The world is designed for men, which makes it dangerous for women. It doesn’t have to be that way

FastCompany: By trade, I am an industrial designer. I have been a designer for the majority of my life. I have navigated the world as a woman for the entirety of my life. Every day, I inhabit and interact with spaces and things—the tangible, built world assembled to achieve modern life—in the same way that all women do. Only because I am a designer, I am acutely aware of its shortcomings.

When I try to respond to a text with one hand and I cannot reach the farthest keys; when I use a public restroom and wait in long, slow queues, then resort to throwing my coat over the stall and subjecting my cell to the flat lid of the sanitary napkin receptacle once inside; when I get into my car and have no place for my purse; the fact that I require a purse on my person in the first place, because my garments don’t have sufficient pockets to carry so much as a tube of lipstick.

This is all without mentioning the gracelessness to which a woman must subject herself if she wishes to walk on cobblestone or subway grates in anything but a sneaker, or, more pertinently, brave the stairs up or down to the subway with a stroller in tow. And it goes without saying she would never do this alone and after dark. I, like most women, feel tired by the end of the day for the same reasons a man does, but also with the additional lethargy that results from overcoming distractions related to bodily discomfort all day long, and from all the extra time and energy it takes me to anticipate and plan for a day in a man’s world.

Women and men inhabit the same world, yet it does not suit them both equally. Women may not always notice the extent to which their physical ecosystem is ill fitting, as they have never known it any other way—we have become so accustomed to discomfort that we have accepted as fact the pervasive, insidious, systematically manufactured design biases perpetuating a built world that makes it laborious for women to navigate their lives. We’re conditioned to accept the status quo, especially as it relates to our physical comfort—the way our bodies meet the built world. But we shouldn’t have to.

The commuting difference Consider my commute to Harvard from my home in Boston. As I plan my trip, I consider the various transportation options, and normally I cannot choose the most efficient, time-saving one. First, I must consider the time of day. If it’s winter or early spring, I account for the distance I’ll need to walk outside as it is dark during my commute and not all the streets are well lit. I take the T (Boston’s subway system), needing to change trains along the route.

I plan my trip around avoiding the transfer at one particular stop (the most convenient for me in time and proximity) because it is not safe for a woman to be there alone. As I exit the subway at another stop, I take a longer walk to exit the station, as the escalator that is the most convenient to my next bus stop is an unsafe passageway to the street. Considering Harvard Yard’s notorious lack of illumination, I avoid it altogether, tacking another few minutes to my commute so I can walk a better-lit path. I think about all of this before I even leave the house.

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The article addresses a significant issue in design that affects a large demographic, promoting inclusivity which is crucial for brand strategy, making it highly relevant and impactful.