.

It is improving but anything that involves an assumption that only women will have children with them. Like changing tables in a women’s toilet but not in the men’s. And the fold down changing tables that are only just robust enough for a six month old. Heaven help you if your 18 month old needs changing.

Thank you Minty. Will look.

I was involved in the design of a new facility at work once. The architects did an initial design and I was called in to provide feedback to make adjustments. My department was to be one major user of the facility and we worked with groups of children. When I pointed out that there was no place inside big enough to gather a group of children and that the narrow path with entrances either end made it unsuitable and unsafe, they came back with ‘we think you will need to change the way you work.’ I’m not sure if the fact they were all men is relevant but it’s annoyed me for years!

Last time I used the phrase was in a rather long FB rant about the British museum. Beautiful award winning architecture and deservedly so, but unsurprisingly a massive lack of ladies loos. DH did a whole section while I queued for the loo, he was in and out in seconds.

It is a legitimate observation not discrimination. Designed by a white person is an issue too as is designed by a thin person. People should research outside their own experience more.

And the fold down changing tables that are only just robust enough for a six month old. Heaven help you if your 18 month old needs changing.

They are safe for up to about 50kgs, despite the stickers the EU says they have to put on the front. We were using them for DD until she was about 3 and a half.

But yes, this is something I also point out to architects. Having a changing bench is a much better option. They always do it when asked.