Invisible Women: inexplicable lady reasons
in a workforce that is over 70% female a whopping 65% of PPE is default male
Hellooo GFPs! This week I’ve given you an extended default male of the week, so no gender data gaps for you. Well, tbh there are many gender data gaps involved in the default male section, so actually, gender data gaps for everyone! Hurrah! Enjoy…
Default male of the week
This week we’re talking PPE, wait come back! I know, I know. I have dedicated A LOT of newsletter inches to this topic, but, well the stories keep coming. And in this case, the stories are…well, if not good exactly then at least trending in the right direction.
First up, the Women’s Engineering Society, who GFPs may remember not only from the reports of theirs that I cited in Invisible Women (pp.124-25), but also from this newsletter…
…wherein I asked all PPE-wearing GFPs to fill in their latest survey on the state of PPE for women, and GFPs, the results are in! Sadly, that’s where the excitement ends, as in a finding that will surprise precisely no-one, they’re pretty much the same as the results of the previous two surveys from 2009 and 2016: women who wear PPE remain massively underserved with Reference Man still riding high on his default male PPE supply.
Thirty-eight per cent of women use PPE in male sizes, while 15% said they use “gender-neutral” “one-size-fits-all” PPE, which as we all know means one size fits, at best, men, since a gender-neutral body does not, in fact, exist. Oh and by the way, one of the worst industries for default-male-masquerading-as-gender-neutral PPE? Healthcare. Yes, that’s right, in a workforce that is over 70% female (when it comes to nurses, nearly 90% female), a whopping 65% of PPE is default male — almost the exact inverse of what it should be. Women reported that even with adjustable “one-size-fits-all” items, even on the smallest setting, they remained, in fact, too big. So even if women WERE simply scaled-down simulacra of men, we aren’t scaling down enough.
But women are, in fact, not scaled-down simulacra of men. If you don’t believe the evidence of your own eyes, we do have hard data to demonstrate that bodies are not gender neutral. The American Society of Safety Professionals has done some invaluable work on this front for a Technical Report they released in September last year. Combing through the various US standards and extant anthropometric data available, they highlighted several sex differences in body shape that mean simply scaling male PPE for women will never work. These include facial shape differences (relevant for, among other items, masks and safety goggles hello Covid!); chest, waist and hip ratio differences (hello anyone with eyes); different trunk to leg length ratios (ditto); hand ratio differences; and the old GFP favourite, differences in foot shape. In other words, literally from head to toe, women are not small men.
The obvious result of PPE that doesn’t fit is that instead of protecting the wearer, it injures the wearer — an issue reported by many women, who told the WES that they cope with PPE designed for a male body by either adapting their PPE or adapting their work to avoid having to wear PPE. Neither of these options is fair or optimal.
At best, adapting the PPE costs women time and money that their male colleagues don’t have to spend; at worst, it stops the PPE from being, well, protective, making wearing it somewhat pointless.
When it comes to adapting their work, this is neither good for the woman in question…
Over time I had to stop doing work in the workshop because I couldn't find any gloves that would fit me, was sick of fighting to buy gloves that would fit me and did not have time to wait for delivery of gloves that would fit me. I haven't been in a position to [do part of my work] in about a year.
…nor really for her employer…
[I have to] delegate tasks to less qualified people because of lack of dexterity with ill-fitting gloves
(gloves came up in this report A LOT.)
You know what else comes up in the report more than you might expect? Pockets. My nemesis.
GFPs, you might think that the one benefit of PPE designed for men is that at least the women wearing it would have access to the access-to-the-fourth-dimension-male-pockets that women actually envy (you know, as opposed to what Freud reckoned we envy.)
Anyway, sadly this is often not the case as PPE that hasn’t been designed around female hips renders the default-male-pockets sadly not fit for the large items that women in such jobs are likely to need to carry. Which means that women find themselves carrying around BAGS for tools / daily necessities, and I honestly cannot, this is the ultimate insult.
Now, the one bright spot in all this is that there has, since the last WES report in 2016, been an increase in PPE designed for women. The bad news is that this PPE is more expensive, less easily available, follows lower safety specs and HAS FEWER POCKETS. Still, at least female-specific PPE mostly comes in pink, purple or even flowery patterns, and as we all know the fourth law of thermodynamics states that all women must wear pink at all times for fear of being mistaken for a man URGH. No woman shall wear neon yellow, that is the fifth law of thermodynamics.
None of this, by the way, should be news to employers, because the majority of women (68%) said that they did raise these problems with their employers. The trouble is, the employers did not, on the whole, respond positively. The most common response was simply to ignore the woman in question, followed by acknowledging the woman’s complaint but failing to do anything about it. Another popular solution was to tell women that there was, in fact, no problem (something GFPs will recognise as a recurring theme when it comes to default male problems — not a problem for you, a default male, you mean), or to mock the woman in question, accusing her of being vain or trivial. For wanting her protective equipment to protect her.
I was told I didn't need new PPE and only wanted it to look good in selfies.
Guilty as charged.
In fact, only 9% of women said that their issue was fully addressed, and of the employers who did try to solve the problem, it was more common to address it only for the woman in question, as opposed to changing PPE procurement policy. Which meant that all future women would have to go through the same process.
Thankfully, unlike employers, the WES is not happy with leaving things as they are. First of all, I am grateful, as I always am for those who go to the trouble of carrying out research like this. Given the number one response to women pointing out any kind of default male problem is to explain to her that there is in fact no problem, implying that she is making it all up for inexplicable lady reasons of her own, hard data is ALWAYS crucial.
And not only are they giving us data, they are promising us ACTION. As GFPs may remember from when this survey was first launched, the next step in this process, now that we have once again proven that there is a problem, is to try to address this problem and the WES intends to do this by conducting a nation-wide survey of women’s measurements, coordinating with PPE manufacturers to ask them what the f is up with them, and lobbying for access to fit for purpose PPE as a right, which frankly, it is inexplicable that it is not already.
This is all a tall order, but thankfully they are not on their own. By chance, just before WES released their latest report, I was also contacted by some stellar GFPs who are also taking matters into their own hands. Here in the UK, Katy Robinson has spearheaded the #PPEThatFits campaign and has already made impressive progress, including securing a parliamentary debate and working with the Considerate Constructors Scheme to mandate women’s specific PPE on all of their registered sites.
This month, she wrote to the Health and Safety Executive to:
request that they a) look into amending the PPE Regulations and adding the users’ protected characteristics into the requirements and b) to start to formally investigate ill-fitting PPE as a cause of accidents. The literature for ill-fitting PPE causing accidents is far and few between in terms of case law, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence in the literature to suggest that it is a problem – therefore highlighting that the HSE are not investigating it sufficiently.
Katy is truly a GFP after my own heart — and she was brought to my attention by another GFP after my own heart, Amy Roosa, who as the Founder and CEO of The Safety Rack is doing the same work over in the US, including a campaign and survey (#MyBodyMyPPE) that will launch NEXT MONDAY, so US-based PPE-wearing GFPs keep an eye out for that!
Homework of the week
Since the homework for WES went so well I knew GFPs would be gagging for some more homework and luckily for you, I have some!
Long-time readers may remember the End Sexism in Schools campaign who first set us homework back in June 2021…
(I reported on the results that homework here)
Anyway, they are, not unlike the WES, BACK BABY. And they have more homework for us, this time focused on the history curriculum. Here is their callout for volunteers:
What are children being taught in history lessons? What do children learn about women of the past? Are they mainly learning about men? When children are mainly taught about men we’re reinforcing a world view where society is shaped around men.
End Sexism In School’s second crowd research project is looking into the History curriculum taught at KS3 (years 7-9) in England and Wales.
We are looking for volunteers to send out freedom of information (FoI) requests to schools about their history curricula and collate the information that they send back.
We will then have a picture of how women in history are taught to children at KS3. Our findings will be published in academic journals and released to the press and politicians - and will ultimately help us end sexism in schools.
Our first crowd research project looked at gender bias in KS3 and KS4 English literature – and the results were truly shocking.
Volunteers would be signing up to:
Send out five FoI requests to schools allocated by ESIS
Chase the schools if they have not responded within the 30 day period
Enter the responses provided by the schools into a spreadsheet provided by ESIS
We expect this to take round 5-7 hours in total over a period of 4-6 weeks.
Requirements:
Access to an email account
Ability to open a Microsoft Word document on your computer/laptop
Our research into gender bias in what children are taught is a powerful tool in our fight to end sexism in schools, and your help will make a huge difference. Together we can change the world!
Sign up to volunteer here https://forms.gle/iQ1G8s3N2GfBrn7B6 or email at researchforesis@gmail.com
Poppy pic of the week
That’s it! Until next time, my dear GFPs…xoxoxo
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