Caroline Criado-Perez describes in her book “Invisible Women” the ongoing discrimination against women. Using numerous examples, she demonstrates that the world we live in is not neutral but rather designed for men.
“For example, let’s take the car, supposedly a gender-neutral mode of transportation. When the industry wants to assess how safe a car is, it uses crash test dummies that are built like an average man.
Women are generally smaller, lighter, and have less muscle mass. If they want to reach the gas and brake pedals in a car, they have to move their seat forward. This means that in the event of an accident, the risk of injury is higher for women. The headrest does not absorb the impact shock of female bodies as effectively, and seat belts do not account for breasts and pregnant bellies,” she tells Der Tagesspiegel GmbH in an interview.
However, this is not due to malice on the part of men towards women. Women are simply forgotten. Or rather, the average man is simultaneously considered the average human being, and both biological and social differences are simply not taken into account.
Posted by Natascha Hoffner, Founder & CEO of herCAREER, WiWo columnist, LinkedIn TOP Voice 2020, W&V 2019 – 100 Köpfe
published on LinkedIn on 04.2021
