The deadly truth about a world built for men - from stab vests to car crashes [View all]
When broadcaster Sandi Toksvig was studying anthropology at university, one of her female professors held up a photograph of an antler bone with 28 markings on it. This, said the professor, is alleged to be mans first attempt at a calendar. Toksvig and her fellow students looked at the bone in admiration. Tell me, the professor continued, what man needs to know when 28 days have passed? I suspect that this is womans first attempt at a calendar.
Women have always tracked their periods. Weve had to. Since 2015, Ive been reliant on a period tracker app, which reassures me that theres a reason Im welling up just thinking about Andy Murrays casual feminism. And then theres the issue of the period itself: when you will be bleeding for up to seven days every month, its useful to know more or less when those seven days are going to take place. Every woman knows this, and Toksvigs experience is a neat example of the difference a female perspective can make, even to issues that seem entirely unrelated to gender.
For most of human history, though, that perspective has not been recorded. Going back to the theory of Man the Hunter, the lives of men have been taken to represent those of humans overall. When it comes to the other half of humanity, there is often nothing but silence. And these silences are everywhere. Films, news, literature, science, city planning, economics, the stories we tell ourselves about our past, present and future, are all marked disfigured by a female-shaped absent presence. This is the gender data gap.
https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/feb/23/truth-world-built-for-men-car-crashes
Great read!