<story><title>A crash dummy aimed at protecting women drivers</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62877930</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prydwen</author><text>A woman is not just &amp;#x27;a smaller male&amp;#x27;. Male dummies do not take into account female&amp;#x27;s different weight distribution, muscle mass etc.&lt;p&gt;This is one of the reasons why women are much more likely than men to die or be seriously injured in a car crash. The book &amp;#x27;Invisible women&amp;#x27; by Caroline Criado Perez has a section about this, I highly recommend it.</text></item><item><author>mythhouse</author><text>&amp;gt;  but the currently available test dummies don’t reflect the average female body&lt;p&gt;Do they reflect average american body though, male or female.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Their dummy is 5-foot-3 and weighs about 137 pounds, per the publication.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The average American woman weighs 170.6 pounds and stands at 63.7 inches (almost 5 feet, 4 inches) tall. And the average waist circumference? It&amp;#x27;s 38.6 inches.&amp;quot; Per google.&lt;p&gt;Looks like the male dummy actually reflects average American woman in weight at 171.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>float4</author><text>&amp;gt; The book &amp;#x27;Invisible women&amp;#x27; by Caroline Criado Perez has a section about this, I highly recommend it.&lt;p&gt;I asked for this book for my birthday and read it. However, I couldn&amp;#x27;t help but notice that when the author wrote about my field (computers, broadly speaking) the research was often... lacking?&lt;p&gt;She wrote a solid 3-4 pages on large phones and it was just surreal to read. Paraphrased:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Phones are very large. This is bad for women; they have smaller hands. Nobody knows why tech companies make large phones. It is very silly, because women actually use their phones more than men. I asked multiple tech journalists for an explanation, they had no idea either. Here I present some theories that can tie this issue to sexism: companies simply design phones with men in mind, companies expect women to carry a handbag all the time so a large phone is no bother, and so on. And sure, women could buy an iPhone SE but that model hasn&amp;#x27;t been updated in two years.&lt;p&gt;Nothing about better battery life, nothing about better media consumption. It was so confusing, as every tech journalist, &lt;i&gt;literally&lt;/i&gt; every tech journalist, knows that bigger phones have better battery life.&lt;p&gt;Sadly it made it a bit difficult for me to fully trust the rest of the book.</text></comment>
<story><title>A crash dummy aimed at protecting women drivers</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-62877930</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prydwen</author><text>A woman is not just &amp;#x27;a smaller male&amp;#x27;. Male dummies do not take into account female&amp;#x27;s different weight distribution, muscle mass etc.&lt;p&gt;This is one of the reasons why women are much more likely than men to die or be seriously injured in a car crash. The book &amp;#x27;Invisible women&amp;#x27; by Caroline Criado Perez has a section about this, I highly recommend it.</text></item><item><author>mythhouse</author><text>&amp;gt;  but the currently available test dummies don’t reflect the average female body&lt;p&gt;Do they reflect average american body though, male or female.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Their dummy is 5-foot-3 and weighs about 137 pounds, per the publication.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The average American woman weighs 170.6 pounds and stands at 63.7 inches (almost 5 feet, 4 inches) tall. And the average waist circumference? It&amp;#x27;s 38.6 inches.&amp;quot; Per google.&lt;p&gt;Looks like the male dummy actually reflects average American woman in weight at 171.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>treis</author><text>Dummies don&amp;#x27;t take muscles or weight distribution into account.  They&amp;#x27;re metal skeletons with rubber bodies over them.&lt;p&gt;This is one of those discrimination situations where the truth is actually the exact opposite of what is reported.  The dummies tested are 4&amp;#x27;11 95 pounds and 5&amp;#x27;9&amp;quot; 171 pounds.  If the extremes pass then it&amp;#x27;s likely everyone in between is fine.  The people who aren&amp;#x27;t covered are those above 5&amp;#x27;9&amp;quot; or 171 pounds which skews heavily male.</text></comment>