Where are all the female crash test dummies?

(Or why the need for diversity in STEM is a matter of life or death)

It may come as a surprise for you to learn that it wasn’t until a few years ago that car manufacturers started regularly carrying out testing with ‘female’ crash test dummies in the driver’s seats. For more than 30 years it was assumed that it would be sufficient to use a standard crash test dummy, a dummy which had been designed to reflect the measurements and biomechanics of the average male body. As a result, women were more susceptible to injury and were killed more often in car crashes.

A 2011 study conducted by the University of Virginia’s Centre for Applied Biomechanics determined that female seat-belted drivers in actual crashes had a 47% higher chance of injury than male belted drivers in equivalent crashes. This percentage rose to 71% for ‘moderate injuries’.

The reason for women being killed and injured in car accidents at a disproportionately higher rate than men? Their exclusion from the design process and the failure of manufacturers to test the safety of their cars on female bodies.

In 2011, car manufacturers started to use smaller crash test dummies to replicate proportions that were more representative of the female form. Far too late, manufacturers were being…