Living in a World Designed for Men
Merriam Webster defines design as “to plan and makes (something) for a specific use or purpose”. This does not do justice to the important role played by design in our day-to-day lives. Unknowingly more than knowingly, we are constantly at the mercy of decisions made by the designers. The golden principle of design is to always put the Users first and never make assumptions on their behalf. This brings to the foreground the crucial definition of “Users” and more importantly, who defines them.
Design methodologies have been consistently conditioned by patriarchy to create a widening gender bias by normalizing considering only men as the user, disrespecting other genders and their needs.
Every field of study has had to confront the biases and challenges created by patriarchal assumptions and the subsequent gendering of science. Women and their needs have been turned a blind eye to since time immemorial. All products we use have been designed keeping in mind only the ideal “reference man”, a Caucasian man between 20–30 years of age, weighing 70 kg and is 170 cm in height (Criado-Perez). The above mentioned only constitute for fraction of the world population. The remaining majority comprising of women, natives of various ethnicities, disabled are left battling accidents and even death while interacting with the products. We live in a man-made world, made for men, literally.
Man is considered the universal user by default and everyone else is just a subcategory, a different version of man (Criado-Perez).
As Simone de Beauvoir describes, “Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.”
The examples to showcase the inequality and lack of consideration are numerous. Back in 2019, Twitter exploded with the NASA spacesuit debacle. A few days before Anne McClain and Christina Koch were expected to float outside, NASA announced that Nick Hague, a male astronaut, had replaced McCain. It was not her abilities that held her back but the fact that NASA did not have a spacesuit in her size. Even back in the 1990s when NASA was required to cut down on budget, it discontinued the small size suits resulting in over one-third of the women not finding a suit that fit (Koren).
Due to its “masculine” nature, defense and military are other areas where women struggle with equipment not designed for them.
A 2019 study from the University of Virginia showed that a female occupant faced 73 % greater odds of being seriously injured in a frontal car crash than a male occupant due to lack of representation in the dummies used in automotive crash tests (Mohn).
Various features within the vehicle such as distance between the brakes and seat and height of the seat are also designed keeping the “reference male” in mind. It is ironic how women are objectified and exploited to sell the very vehicles that were designed to risk their life. This goes on to prove how media has restrictively conditioned and limited the role of women to merely components of aesthetic pleasure.
The modern-day environment such as workplaces and other public areas are designed for the ease of men and consequently, fail to address the requirements of the other 50% of the population. The formula for standard US office temperatures was developed in the 1960s, based on the metabolic rate of an average 40-year-old man weighing 70kg. According to a 2015 study published in the journal Nature, the female metabolic rate can be up to 35% lower than the male rate used in those calculations resulting in a five-degree temperature preference difference (Kingma and van Marken Lichtenbelt). The bathroom spaces are designed with equality by allocating equal areas for all genders. But this fails to take into account the needs of each as women generally require more space due to the menstrual cycle and other needs (Criado-Perez). The difference between equality and equity is of crucial significance in this context. The specific needs of individual communities that have been oppressed by patriarchy for centuries need to be addressed.
It’s not just age-old practices and objects that have been designed for just men. Upcoming technologies such as artificial intelligence are also prey to patriarchal bias and need to be viewed through a gendered lens for making them more inclusive. When told “You are a bitch”, Apple’s feminized virtual assistant Siri replies “I’d blush if I could.” Everything feminine constantly undergoes the social conditioning that women have faced since the beginning of time. But with the exponential rate at which AI and voice technology are taking over the world, it is important to discuss its ethical and social aspects (Webb). The design bias is a direct result of a lack of representation in the decision-making bodies. Only 18% of authors present at AI conferences are women; over 80% of AI professors are men; women comprise only 15% and 10% of AI research staff at Facebook and Google respectively. There is no public data on trans workers or other gender minorities; only 2.5% of Google’s workforce is black, while Facebook and Microsoft are each at 4% (Webb).
Growing awareness has pushed organizations to analyze the paralyzing gender bias and reductive classification rooted in patriarchy. The history and evolution of design are now subject to scrutiny. Gender bias is not a technology-created problem. It is the designer and not the product that is inherently biased. Designers and organizations need to understand and acknowledge their personal biases and work towards collecting honest, unbiased data that will further create an ecosystem with similar values. The systems dictated by data cannot be changed overnight and is a slow but necessary process. Recent developments in the design industry shifting towards an inclusive approach to design has driven more feminist organizations to strive for a better future. Feminist Org is one of them. The eradication of the deep-rooted gender bias present in everyday objects and spaces is a herculean mission and has to start by acknowledging and rethinking how the world we live in is designed purely for men.
