~no female input → implicit biases~
Seat belts are a famous touchstone of gender bias in product design. In the 1950’s, federal regulators’ original guidance for designing seat belts involved testing on both male and female crash-test dummies. But automakers resisted the cost in time and money, and the final requirements included only average-sized male models. Besides uncomfortable seatbelts for women, a result of this design assumption has been 47 percent greater likelihood of injury in a car crash. Only since 2011 have crash-test dummies based on female bodies come into use.
Formulas used to determine the optimal temperature for office spaces assumed this same 70-kilogram male as the norm. But the bodies of women and men experience temperature differently, for biological reasons, and women’s comfort level turns out to be about nine degrees higher than men’s.
A UK study looked at personal protective equipment based on
standard
male dimensions, everything from goggles to flak jackets to full-body suits. It found that 95 percent of women in the field of emergency services reported ill-fitting equipment had hampered their job performance.