It really is a mans world.

[sospan]

Yep, it is true

After stumbling (well after a HI i would) across 4 articles this week about general scientific testing, it appears that the majority of tests carried out are always on male subjects. Even the ubiquitous lab rat is normally male and the crash test dummies - apart from specific testing using children dummies, they are male.

Why males apparently for two reasons.

Firstly things like car crashes, it is mainly men who are likely to be involved in a car car crash so they test the most common likelihood. The consequence being that with the different physics between the genders it could put female passengers and drives at more risks.

The same thing happens apparently in laboratory tests. Unless they are testing for something specific, the majority of lab specimens are male. This is to rule out hormonal / physiological changes due to reproductive cycles. I am assuming that for pharmaceutical final stage studies the tests are gender representative to get approval. However, it does make you wonder how much early research or studies may be skewed by single gender tests.

Until, I read the articles, it hadn't really occurred to me. The big unknown is how far does this stretch and what may have been missed ?

[Sarbear123]

You’d love the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criada Perez. Even the size of smartphones was designed with male users in mind.

[sospan in reply to Sarbear123]

I didn't know about the Smartphone - most bizarre.

My wife is shorter than average - 4ft 11 and has always wanted to get in front of a car designer to see what goes through their minds when they design car usability.

When the average height of Ladies in the UK is 5ft 3 she isn't far off but finds most cars impossible to drive because to reach the pedals, she has to move her chair forward, which means the steering wheel is on her chest !

I don't know whether this gender bias would be classed as "sex discrimination" but it could be quite interesting

[Binjour in reply to sospan]

I work in higher education in a science department and we have noted that at undergraduate level students tend to use male subjects for their dissertations. The menstrual issues are not always relevant but even at that level there is a bias towards males. We are trying to address this. Many universities are now going for Athena Swan awards which promote equality in STEMM subjects. Some funding bodies will only give financial awards to departments with this award.

Science and research is still male dominated and this will probably affect the studies. There is likely to be unconscious bias in science.

My injury has been part of a legal process and in this too I perceive bias. I am not sure how many men who are making claims will be asked about their ability to undertake housework!

It will be a long process to resolve this and promote women in science and research.

[Marnie22]

Yes, I heard about this some time ago. Women and men differ physically in many ways, especially hormonally, but scientists don't seem to have considered that much..... Then when women have medical conditions that are manifested differently from men, they are not always diagnosed correctly. ( One example is women's heart attack symptoms. ) Needs to be corrected

[sealiphone]

You may be interested in the book Inferior, my daughter thought it was very good.

amazon.co.uk/Inferior-Scien...