graphic by lyn enrico
DISCLAIMER: The research this article is built upon contains language that associates body proportions with the gender binary. Inclusive language has been used here, save for information directly taken from studies and secondary sources which are cited throughout. We want to acknowledge that not every woman experiences the inconveniences in this article and not everyone who has these experiences is a woman.
When I decided to pursue a career in design, I had no idea such a strong feeling of rage was part of the package deal. I walked into my intro to design class as a freshman in college with my heart already set on graphic design, but I knew I was going to need to sit through lectures about areas of design that I wasn’t particularly interested in: web design, coding, user experience and maybe even some virtual reality. What I certainly wasn’t expecting was my first lesson to begin with a photo of the first breast pump patent. It was designed by a man named O.H. Needham in 1854 and later modified by another man named Edward Lasker in 1923. Designed by cis men, the device clearly lacked consideration for the needs and comfort of those with breasts, and the design has hardly changed in over 100 years. This complication is what makes hackathons like “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck” at the MIT Media Lab necessary — all because some stupid cis men didn’t keep those with breasts in mind in the first place.
After that first design class, I have never thought the same about design again. This shit didn’t stop with breast pumps. It’s a design flaw of nearly every product I use.
For example, it’s terrifying to slide into the driver’s seat of a car and realize that it was not designed for my 5’2” body to see out of the rear windshield. When I adjust the seat and buckle up, I can’t help but think, “these airbags and seatbelt were not designed for someone with my proportions.” Cars were not designed with my safety in mind. Since the 1970s, crash test dummies have been based on the average male build. The closest these dummies ever got to a woman was a smaller version of the male dummy that could be compared to the size of a 12-year-old. I am not a man nor am I a 12-year-old. Those tests do nothing for the protection of my body. In fact, I am 17% more likely to die in a car crash than a man is, and it’s all because of the way I sit in the driver’s seat. Women typically sit leaning further forward than men because their legs are shorter and they need to reach the pedals, and nothing about the design of these cars or their safety measures has changed to accommodate that.
Examples of this flawed design practice extend past life-threatening situations and into general annoyances and inconveniences, like the fact that I struggled daily to get into one of my college campus’ buildings. The 1867-constructed building had 40-pound wrought iron doors which were installed when only men were attending college — despite the fact that now, most American colleges are made up of 60% women and 40% men. Or the fact that I wait in line to use almost every public restroom I’ve ever been in because despite women taking 2.3 times as long as men to use the bathroom, some genius thought that an exact replica of a men’s room sans urinals would be just fine! And of course, I freeze in every office, theater, classroom or public space I’ve ever been in because we still use the thermal comfort equation based on the metabolic rate of a 40-year-old man. Just ask my high school senior year art class about the blanket I stored in the back of the classroom because I was so uncomfortably cold that I couldn’t properly get my work done without it
Even when I should be having fun, I cannot escape the defeating feeling that bodies like mine were not considered in design processes. The first time my family went to an adventure park in the Adirondacks, I was so excited to do an obstacle course in the trees and even more excited for the ziplines sprinkled throughout the courses. But when I put my safety harness on and actually tried to zipline, I found that while the harness was generally safe, it was incredibly painful. I looked over at my dad and brother and noticed that their harnesses were properly sitting around their hips. Mine was strapped around my stomach which meant that when I ziplined, all of the pressure weighed on the middle of my back. Ouch. While I stayed safe in that harness and generally had fun, I couldn’t help but think about how much better the experience could have been if the park had different harnesses for different bodies.
I deserve to be safe and comfortable and happy just as much as any cis man, whether traditional design thinks so or not. We need more hackathons to fix faulty designs and gender-diverse designers on teams to bring their unique and important perspectives to the design process. We need people to see the flaws in simple and complex designs and feel a similar outrage that urges them to fix it.