One size fits men

Written By Ruby Corcoran

After coming across the book Invisible women by Caroline Criado Perez, which talks about exposing data bias in a world designed by men. There were a number of really shocking facts that she discussed in her book which reveals how the world is built for and by men, meaning half of the population is being ignored which has huge impacts on women's health, safety and equality. The book goes into detail about how keyboards and smartphones are designed with male proportions in mind, not considering the smaller proportions of a woman's hand.

Findings

Racheal Tatman, a researcher of linguistics at the University of Washington, has revealed that Google’s speech-recognition software was 70% more likely to recognise a male voice or a woman's voice. This means women are getting a product that is less inclined to work for them as it would for a man.

Source: RACHAEL TATMAN

Source: RACHAEL TATMAN

This turns into dangerous when voice activation is on the rise in a number of industries such as medicine and the automobile. There has been review of people complaining about the fact that their voice command service is less likely to react to their voice as it would to a mans.

Apart from physical products not being designed for womens proportions or voices, there is a large digital gender gap. The digital gender divide remains 32.9% in the world’s least developed countries. Women in South Asia are 26% less likely to own a phone than men. In Africa there is a gap in terms of ownership of a phone and access to the internet. In a report that examined 10,000 women in Uganda, Ghana, Indonesia and Colombia it became apparent the number of existing inequalities.5 Some of the issues that came about were:

  • Concerns over privacy including online abuse and harassment.

  • Skills as a barrier and not know how in rural areas (no formal training)

  • Women and girls have less access than men to the internet

Source: https://plan-international.org/education/bridging-the-digital-divide

Source: https://plan-international.org/education/bridging-the-digital-divide

Closing the gap

According to Plan International which is a humanitarian organisation says that:

  • Only 11% of tech start-ups have a female CEO.

  • Are 5 times less likely to consider a career in tech.

  • 1 in 5 have stopped using social media or reduced their usage due to being

    harassed.

    To make the 31st birthday of the Web Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide said:

    “I am seriously concerned that online harms facing women and girls – especially those of colour, from LGBTQ+ communities and other marginalised groups – threaten that progress”.

Conclusion

We need to create a society that is inclusive not just in terms of gender but in every aspect. No one should like they didn't even come into consideration in a design process. There is a need for diversity in creators of technology. There is no point just having men designing for men. We need to make sure teams are from diverse backgrounds and less likely to reinforce gender inequality.

It is essential that we also enable women and girls to become creators in the tech industry. In addition to educating equally, closing the access and usage gap, and reclaiming the internet for girls, this also involves making visible and celebrating women’s contributions to and achievements in tech, as well as encouraging mentorship and building of community among women in the technology sector.

“For the women who persist: keep being bloody difficult”
— Caroline Criado Perez
 
Ruby Corcoran
Next

Colour Blindness and Design