Thanks, Leah, for the review and for all the connections you've made to coalitional ideas between feminism and disability. You and readers might be interested in "visitability" (https://visitability.org/) as an architectural/social concept—retrofitting homes for some basic access, even if not full universal design. I love the elegance of this idea: taking the status quo and reworking its structures in a pragmatic way.
Leah's remark about houses not being accessible by design really resonates with me. My family is gearing up to buy our first house, and we've already had some of the same frustrations. In addition to hoping that we'll be able to live in a given house through out old age, we want to be able to easily welcome all of our friends and family into our home, whether they are elderly, have mobility limitations, a temporary injury, etc. It's surprisingly difficult to find houses that don't have a lot of stairs, even between the driveway and front door! The concept of "visitability" is really helpful in thinking about how we could make simple modifications even if our house isn't the ideal of accessibility.
Glad to hear it! I also think it's easy to imagine that you need x amount of house footprint that's got room enough for lots of kinds of spaces, when it may be more effective to think about the multiple purposes a single room could serve if we spent more money/time on interior architecture. So, for example, a higher quality sleeper sofa or murphy bed if there's no downstairs bedroom, etc.
That's so interesting! This seems really applicable to single-family homes, but do you know if visitability has much to say about "medium" density type housing? For example, in the neighborhood I live in, most apartment dwellers live in duplexes or triplexes, with many apartments totally located on the second or third floor of a small building. When building new construction, I wonder if there is anything in between a full (expensive) elevator and nothing. Can stairs be built to better accommodate chairlifts? Is there any possibility that a single-person elevator could be financially doable?
I also have always lived in dense housing environments, so I feel you on this one! I've seen only less elegant solutions—more outdoor chair lifts on triple-decker houses, sometimes a retrofitted ramp to a back patio door, and then an overhaul of the first level for bedroom/bathroom access. So, mobility-wise, it's hard. But from a visitability standpoint of other kinds of support, density is good. I think of my friends, a family of four, who live downstairs from an aging parent, for example, and another friend whose sister and daughters share her space while her mother, with dementia, lives with them but has her own semi-detached "floor" upstairs. And one of my sons has Down syndrome, so I like imagining various creative close-by housing arrangements for him to have support and independence, as he wishes/needs. Plus the benefit of dense mixed zoning, so close-by businesses, public transit, etc.
Yeah, and it also seems like duplex-style housing is at a particular disadvantage here, since large apartment buildings will have an elevator. In some smaller European apartment buildings, I've used elevators that are just large enough for one or two people (and ironically even some that I don't think a wheelchair could fit into easily). I don't recall ever seeing that in the US, but I don't know why that is.
I love making food, especially baked goods and desserts, for friends with allergies and dietary restrictions. Honestly I like it so much that I think it borders on selfishness. I just live for the incredulous responses I get when a crowd of people realizes that dessert they were practically inhaling was 100% vegan.
I do think that being raised vegetarian has influenced my attitude towards others' dietary restrictions. I dislike it when a vegetarian dish is just a one-size-fits-all attempt to swap a meat protein with a vegetarian one, often without real thought towards taste. I always suggest to friends when making a dietary accommodation that they should go at it with the attitude of making something they love to eat that just happens to satisfy the accommodation. Chana masala with basmati rice is infinitely better as a vegan and gluten free dish than, say, a mushy vegetarian patty on a crumbling gluten free bun.
I'm vegetarian and I *strongly* agree on how much better it is to have meals that are centered on veggies, rather than swap in a wan vegetable or fake meat for the heart of a meat-based meal.
But I'm still really bad at doing this for others, particularly for gluten sensitivity.
Yes! I think what really helps me is looking at food from cultures that tend to "organically" fit a lot of dietary restrictions (Indian food in particular seems to work well for me). That helps me be certain that whatever dish I'm making will feel like a complete meal and not an afterthought.
I've got a younger brother with a lot of allergies (milk, eggs, finned fish, most nuts), and my mom has made a point of trying to cook in a way that included him, rather than expecting him to eat separately all the time. Sometimes that meant making a main course completely differently; sometimes that meant taking his portion out before she added cheese or an egg, and letting him put hummus or something on his plate instead. I probably haven't admired that commitment of hers enough, because it's not an easy thing to do.
I like experimenting with recipe modification to accommodate food restrictions, too — if I'm in a kitchen with a working dishwashing machine: my own mild grip problems require practically no accommodation, but they do make handling breakable stuff covered in in a slick of dish soap and water a task of particular drudgery for me, reminding me of the shame of my own clumsiness, and that I should not be ashamed of clumsiness in this respect, which instead of canceling out shame, instead leaves me ashamed for feeling ashamed!
Our current landlords are quite nice people, but after some unfortunate misunderstandings with our previous landlord, plucking up the courage to get the broken dishwasher replaced, now I know it's not the kind built to be worth professionally repairing and the basic maintenance I trust myself to do on it hasn't fixed it, has been hard. But I got off topic: recipes!
Experimenting with chickpea meringues is just fun (when the dishwasher worked)! The science of making heat-stable, edible foams out of something that's not egg whites is interesting! It is technically an imitation, but not, I think, a sad one:
Thank you for your piece, Leah. As someone on the autism spectrum with an urban planning degree, this is something I think about. I notice the difference in physical objectives, but recently I have been wondering about other not necessarily physical city features, such as crosswalk timers. I do not have great motor skills, meaning I walk slower and a bit "off." Whenever I cross a busy intersection via foot with a timer counting down, I am keenly aware that I have limited time, especially when I have a purse or backpack with me. I've been wondering if there is any data on timers and whether they accommodate everyone's (or at least people with mobility issues) time needed to get across safely.
Catherine, the "Green Man +" program in Singapore addresses this in a super elegant way. Seniors or people with disabilities can get a particular chip on their metro cards, and when the card is hovered over a sensor at a crosswalk signal request box, the crosswalk timer will expand to include a dozen or more additional seconds, just for that person's crossing. After that, the timer will revert to its ordinary timing. They've rolled this out at hundreds of intersections there, to make crossings more flexible without permanent extensions. And I know in NYC there have been demographic studies in areas where many elders live, for ex, resulting in permanently extended crossing times.
This is probably my benighted libertarian side speaking, but I worry about the idea of designing everything to work for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society--yes, even though I'm part of the weaker half. I think my concern specifically is a version of the law of unintended consequences.
In the case of disability design--or rather, since we're talking about women too, and we're not definitionally disabled--all-ability design?--in this context, I worry that we're talking ourselves into a much more expensive solution to a series of admittedly pervasive problems than we realize.
Take for instance the podium issue. To have a set of podiums that collectively accommodate all heights, from the enormous LeBron James to the petite Amanda, would be more expensive than having a single podium; an adjustable podium is more expensive than a non-adjustable podium. That's a relatively trivial matter, but then start thinking about the car crash dummy problem Leah raises in her linked talk. If dummies were designed to represent not only average men but also average women, we would no doubt ultimately be looking at safer cars--but also, due to the additional testing, design, and safety features, more expensive cars.
Even in the medical field, where it might seem that testing drugs on women as well as men is a no-brainer, the additional complexity of the female cycle and pregnancy probably means studies would need to be longer, more plentiful, etc.--and therefore more expensive, meaning that treatments and drugs are ultimately more expensive as well.
The increased costs of designing a society for everyone will, of course, ultimately be born by everyone, including those that such a society is supposed to help--just as the costs of the child tax credit (which my husband and I do appreciate!) ultimately show up in the inflation that is currently causing our grocery bills to balloon.
I'm not necessarily trying to argue that we shouldn't design a society that is more accommodating to women, the elderly, the disabled, etc. But it's important I think to bear in mind that this isn't a cost-free solution to the problem of being, well, human, and therefore different from one another. And maybe a better solution than trying to remake everything physically to suit everyone is for human beings themselves to be more accommodating. That's not going to solve the car safety problem, but it might help in less dramatic situations. If every house on my street had to put in a mandatory wheel chair ramp, that is not necessarily a better solution than people being willing to help each other up the two front steps on an as-needed basis. But of course, the interpersonal and design-based solutions are not mutually exclusive; in an ideal world, everything is designed to fit everybody, and everybody is kind!
Finally, I wonder if the desire for a world that everyone can navigate easily is not, in its own way, a kind of individualism. Yes, people should be thoughtful in producing their products--especially when they produce for groups that are different from themselves (e.g. men for women) or are otherwise in danger of being marginalized. But on the other hand, asking for a world physically designed so that I need never ask for help is asking for a world in which I don't need to interact with people who are (in the world as it exists) stronger and more able than me. That world is less scary for me to live in, and perhaps more convenient; but I'm not sure it's _better_ than an interdependent world. (Fun scifi concept there!)
I definitely start worrying about costs, monetary or otherwise, when I see an excess of accommodation directed towards a person who doesn't seem to actually exist. I've seen this in my local Buy Nothing group, which last year suffered from an excess of disclaimers in a lot of posts (e.g. "are there stairs involved? does the house have a dog? how COVID safe is the house? does anyone smoke?" etc etc etc).
While I think it's great to accommodate our neighbors and provide this information if anyone wants it, no one really seemed to need this information with any sort of frequency. This leads me to think that there are some situations where it's just better for the person with the need to ask for an accommodation rather than everyone else trying to cast an extremely wide net. There is perhaps a risk of someone needing an accommodation that *isn't* on the standard list and feeling that because that accommodation wasn't mentioned on the list, it isn't possible. I would much rather the default assumption be that everyone is willing to try their best to find a creative solution to any need that arises.
Understand where you're coming from, Sophia! The lectern for Amanda in the book is an example of a bespoke design that's really meant to raise questions more than anything. It's not meant to be a mass-manufactured product; more a thing-to-think-with, an invitation to rethink normalcy. Although plenty of folks in design would point to "mass customization" that's more available now than ever—shoes or jeans, say, in the color combo that you choose, and when produced in mass quantities the cost factor isn't much. That's also been true with closed captioning on televisions, which was a hard-won fight by deaf activists in the 80s. Once cc capability was legally required in all tvs, the cost of that technology at the scale of millions dropped to nearly-incalculable. There are other products like this, too. But it's also true that a civil society has to decide to make room, full stop, even if expensive, if people with all bodies are going to access education, transportation, jobs, etc., you know? Disability design is honestly one of the most creative fields I know of—adapting and reinventing the world by necessity and ingenuity, both.
Hmmm ... so it sounds like what you're suggesting is that there's something of a curve involved. That is, a new accommodation may begin by being difficult to put into place, costly, etc., but over time it gets assimilated into our notion of normal, and the processes involved become so streamlined (as they become more common) that the cost-benefit analysis becomes more in favor of the accommodation than not?
Yes, that has been certainly sometimes been the case, just with economies of scale that result from industrial production processes. But again, I'd want to affirm both the business case where mass manufacturing helps bring a product to a low-enough cost to be widely accessible, *and* the idea that a democratic and just society will spend the money needed to make full participation in common goods possible.
As a designer, we deal with problems like this all time. You’re, right, the work is more intensive. Also, it’s more profitable and rewarding. Take this website for example. It’s designed to work on big desktop monitors and tiny mobile screens. If you were to inspect the code you’d see special placed for enabling assistive devices. While this seems to be very specialized the accommodations help all people. Websites that easy for senior citizens to read all easier for Google to crawl and for smart phones to read aloud.
Good design always tests for extreme use cases. That’s different than testing for exceptions. So we always have to define our limits. We can do that’s without ignoring those things that fall outside the boundaries. A child can’t ride a roller coaster designed for adults but they can have an exciting experience with other rides.
The solutions can often be surprising and affordable. Good design needs to account for both the budget and the use case. A simple solution might be something like this on a table top that was intended for children
Adir Foldable Tabletop Podium - Portable Presentation Podium, Lectern Book Stand for Reading in Churches, Restaurants, and Classrooms (Beige)
kitchens all over the world are designed by men with counter heights, stove heights for men and not for the women who most typically use them. seat belts in automobiles are patently unsafe for pregnant women and are downright uncomfortable (and probably unsafe) for short women with large breasts. it was said that the minivan was designed for women. well the seatbelts are not. steering wheels - height and size - are better designed for men. as i grow older (and shorter), i find many things that i could formerly reach (at 5'4") are now literally out of reach without a stool or ladder. sure, i can get one, but these things should have not been put up so high to begin with. they were always a challenge for me to reach - but a younger person is safer on a stool or ladder (or box as in the case of the lectern). half the world is female. it's time to configure for AT LEAST that demographic in a spatial sense. and, after seeing the amazing ways that designers are now using space in RV's with many spaces serving multiple purposes, i feel sure they could easily build steps into a lectern or create a sturdy, light weight, collapsible one that would fit into a suitcase. i'd bet money on it.
The short women with large breasts and seatbelts comment. I had actually intended to mention that here and then forgot to. I often have to wear the seatbelt under my left arm in order to keep my breasts from pushing the belt up into my neck.
"What accommodations have made you more aware that you aren’t welcome in a space by default?"
The world needed both the reminder that common infections that are usually no big deal for the healthy can be serious for those with risk factors and increased awareness of the truth, which is that airborne spread is a far more common means of transmission than we used to tell ourselves:
One of the great miracles of COVID restrictions, for example, was a net decrease in asthma severity, as asthmatics got time off from the merry-go-round of common infections to let their lungs heal:
I'm one of these asthmatics. But, perhaps due to an underlying connective-tissue disorder, perhaps also due to childbearing, my asthma and respiratory allergies aren't easy to control and I'm frequently symptomatic. Moreover, there's no way for me to tell these non-infectious symptoms apart from the first signs of coming down with something. Protecting vulnerable people like me is precisely why it's become more taboo to appear in public with respiratory symptoms. We are all more aware of infectious control now, and the burden to the vulnerable of casual disregard for it. But frustratingly, this means I also feel less welcome in public as one of these vulnerable people, since my vulnerability frequently shows itself as respiratory symptoms!
As parents of young schoolchildren, we're also exposed to a double helping of bugs this cold and flu season. Our household is as vaccinated as eligibility allows, but we're still catching plenty of stuff, which of course *increases* the likelihood any symptoms I have really are infectious. Before COVID, I was an active singer, including at church, but even in groups requiring singing masks and up-to-date vaccinations, I cannot in good conscience participate yet, especially if I know there are other medically-vulnerable people participating — and especially if those medically-vulnerable people include professional singers, whose livelihoods as well as health depend on not catching the symptoms I'd be showing up with (which may not be contagious, but then again may be).
I used to simply assume my symptoms were non-infectious unless I had clear evidence to the contrary, but now I keenly feel this burden of proof has been reversed. This reversal may be what's necessary to keep public spaces safe for the vulnerable, but I'm feeling the strain of the same increased awareness of vulnerable people like me also creating pressures which exclude me from public space!
Yes! Just watched Leah's panel, which was fantastic. I have to foot-stomp the recommendation for "Debt: The First 5,000 Years." It's an enormous, but fantastic book. Like Leah, the cultural and sociological examples of debt as a positive, community-strengthening force (vs. the often shameful, cold, and de-personalized obligations that tend to define the modern financial concept of debt) really stuck with me. I wish David Graber would have lived long enough to write an addendum that framed the modern problems of medical and student loan debt in the context of the rest of the book.
I remember attending a music seminar in my university's seminary building when I was in undergrad. There were a lot of women attending the sessions, and bathrooms became a problem because nearly all the bathrooms in the building were for men; I think there might have been a single one-stall bathroom for women, but that was it. It was obvious that they did not expect women to be studying theology/ministry on the graduate level.
Bathroom design/availability continues to be a surprisingly big issue in this day and age (aside from the recent trans bathroom debates). I remember Sheryl Sandberg mentioning in her book "Lean In" that in the early days of her tech career, she attended business meetings in some office buildings that had no women's restrooms. My husband works at a seminary, and while women are a very small minority of the people who use the building, there is definitely a need for well-maintained women's restrooms (especially since some of the staff are women). I remember the first time I used the women's' restroom in the building, and it was missing some key features, like waste containers for sanitary products and changing tables (happily, both the men's and women's restrooms will have the latter when the building is updated in the near future). I am always amazed that even newer construction hasn't solved common bathroom problems, like the fact that traffic always moves faster in the men's room because the male anatomy and convention of using the bathroom doesn't require everyone to sit down every time (not to mention clothing - imagine how much longer it would take men to pee if they wore pantyhose!). Many places now have more stalls in women's restrooms by design, but not enough to reduce long lines at busy times.
There is also still a huge imbalance in restroom design when it comes to changing stations; most of the time when my family is out at activities where we have to use public restrooms, there is only a changing station in the women's restroom, but not the men's. This implies that women are the only people that ever have a need to change a child's diaper outside the home, or that men never take their small children out without a female partner. I know this problem is a consequence of many bathrooms not being updated since construction codes/standards have changed in recent years, but it's extremely frustrating, especially on road trips. This is slowly changing, though - it's really exciting when we stop someplace and my husband finds a changing table in the men's bathroom.
I'm a man almost totally blind since birth. It's worth discussingg the calls for high density housing as a solution to the housingg availability crisis in some areas. This will likely mean more stairs. Fewer ground floor apartments and one-story houses is an inconvenience for me, but a real disaster for people with other physical disabilities.
Shiffting topics, I would recommend Hello Darkness My Old Friend by Sandy Greenberg, a memoir of a man who became blind in college and was a roommate of Art Garfunkle from Simon and Garfunkle, for a sometimes startling take on the issue of passingg as able bodied. It's gradually revealed that he refused offers in standard mobility training practices. As a lifelongg cane user, I just don't understand this decision, but modern canes for the blind are pretty recent.
I love the example you highlighted of Amanda's podium, and the idea of treating people as a guest in their *own right*. The concept of accommodations that emphasize exclusion themselves is so important to highlight.
But I do wonder how to apply this concept to the feminist project? What are the tools and social expectations that specifically exclude 'women' vs exclude predominantly women but also a whole lot of other people too?
It's definitely part of the feminist project to dismantle the idea of a tall white man as the norm. But I'm wary of say, stating that providing childcare at a conference is specifically to accommodate women vs a celebration of all caregivers.
My first go-to is that parents of any gender should have leave to take care of infants, but moms have _distinct_ needs from dads (breastfeeding, postpartum recovery, etc.).
This is where I see an opportunity to include trans dads though, without (imo) losing anything for women like you and me. Also, I have a general wariness of saying a birthing parent needs *more* leave vs having super generous leave to begin with?
I think one way of perceiving such accommodations as part of feminism is to look at the intention (or lack thereof) of an exclusion. For example, when tools are made too large to accommodate smaller hands, women are more likely to have issues, but of course men with smaller hands will also have that issue. But it's useful to label this as a feminist issue because tools are sized to the median man *because* of sexism, implicit or explicit.
I was thinking over your comment a little more and I also wanted to say that I'm not sure the feminist project can actually sustain itself if it restricts itself to fighting wrongs that specifically exclude women, as opposed to wrongs that are primarily caused by sexism but also affect other groups. Implicit bias hurts men who are perceived to be more "feminine" as well as women. Hostile building designs also hurt men who are on the smaller side of average. A world that is difficult to navigate with small children hurts dads as well as moms. But I guess I would say that this isn't a reason to not lump these in with feminism rather than a reminder that sexism hurts everyone.
Exactly! I think we should celebrate that making space for women also makes space for men & trans folks. That's awesome! Not somehow less awesome because it's not exclusively for women.
I think I don't understand your original comment then, haha. Is your objection to the phrasing of accommodations as specifically "including women" as opposed to, say, "combatting sexism" (which captures that the reason behind the exclusion is sexist, but leaves open the possibility of non-women benefiting)?
Definitely on me for not being clear! Erika Bachiochi in particular sees the move to include trans men and women, and gay and lesbian and bisexual and asexual people, as counter to the feminist project and a threat. I don't share that perspective. I also can't think of accommodations that are exclusively for women that emphasize solely women's exclusion - and I think that's okay! I see the feminist project as a work to welcome everyone, not just a particular male ideal.
Thanks, Leah, for the review and for all the connections you've made to coalitional ideas between feminism and disability. You and readers might be interested in "visitability" (https://visitability.org/) as an architectural/social concept—retrofitting homes for some basic access, even if not full universal design. I love the elegance of this idea: taking the status quo and reworking its structures in a pragmatic way.
Leah's remark about houses not being accessible by design really resonates with me. My family is gearing up to buy our first house, and we've already had some of the same frustrations. In addition to hoping that we'll be able to live in a given house through out old age, we want to be able to easily welcome all of our friends and family into our home, whether they are elderly, have mobility limitations, a temporary injury, etc. It's surprisingly difficult to find houses that don't have a lot of stairs, even between the driveway and front door! The concept of "visitability" is really helpful in thinking about how we could make simple modifications even if our house isn't the ideal of accessibility.
Glad to hear it! I also think it's easy to imagine that you need x amount of house footprint that's got room enough for lots of kinds of spaces, when it may be more effective to think about the multiple purposes a single room could serve if we spent more money/time on interior architecture. So, for example, a higher quality sleeper sofa or murphy bed if there's no downstairs bedroom, etc.
That's so interesting! This seems really applicable to single-family homes, but do you know if visitability has much to say about "medium" density type housing? For example, in the neighborhood I live in, most apartment dwellers live in duplexes or triplexes, with many apartments totally located on the second or third floor of a small building. When building new construction, I wonder if there is anything in between a full (expensive) elevator and nothing. Can stairs be built to better accommodate chairlifts? Is there any possibility that a single-person elevator could be financially doable?
I also have always lived in dense housing environments, so I feel you on this one! I've seen only less elegant solutions—more outdoor chair lifts on triple-decker houses, sometimes a retrofitted ramp to a back patio door, and then an overhaul of the first level for bedroom/bathroom access. So, mobility-wise, it's hard. But from a visitability standpoint of other kinds of support, density is good. I think of my friends, a family of four, who live downstairs from an aging parent, for example, and another friend whose sister and daughters share her space while her mother, with dementia, lives with them but has her own semi-detached "floor" upstairs. And one of my sons has Down syndrome, so I like imagining various creative close-by housing arrangements for him to have support and independence, as he wishes/needs. Plus the benefit of dense mixed zoning, so close-by businesses, public transit, etc.
Yeah, and it also seems like duplex-style housing is at a particular disadvantage here, since large apartment buildings will have an elevator. In some smaller European apartment buildings, I've used elevators that are just large enough for one or two people (and ironically even some that I don't think a wheelchair could fit into easily). I don't recall ever seeing that in the US, but I don't know why that is.
I love making food, especially baked goods and desserts, for friends with allergies and dietary restrictions. Honestly I like it so much that I think it borders on selfishness. I just live for the incredulous responses I get when a crowd of people realizes that dessert they were practically inhaling was 100% vegan.
I do think that being raised vegetarian has influenced my attitude towards others' dietary restrictions. I dislike it when a vegetarian dish is just a one-size-fits-all attempt to swap a meat protein with a vegetarian one, often without real thought towards taste. I always suggest to friends when making a dietary accommodation that they should go at it with the attitude of making something they love to eat that just happens to satisfy the accommodation. Chana masala with basmati rice is infinitely better as a vegan and gluten free dish than, say, a mushy vegetarian patty on a crumbling gluten free bun.
I'm vegetarian and I *strongly* agree on how much better it is to have meals that are centered on veggies, rather than swap in a wan vegetable or fake meat for the heart of a meat-based meal.
But I'm still really bad at doing this for others, particularly for gluten sensitivity.
Yes! I think what really helps me is looking at food from cultures that tend to "organically" fit a lot of dietary restrictions (Indian food in particular seems to work well for me). That helps me be certain that whatever dish I'm making will feel like a complete meal and not an afterthought.
I've got a younger brother with a lot of allergies (milk, eggs, finned fish, most nuts), and my mom has made a point of trying to cook in a way that included him, rather than expecting him to eat separately all the time. Sometimes that meant making a main course completely differently; sometimes that meant taking his portion out before she added cheese or an egg, and letting him put hummus or something on his plate instead. I probably haven't admired that commitment of hers enough, because it's not an easy thing to do.
I like experimenting with recipe modification to accommodate food restrictions, too — if I'm in a kitchen with a working dishwashing machine: my own mild grip problems require practically no accommodation, but they do make handling breakable stuff covered in in a slick of dish soap and water a task of particular drudgery for me, reminding me of the shame of my own clumsiness, and that I should not be ashamed of clumsiness in this respect, which instead of canceling out shame, instead leaves me ashamed for feeling ashamed!
Our current landlords are quite nice people, but after some unfortunate misunderstandings with our previous landlord, plucking up the courage to get the broken dishwasher replaced, now I know it's not the kind built to be worth professionally repairing and the basic maintenance I trust myself to do on it hasn't fixed it, has been hard. But I got off topic: recipes!
Experimenting with chickpea meringues is just fun (when the dishwasher worked)! The science of making heat-stable, edible foams out of something that's not egg whites is interesting! It is technically an imitation, but not, I think, a sad one:
https://www.seriouseats.com/science-of-aquafaba-meringues-5185233
Thank you for your piece, Leah. As someone on the autism spectrum with an urban planning degree, this is something I think about. I notice the difference in physical objectives, but recently I have been wondering about other not necessarily physical city features, such as crosswalk timers. I do not have great motor skills, meaning I walk slower and a bit "off." Whenever I cross a busy intersection via foot with a timer counting down, I am keenly aware that I have limited time, especially when I have a purse or backpack with me. I've been wondering if there is any data on timers and whether they accommodate everyone's (or at least people with mobility issues) time needed to get across safely.
Catherine, the "Green Man +" program in Singapore addresses this in a super elegant way. Seniors or people with disabilities can get a particular chip on their metro cards, and when the card is hovered over a sensor at a crosswalk signal request box, the crosswalk timer will expand to include a dozen or more additional seconds, just for that person's crossing. After that, the timer will revert to its ordinary timing. They've rolled this out at hundreds of intersections there, to make crossings more flexible without permanent extensions. And I know in NYC there have been demographic studies in areas where many elders live, for ex, resulting in permanently extended crossing times.
That's so cool! I want to go to Singapore for the urban planning features. My brother visited and mentioned how perfectly designed it was.
I'll have to check into the NYC studies too, that is more familiar territory for me. I was shocked at how inaccessible the Subway system was.
This is probably my benighted libertarian side speaking, but I worry about the idea of designing everything to work for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society--yes, even though I'm part of the weaker half. I think my concern specifically is a version of the law of unintended consequences.
In the case of disability design--or rather, since we're talking about women too, and we're not definitionally disabled--all-ability design?--in this context, I worry that we're talking ourselves into a much more expensive solution to a series of admittedly pervasive problems than we realize.
Take for instance the podium issue. To have a set of podiums that collectively accommodate all heights, from the enormous LeBron James to the petite Amanda, would be more expensive than having a single podium; an adjustable podium is more expensive than a non-adjustable podium. That's a relatively trivial matter, but then start thinking about the car crash dummy problem Leah raises in her linked talk. If dummies were designed to represent not only average men but also average women, we would no doubt ultimately be looking at safer cars--but also, due to the additional testing, design, and safety features, more expensive cars.
Even in the medical field, where it might seem that testing drugs on women as well as men is a no-brainer, the additional complexity of the female cycle and pregnancy probably means studies would need to be longer, more plentiful, etc.--and therefore more expensive, meaning that treatments and drugs are ultimately more expensive as well.
The increased costs of designing a society for everyone will, of course, ultimately be born by everyone, including those that such a society is supposed to help--just as the costs of the child tax credit (which my husband and I do appreciate!) ultimately show up in the inflation that is currently causing our grocery bills to balloon.
I'm not necessarily trying to argue that we shouldn't design a society that is more accommodating to women, the elderly, the disabled, etc. But it's important I think to bear in mind that this isn't a cost-free solution to the problem of being, well, human, and therefore different from one another. And maybe a better solution than trying to remake everything physically to suit everyone is for human beings themselves to be more accommodating. That's not going to solve the car safety problem, but it might help in less dramatic situations. If every house on my street had to put in a mandatory wheel chair ramp, that is not necessarily a better solution than people being willing to help each other up the two front steps on an as-needed basis. But of course, the interpersonal and design-based solutions are not mutually exclusive; in an ideal world, everything is designed to fit everybody, and everybody is kind!
Finally, I wonder if the desire for a world that everyone can navigate easily is not, in its own way, a kind of individualism. Yes, people should be thoughtful in producing their products--especially when they produce for groups that are different from themselves (e.g. men for women) or are otherwise in danger of being marginalized. But on the other hand, asking for a world physically designed so that I need never ask for help is asking for a world in which I don't need to interact with people who are (in the world as it exists) stronger and more able than me. That world is less scary for me to live in, and perhaps more convenient; but I'm not sure it's _better_ than an interdependent world. (Fun scifi concept there!)
I definitely start worrying about costs, monetary or otherwise, when I see an excess of accommodation directed towards a person who doesn't seem to actually exist. I've seen this in my local Buy Nothing group, which last year suffered from an excess of disclaimers in a lot of posts (e.g. "are there stairs involved? does the house have a dog? how COVID safe is the house? does anyone smoke?" etc etc etc).
While I think it's great to accommodate our neighbors and provide this information if anyone wants it, no one really seemed to need this information with any sort of frequency. This leads me to think that there are some situations where it's just better for the person with the need to ask for an accommodation rather than everyone else trying to cast an extremely wide net. There is perhaps a risk of someone needing an accommodation that *isn't* on the standard list and feeling that because that accommodation wasn't mentioned on the list, it isn't possible. I would much rather the default assumption be that everyone is willing to try their best to find a creative solution to any need that arises.
Understand where you're coming from, Sophia! The lectern for Amanda in the book is an example of a bespoke design that's really meant to raise questions more than anything. It's not meant to be a mass-manufactured product; more a thing-to-think-with, an invitation to rethink normalcy. Although plenty of folks in design would point to "mass customization" that's more available now than ever—shoes or jeans, say, in the color combo that you choose, and when produced in mass quantities the cost factor isn't much. That's also been true with closed captioning on televisions, which was a hard-won fight by deaf activists in the 80s. Once cc capability was legally required in all tvs, the cost of that technology at the scale of millions dropped to nearly-incalculable. There are other products like this, too. But it's also true that a civil society has to decide to make room, full stop, even if expensive, if people with all bodies are going to access education, transportation, jobs, etc., you know? Disability design is honestly one of the most creative fields I know of—adapting and reinventing the world by necessity and ingenuity, both.
Hmmm ... so it sounds like what you're suggesting is that there's something of a curve involved. That is, a new accommodation may begin by being difficult to put into place, costly, etc., but over time it gets assimilated into our notion of normal, and the processes involved become so streamlined (as they become more common) that the cost-benefit analysis becomes more in favor of the accommodation than not?
Yes, that has been certainly sometimes been the case, just with economies of scale that result from industrial production processes. But again, I'd want to affirm both the business case where mass manufacturing helps bring a product to a low-enough cost to be widely accessible, *and* the idea that a democratic and just society will spend the money needed to make full participation in common goods possible.
That's right. The design should meet the scale of the problem. That's fantastic if accommodations can be made on the fly with some creative thinking.
As a designer, we deal with problems like this all time. You’re, right, the work is more intensive. Also, it’s more profitable and rewarding. Take this website for example. It’s designed to work on big desktop monitors and tiny mobile screens. If you were to inspect the code you’d see special placed for enabling assistive devices. While this seems to be very specialized the accommodations help all people. Websites that easy for senior citizens to read all easier for Google to crawl and for smart phones to read aloud.
Good design always tests for extreme use cases. That’s different than testing for exceptions. So we always have to define our limits. We can do that’s without ignoring those things that fall outside the boundaries. A child can’t ride a roller coaster designed for adults but they can have an exciting experience with other rides.
The solutions can often be surprising and affordable. Good design needs to account for both the budget and the use case. A simple solution might be something like this on a table top that was intended for children
Adir Foldable Tabletop Podium - Portable Presentation Podium, Lectern Book Stand for Reading in Churches, Restaurants, and Classrooms (Beige)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084JK3KKL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_GAH6AYSTR5YMHJMWYK41?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Thank you from the perspective from a designer. I find the details very interesting, and I appreciate your input!
Ugh. That's an awful reason to feel the need to avoid help, but I get it (having been harassed a couple times myself).
kitchens all over the world are designed by men with counter heights, stove heights for men and not for the women who most typically use them. seat belts in automobiles are patently unsafe for pregnant women and are downright uncomfortable (and probably unsafe) for short women with large breasts. it was said that the minivan was designed for women. well the seatbelts are not. steering wheels - height and size - are better designed for men. as i grow older (and shorter), i find many things that i could formerly reach (at 5'4") are now literally out of reach without a stool or ladder. sure, i can get one, but these things should have not been put up so high to begin with. they were always a challenge for me to reach - but a younger person is safer on a stool or ladder (or box as in the case of the lectern). half the world is female. it's time to configure for AT LEAST that demographic in a spatial sense. and, after seeing the amazing ways that designers are now using space in RV's with many spaces serving multiple purposes, i feel sure they could easily build steps into a lectern or create a sturdy, light weight, collapsible one that would fit into a suitcase. i'd bet money on it.
The short women with large breasts and seatbelts comment. I had actually intended to mention that here and then forgot to. I often have to wear the seatbelt under my left arm in order to keep my breasts from pushing the belt up into my neck.
"What accommodations have made you more aware that you aren’t welcome in a space by default?"
The world needed both the reminder that common infections that are usually no big deal for the healthy can be serious for those with risk factors and increased awareness of the truth, which is that airborne spread is a far more common means of transmission than we used to tell ourselves:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
One of the great miracles of COVID restrictions, for example, was a net decrease in asthma severity, as asthmatics got time off from the merry-go-round of common infections to let their lungs heal:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/the-pandemic-drove-asthma-attacks-down-why/619396/
I'm one of these asthmatics. But, perhaps due to an underlying connective-tissue disorder, perhaps also due to childbearing, my asthma and respiratory allergies aren't easy to control and I'm frequently symptomatic. Moreover, there's no way for me to tell these non-infectious symptoms apart from the first signs of coming down with something. Protecting vulnerable people like me is precisely why it's become more taboo to appear in public with respiratory symptoms. We are all more aware of infectious control now, and the burden to the vulnerable of casual disregard for it. But frustratingly, this means I also feel less welcome in public as one of these vulnerable people, since my vulnerability frequently shows itself as respiratory symptoms!
As parents of young schoolchildren, we're also exposed to a double helping of bugs this cold and flu season. Our household is as vaccinated as eligibility allows, but we're still catching plenty of stuff, which of course *increases* the likelihood any symptoms I have really are infectious. Before COVID, I was an active singer, including at church, but even in groups requiring singing masks and up-to-date vaccinations, I cannot in good conscience participate yet, especially if I know there are other medically-vulnerable people participating — and especially if those medically-vulnerable people include professional singers, whose livelihoods as well as health depend on not catching the symptoms I'd be showing up with (which may not be contagious, but then again may be).
I used to simply assume my symptoms were non-infectious unless I had clear evidence to the contrary, but now I keenly feel this burden of proof has been reversed. This reversal may be what's necessary to keep public spaces safe for the vulnerable, but I'm feeling the strain of the same increased awareness of vulnerable people like me also creating pressures which exclude me from public space!
Incredible talks - thanks for sharing the video!
Yes! Just watched Leah's panel, which was fantastic. I have to foot-stomp the recommendation for "Debt: The First 5,000 Years." It's an enormous, but fantastic book. Like Leah, the cultural and sociological examples of debt as a positive, community-strengthening force (vs. the often shameful, cold, and de-personalized obligations that tend to define the modern financial concept of debt) really stuck with me. I wish David Graber would have lived long enough to write an addendum that framed the modern problems of medical and student loan debt in the context of the rest of the book.
I remember attending a music seminar in my university's seminary building when I was in undergrad. There were a lot of women attending the sessions, and bathrooms became a problem because nearly all the bathrooms in the building were for men; I think there might have been a single one-stall bathroom for women, but that was it. It was obvious that they did not expect women to be studying theology/ministry on the graduate level.
Bathroom design/availability continues to be a surprisingly big issue in this day and age (aside from the recent trans bathroom debates). I remember Sheryl Sandberg mentioning in her book "Lean In" that in the early days of her tech career, she attended business meetings in some office buildings that had no women's restrooms. My husband works at a seminary, and while women are a very small minority of the people who use the building, there is definitely a need for well-maintained women's restrooms (especially since some of the staff are women). I remember the first time I used the women's' restroom in the building, and it was missing some key features, like waste containers for sanitary products and changing tables (happily, both the men's and women's restrooms will have the latter when the building is updated in the near future). I am always amazed that even newer construction hasn't solved common bathroom problems, like the fact that traffic always moves faster in the men's room because the male anatomy and convention of using the bathroom doesn't require everyone to sit down every time (not to mention clothing - imagine how much longer it would take men to pee if they wore pantyhose!). Many places now have more stalls in women's restrooms by design, but not enough to reduce long lines at busy times.
There is also still a huge imbalance in restroom design when it comes to changing stations; most of the time when my family is out at activities where we have to use public restrooms, there is only a changing station in the women's restroom, but not the men's. This implies that women are the only people that ever have a need to change a child's diaper outside the home, or that men never take their small children out without a female partner. I know this problem is a consequence of many bathrooms not being updated since construction codes/standards have changed in recent years, but it's extremely frustrating, especially on road trips. This is slowly changing, though - it's really exciting when we stop someplace and my husband finds a changing table in the men's bathroom.
My favorite evolution in this area is the "family restroom" phenomenon at airports. Those big roomy spaces have saved our lives more than once!
I'm a man almost totally blind since birth. It's worth discussingg the calls for high density housing as a solution to the housingg availability crisis in some areas. This will likely mean more stairs. Fewer ground floor apartments and one-story houses is an inconvenience for me, but a real disaster for people with other physical disabilities.
Shiffting topics, I would recommend Hello Darkness My Old Friend by Sandy Greenberg, a memoir of a man who became blind in college and was a roommate of Art Garfunkle from Simon and Garfunkle, for a sometimes startling take on the issue of passingg as able bodied. It's gradually revealed that he refused offers in standard mobility training practices. As a lifelongg cane user, I just don't understand this decision, but modern canes for the blind are pretty recent.
Thank you, Skylar! I love memoirs, and I'd love to know more about this perspective!
I love the example you highlighted of Amanda's podium, and the idea of treating people as a guest in their *own right*. The concept of accommodations that emphasize exclusion themselves is so important to highlight.
But I do wonder how to apply this concept to the feminist project? What are the tools and social expectations that specifically exclude 'women' vs exclude predominantly women but also a whole lot of other people too?
It's definitely part of the feminist project to dismantle the idea of a tall white man as the norm. But I'm wary of say, stating that providing childcare at a conference is specifically to accommodate women vs a celebration of all caregivers.
My first go-to is that parents of any gender should have leave to take care of infants, but moms have _distinct_ needs from dads (breastfeeding, postpartum recovery, etc.).
This is where I see an opportunity to include trans dads though, without (imo) losing anything for women like you and me. Also, I have a general wariness of saying a birthing parent needs *more* leave vs having super generous leave to begin with?
Yeah, I like the Swedish model of giving both parents 90 days each, and then something like 270 additional days to split between them as they saw fit.
I think one way of perceiving such accommodations as part of feminism is to look at the intention (or lack thereof) of an exclusion. For example, when tools are made too large to accommodate smaller hands, women are more likely to have issues, but of course men with smaller hands will also have that issue. But it's useful to label this as a feminist issue because tools are sized to the median man *because* of sexism, implicit or explicit.
I was thinking over your comment a little more and I also wanted to say that I'm not sure the feminist project can actually sustain itself if it restricts itself to fighting wrongs that specifically exclude women, as opposed to wrongs that are primarily caused by sexism but also affect other groups. Implicit bias hurts men who are perceived to be more "feminine" as well as women. Hostile building designs also hurt men who are on the smaller side of average. A world that is difficult to navigate with small children hurts dads as well as moms. But I guess I would say that this isn't a reason to not lump these in with feminism rather than a reminder that sexism hurts everyone.
Exactly! I think we should celebrate that making space for women also makes space for men & trans folks. That's awesome! Not somehow less awesome because it's not exclusively for women.
I think I don't understand your original comment then, haha. Is your objection to the phrasing of accommodations as specifically "including women" as opposed to, say, "combatting sexism" (which captures that the reason behind the exclusion is sexist, but leaves open the possibility of non-women benefiting)?
Definitely on me for not being clear! Erika Bachiochi in particular sees the move to include trans men and women, and gay and lesbian and bisexual and asexual people, as counter to the feminist project and a threat. I don't share that perspective. I also can't think of accommodations that are exclusively for women that emphasize solely women's exclusion - and I think that's okay! I see the feminist project as a work to welcome everyone, not just a particular male ideal.