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 use this phrase for car head rests and bike helmets that need room for a pony tail but instead you have to be all uncomfortable with hair squished or hot with hair down.

@babybythesea

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.

Oh, yes. Putting changing tables in the one accessible toilet is such a cop out. Just stick some changing tables in the women's toilets... and the men's toilets too.

And what about sinks in at least one or two cubicles? That way women with menstrual cups can empty them in privacy without needing to use the accessible toilet.

Maybe at least one or two larger cubicles in both the men's and women's if it's a building frequented by parents - that way if they need to accompany their kids, there's room for everyone inside.

Toilet design just really irritates me as it's the most obvious example of a complete lack of consideration for other people (usually for women, but not always).

@babybythesea I'd still be fuming too, YANBU!

@CounsellorTroi

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.

Or the ones where the toilet has just been placed exactly in the centre of the cubicle, with the sanitary bin an after thought and shoved in on one side, usually under the toilet roll dispenser. In a cubicle with no hook on the door. Nothing quite says designed by a man than sitting with your handbag on your knee, twatting your elbow on the sanitary bin as you reach for some toilet roll, then having to lean to the other side dramatically to use the bin. And DH wonders why it takes so long in public toilets - it’s like doing a round on total wipeout.

Would it be ok for a poor invention to be described as eyeroll "oh must have been invented by a white person!"

Yes this would be fine if a white person had invented or designed something that failed to meet the needs of BAME people. For example, facial recognition technology that can't recognise Asian or Black faces. Or plasters that are always designed to be less visible on white skin. Or makeup ranges that have 35 shades for white skin and 2 for Black skin.

Those single cubicle portaloos you get at events and festivals, no sanitary bins whatsoever. It’s so lovely having to exit the loo with a used tampon in your pocket then having to find a bin and throw it in. I’m not sure what’s worse, carting blood soaked used sanitary items til you find a bin or trying to empty a moon cup when there’s nowhere to wash either it or your bloody hands. Definitely designed by, and for, men.

The big shopping trolleys at the supermarket that you can’t reach to the bottom of. There are smaller ones but sometimes you just need to get loads of shopping.

Supermarket shelves taht are just too high. Some of them I can’t even reach the top shelf, let alone anything at the back.

Every disposable face mask and most of the reusable face masks, far too big for most women.

Phones so big that you can hardly hold them in one hand, let alone type on the bloody things.

Unisex t-shirts that are really man size. If they were unisex they’d have ones smaller than a small tent.

Basically anything designed for use by everyone, and one size fits all, which means one size fits men.

And the size of the cubicles. Really tricky to fit in there with a small child or 2. If they just made them a bit longer, it would be so much better. There’s nearly always space.

A very current one for me. Washing machines with a long eco cycle that’s designed to go on over night, but then they beep and beep until you go down and turn them off. I’m pretty sure no woman would design that.

And kitchen design. The top shelves of cupboards are far too bloody high.

It has its uses! Like my bloody phone was probably invented by a man because the screen is too big for my tiny lady fingers to reach it all

In my experience it's usually men who are rubbish at getting their fingers in exactly the right spot.

hotel rooms with no usb point or socket next to the bed

but don't men use usb sockets in hotel rooms as much as women?

Somebody needs to upgrade their vibrator. It's a terrific waste to keep buying AA batteries.

Seatbelts are a good example, designed to fit the (usually) taller male and are thus uncomfortable for lots of women.

I think my next car won’t be based on engine size, doors, space etc, but comfortable seat belts! (Partly serious!).

Pretty sure my gaming keyboard must have been designed based on an average male handspan without any consideration for women. I can't reach the enter key without lifting my hand off the keyboard and moving it across every single damn time. Which is not how it's supposed to work and really pisses me off.

Oh come off it, OP. When men invent things that are mostly for use by women, it is generally a disaster. I remember a male architect showing me the floorplan for a house he was designing and the kitchen was a window-less cube.

@Coyoacan

Oh come off it, OP. When men invent things that are mostly for use by women, it is generally a disaster. I remember a male architect showing me the floorplan for a house he was designing and the kitchen was a window-less cube.

In Invisible Women one of the most unbelievable examples she give are houses designed for disaster victims that don't have kitchens. This happened after the Boxing Day Tsumami and another disaster (can't remember) so not just a one off. Clearly not a single woman was involved anywhere in that process.

I use the phrase when in a venue / building with inadequate numbers of female toilets.

I think it’s a general thing where consideration hasn’t been given to the user’s needs. The toilet issue is far too common but there is an adventure farm park type place near me that has fully cracked it. There is a dedicated unisex baby change with rubbish shoots (so the smelly nappies go straight into a bin outside), benches, sinks etc . The main toilets are geared up for buggies, all have family seats on, include some smaller toilets for little ones, have varied height sinks so the adults can easily wash their hands and the children can too without being lifted.

I forgot the details but there was a building designed as a massive office. The architect was explaining that since it was a high pressure environment with lots of late nights etc, he has included lots of spaces where one or two people could be completely hidden, sort of hidden hollows in corridors and between meeting rooms. He was very proud of it. Then the female on the board said he had designed every woman’s idea for a nightmare. Walking out alone in the dark late at night only to find someone behind you who knew they couldn’t be seen. Was a lot of talk about that would only be true if you were on constant alert about being attacked with all the woman saying yes that’s what we mean.

@BalloonSlayer

The contraceptive pill having the week break for you to have a period was because the pill was invented by men and they thought women would want to have a period.

I was stunned when I found that out (not that long ago) - I had always thought there was a health reason for needing to bleed!

I also think designed by a man when the childrens' section of a bookshop, or of a clothes shop or the toy sections, are not on the ground floor, so parents need to find a lift with their buggies. Fortunately, they do seem to be on the ground floor in a lot of places now (thinking of Waterstones in Guildford in particular).

@Lottle what are the examples that have annoyed you ? There must be some as you started a thread.

@babybythesea

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!

In the book Invisible Women, which PP have linked to, there was much 'you're using it wrong' as a response to women's feedback on some products. Unbelievable, really!

Men did invent the toilet I believe, glad of that
Queen Mathilda invented the first public loo. She owned Queenhithe Dock in London for a while and had a public convenience erected

Shops that have shoes on display on long racks, where the smaller sizes are at the top and the larger sizes at the bottom. It might be more aesthetically pleasing to display them that way but usually if a woman has size 3 or 4 feet, she will tend to be shorter and therefore it would be better for those sizes to be at the bottom and the larger sizes at the top.

And if you throw being left-handed and with poor grip into the mix....

@WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants

I think men with cope with this injustice.

Of course we will. I think a lot of the time the phrase is quite true and a good reminder that designers should consider all users of their product, not just a subset of them.

If it is used inappropriately or inaccurately, like other terms such as mansplaining or manspreading, I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Now if I had to deal with more serious negative consequences due to my sex (such as gender wage disparity, discrimination, assumptions that I would be the primary homekeeper and childcarer, risk of sexual violence etc etc etc) I might feel aggrieved but taking everything into account I think men can deal with the occasional use of a vaguely sexist but often accurate phrase.

Surely some of these things are simply poor designs full stop rather than an unconscious neglectful design for women?

Anyway, the shopping trolley being too "deep" for example - well the alternative is to raise the "floor" of it, but in doing so you would have to raise the sides to retain the same volume for the "big shop", and thus making it just as hard to use - or make it wider and then more unwieldy to manoeuvre...

So what did Supermarkets do? They made a range of trolleys, the standard large one, the daily shopper (smaller and higher), the wheelchair one, small basket, basket with wheels on - and even a child's one to distract/amuse your children.

Unless they tailored individual trollies for everyone - massively inefficient and how could they store them - there will never be a one size fits all so they have come up with a reasonable range to cater for the vast majority of the public.

Not quite on topic, but women giving birth lying down so that it made it easier for a man to watch?

(some King & his mistresses I think?)

Also women being induced so that they would hopefully give birth in the more convenient daytime hours.