Here’s some food for thought. In 2024, Rhonda Boyle published her peer-reviewed findings explaining the lack of women among the top prize winners at major piano competitions.
The majority of adult men (76%) can play a tenth, whereas 87% of women struggle to play a ninth.
Boyle, co-founder of the global action network PASK, put it down to one simple reason: handspan. Science backs up her claims. According to the Gender Bias Design project, the ergonomics of a standard piano keyboard disadvantages people with a smaller handspan.
In other words, about 87% of adult female pianists and only 24% of adult male pianists have hands smaller than the keyboard is suited for.
And that, in a nutshell, is one example of gender bias in design. It’s a glaring blind spot regarding safety, accessibility, and dignity. When those are compromised, women pay the price in discomfort, exclusion, and in some cases, serious harm.
The Lazy Default
Let’s start with the common design philosophy known as “shrink it and pink it.”
This term refers to the widespread practice of simply downsizing products made for men and coloring them pink or purple to appeal to women. It’s the design equivalent of saying, “Well, looks good to me.”
From tools to tech wearables, women are routinely handed products that weren’t truly designed with them in mind.
The Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative notes that this approach overlooks fundamental differences, not just in size, but also in function and need.
Another paradigm is voice recognition software. Most programs struggle to understand female voices because they’re typically trained on male data sets.
Design should be empathetic and user-centric, but too often, a man is the “user” by default.
When Poor Design Becomes Dangerous
The consequences of gendered design flaws go far beyond mild annoyance. In the medical field, they can be catastrophic.
Take the case of vaginal mesh implants. Marketed as a solution for pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence, lawyers claim these pelvic mesh devices were rushed to market with minimal testing.
Thousands of women experienced serious complications, chronic pain, and mesh erosion. The vaginal mesh lawsuit that followed revealed a disturbing truth: the transvaginal mesh implants were not designed with women in mind.
Claimants allege that vaginal mesh manufacturers failed to test the products properly and did not adequately warn patients and doctors about the risks.
According to TorHoerman Law, the FDA banned sales of all transvaginal mesh products for pelvic organ prolapse in April 2019. By then, the damage was already done.
Cities Built for the Default Male
Urban planning is another domain where women are invisible.
Consider this: most public transportation systems were designed assuming a commuter travels from home to work and back.
Women’s travel patterns are different. They’re more likely to trip-chain, making multiple short stops in a single journey (dropping off kids, grocery shopping, etc).
A UN Development Program (UNDP) report highlighted that cities designed without this in mind create unsafe, inefficient experiences for women.
Poor lighting, long waits for transport, and unsafe sidewalks make navigating the city feel like a daily obstacle course. And that’s before you factor in the higher risk of gender-based harassment and violence.
Arup believes that a gender-responsive approach to city planning can considerably improve safety and inclusivity.
This includes features such as street lighting, public toilets, and thoughtful public transport routes.
The Myth of ‘Neutral’ Design
One of the biggest lies in product development is the idea of “neutral” or “universal” design.
In reality, what’s considered neutral sometimes translates to male by default.
For instance, crash test dummies used in vehicle safety testing have traditionally been modeled on average male bodies. The prototype has resulted in women being 73% more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash, says Plastics Engineering.
Even when female dummies are used, they’re commonly placed in the passenger seat, reinforcing outdated stereotypes about who’s driving.
These gaps are oversights and design decisions made without enough diversity at the table.
Designing With Women
How do we fix this? Representation in the thought process is a powerful starting point.
The design industry itself is still breaking free from its male-dominated past. However, their female counterparts are challenging the status quo every day. They’re bringing empathy, insight, and lived experience into boardrooms and design labs.
Publications like Grafis Masa Kini spotlight the growing number of women shattering stereotypes and reshaping design from within.
And, thankfully, the shift is happening. A study reported by PBC Today shows how gender-responsive planning improves outcomes not only for women but for communities as a whole.
The bottom line is that when we design for those often ignored, we create better systems for everyone.
