Women's football has become a dangerous game. Many of the sport's brightest stars have suffered career-ruining injuries.¹ The culprit may be on their feet.

A recent survey of top players saw 82% call their boots uncomfortable. With only a limited number of boots designed specially for women, many use men's boots. Sports scientists now claim that wearing these boots significantly increases the risk of injury.

Boots are the tip of the iceberg. From training routines to tackling, shin pads to the ball itself, the whole sport of football was designed with men in mind. 

And it is not just sport. The buildings we live in, the tools we use, the software we rely on - in many cases these have been designed by, for and with men.

James BrownA 20th Century American musician. He is known as the "Godfather of Soul". sang This is a man's world in 1966. But Brown himself would be surprised to find out how much.

As author Caroline Criado Perez wrote in her 2019 book Invisible Women: "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."²

There are numerous examples. Modernist architect Le CorbusierA Swiss-French architect and urban planner (real name Charles-Edouard Jeanneret). He was one of the pioneers of modern architecture. designed buildings around the height of an average Frenchman.

Most medical research is based on studies of men. The mannequinsDummies used to display clothes. used for CPRShort for cardiopulmonary resuscitation. An emergency procedure that is used to save someone's life if their breathing or heart stops. training are based on male bodies. Perhaps as a result, men are 23% more likely to survive resuscitationReviving someone who is unconscious due to a serious medical issue. than women. Crash test dummies are also largely based on men - and women involved in car crashes have a 47% higher chance of serious injury than men.

Smartphones are designed with men's larger hands in mind, making them harder for women to use. Voice recognition software is trained on men, and so works better with male voices.

Even the standard temperature in American offices is based on the needs of an averagely-sized 40-year old man - 5F (2.2C) colder than that comfortable for a woman of the same age.

These choices were not meant to harm women. But by taking men as the default, they have made life for women more difficult and dangerous.

This imbalance has deep roots. For centuries, many societies were dominated by men. Women were often uneducated and housebound. Their housework was valued far less than the jobs performed by men.

This has changed over the last century as more women enter employment. In Britain, the employment rate for women has increased from 24% in 1914 to 72% in 2023.³

Further change is afoot. There are now more female architects and designers than ever before. More women in Britain now study architecture than men. Women now have the chance to design things for their own needs.

But huge inequality remains.⁴ The people designing our cities, equipment and activities are still often men. In the United States, only 23% of currently employed architects are women. Women make up just 11% of software developers.

In France, there is evidence that serious working injuries have been decreasing for men but increasing for women - perhaps a sign that safety procedures are still made with men in mind.

Yes: Overturning centuries of design for men is no easy task. It might take centuries more, along with a vast amount of will and effort, to reimagine and rebuild our cities and lives in a fairer way.

No: Becoming aware of the problem was the important step. Now that we know just how much of the world has been unwittingly designed by men for men, we can adapt our societies piece by piece.

Or... The world is not made for all men, but a certain type of man - white, adult, able-bodied, often physically fit. Gender imbalance is just one of the inequalities that design needs to address.