friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
I do wonder what their recruitment algorithms are doing too. No wonder women and people of colour are under represented in there workforce.
Feminism and a world designed for men
- Thread starter friendofdorothy
- Start date
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
Here's a way that the world is designed for men... literally. I've been looking for road bike in the 24" size. None of the bikes out there come in that size. I've been to several shops, and no one carries it, let alone in a road bike. All they will show me is 26" bikes and those are too big for me. The last guy I checked with said, "Oh, you don't want that size bike. Those are only for kids." Well, I've seen the 10-year-olds they're producing, and they're mostly bigger than me. I took a 26" bike out of the rack and got on it and it was way too big. I couldn't get my toes on the ground. I asked if I could special order one. He said, "I suppose you could do that" and proceeded to ignore me. I thanked him for his time and left. So, not only can't I find what I want, I have to be patronized in the process of looking.
Don't get me started on how tools are designed.
Don't get me started on how tools are designed.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
I don't know if they'll ship to where you are (email them and ask?) but have a look at Islabikes. Or if not, find a shop that sells Liv bikes (Liv is a division of Giant which has an all female design team)
Islabikes - Premium lightweight bikes for children and adults
The UK's premier range of British designed high quality balance, first pedal, multi-purpose, road, cyclocross, gravel, mountain bikes and award-winning e-bikes for adults and kids of all ages, including a specialist range designed for cyclists living with dwarfism. Built to last and tested to...
www.islabikes.co.uk
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I don't know if they'll ship to where you are (email them and ask?) but have a look at Islabikes. Or if not, find a shop that sells Liv bikes (Liv is a division of Giant which has an all female design team)
Islabikes - Premium lightweight bikes for children and adults
The UK's premier range of British designed high quality balance, first pedal, multi-purpose, road, cyclocross, gravel, mountain bikes and award-winning e-bikes for adults and kids of all ages, including a specialist range designed for cyclists living with dwarfism. Built to last and tested to...
Thanks! I'll check it out. I may have to have them ship me a bike and then have it tuned up locally.
<edited to add>
A quick look at their website sizing page tells me that I'm in the XS range.
So there's either a gap in the market or it's too niche to produce. I don't think patriarchs are dictating what factories should produce.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
You're really missing the point here. It's not that some patriarch is dictating what's produced. Its that no thought is given to your needs in design, which may be different. I see a lot of women riding bikes that aren't sized correctly. That's a safety hazard, as well as uncomfortable. I've been riding a 26" bike and it just isn't suitable. They are discouraging their own market development with bad design, and snotty salespeople who don't care that your needs are different.
<edited to add>
They haven't even put enough thought into it to do the stereotypical "shrink it and pink it."
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Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I just can't believe there isn't a market for it. I looked it up and there's 54 million bike riders in the US. 25% are adult women.
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
It's true also that there's a gap in the market, but it's not being filled because the people designing bikes - or at least the people paying for that - don't really consider women (or shorter people overall) a gap that they want to sell to. It's still a pretty macho culture and even people who are purely out to make money do not always make rational decisions.
And then you get low sales of 24" bikes because women who need a bike like that don't get a chance to practice on bikes they can ride comfortably, so don't get used to riding often enough to want to buy bikes, etc, etc.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
I’m not sure whether or to what extent they use algorithms for recruitment.
The fact is, though, that if black women are disproportionately being considered to have “unprofessional hairstyles”, then the algorithm is likely to flag it <talking about two different algorithms here though, or anyway I take it that's what you meant>.
I don’t think tweaking the search algorithm to pretend it doesn’t make these connections is the right way to go. I think the algorithm is doing something valuable - otherwise we are relying on the media to decide it is profitable to raise such issues.
There are people who would very much like the algorithms to pretend we have achieved equality and everything is fine.
I would be more scared of a Google that told us that racism, sexism or class didn’t exist.
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What the fuck are you on about and why are you so desperate to undermine women?
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Wow, that's batshit even for you.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
That's not what he's saying at all, seems pretty obvious to me that 8ball is saying that the algorithms reflect and reproduce the prejudices already present in society. Tweaking the algorithms to hide that isn't going to address those prejudices, it would merely bury them.
So in a way, the algorithm writers are heroes?
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
No. You're clearly looking for some kind of scrap for some daft fucking reason. I shan't bother with you any more.
friendofdorothy
Solidarity against neoliberalism!
50 percent of people are female and a good preportion of them are smaller than the average man. That is not a niche market.
Who decides what to make? what to sell? How many top designers/ sales people/ factory owners are male or female? I wonder if the same shop also had a lack of bikes suitable for the extra tall customer?
and why would a sales person ingore a female customer like that? I imagine its same reason male plumbers/ engineers etc talk down to female customers. Don't say it doesnt happen.
I agree completely. What I struggled to bend my head around was that the market wasn’t being catered for by those who will fill gaps for profit.
They’re not bothered by who they’re selling to if it brings the dosh in.
Dismissal of women’s health problems as ‘benign’ leading to soaring NHS lists
Exclusive: Gender bias means debilitating gynaecological conditions are played down, says RCOG president
I can't say I'm massively surprised by this but it's enraging all the same.
weepiper
I fix the machines that fight climate change
A really regular occurrence in the bike shop that I work in is a woman either phoning or coming in with a question and either they are incredibly relieved because they get me (a woman) or they get one of the guys, who then treats them like any other customer as opposed to like some kind of idiot because they happen to be female. You can literally hear the anxiety as they ask whatever question it is and then the relief that they're not being humiliated when the mechanic is polite and friendly. It happens so often that it makes me wonder what the other bike shops are doing
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Dismissal of women’s health problems as ‘benign’ leading to soaring NHS lists
Exclusive: Gender bias means debilitating gynaecological conditions are played down, says RCOG presidentwww.theguardian.com
I can't say I'm massively surprised by this but it's enraging all the same.
Yeah, this use of 'benign' is really not good, especially when there are plenty of 'benign' conditions (not just "not cancer" but ones where the condition is labelled as "benign" in all the medical literature) that can still be lethal.
That's quite aside from all the ongoing suffering from non-lethal things just put to one side.
And having a whole blanket of things called 'benign gynaecology' seems like it's just slapping a big "deprioritise" sign on it.
I can't think of any other specialism that does that off the top of my head.
I had a friend who was constantly dismissed by her GP with a cystitis diagnosis. This was over the course of years. Then she happened to see a locum GP who got her to do a urine test, was horrified just looking at it and referred her to a specialist. She died of bladder cancer about a year later after radical surgery and radiotherapy.
Now she was about 40 when all this happened and I get that she didn't fall into the typical demographic for that kind of cancer but FFS. Maybe if the GP hadn't been so dismissive when she was sure it wasn't cystitis, things would've turned out differently.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Hard to say from individual cases. I think we’d all say these things need a closer look if particularly persistent.
A workmate of mine died a couple of years ago after chasing and chasing about bowel problems for a number of years and when they eventually took a proper look it was Stage 4 cancer.
Another workmate doesn’t have that long left due to a “benign” brain tumour. In his case they did catch it and he had some pioneering treatment, which has bought him some more time with his young family. It’s changed my feelings about the term “benign”.
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Most brain tumours are benign, but any space occupying lesion in the restricted intracranial space is eventually lethal.Hard to say from individual cases. I think we’d all say these things need a closer look if particularly persistent.
A workmate of mine died a couple of years ago after chasing and chasing about bowel problems for a number of years and when they eventually took a proper look it was Stage 4 cancer.
Another workmate doesn’t have that long left due to a “benign” brain tumour. In his case they did catch it and he had some pioneering treatment, which has bought him some more time with his young family. It’s changed my feelings about the term “benign”.
Whether a tumour is benign or malignant is down to its histopathology (basically whether it’s invasive and can metastasise) but benign tumours in the wrong place can kill ya. I had a (probably) benign tumour which was compressing my superior vena cava in my neck- I felt really unwell in the last few weeks!
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
Yeah, was aware of the limits of the term in the case of brain tumours. Was less aware how many other things called ‘benign’ are anything but.
Can see how these issues with the NHS come about when they’re panicking over the post-Covid cancer backlog.
Still, shite state of affairs.
mango5
Endeavour era
You're assuming that 'the market' is some kind of objective mechanism which filters out bias in the name of profit. The business case for 'diversity' has been presented for decades. In the context of this thread, bike manufacturers can't be bothered to fill female-shaped gaps in the market, and for various reasons including those mentioned by friendofdorothy and Yuwipi Woman there is little evidence of actual demand in that so-called gap.
It looks like the bicycle business is designed for men, not surprising that men are baffled by market gaps and fall back on some kind of 'money is gender blind' premise.
There are many gaps in many markets; they exist for lots of reasons. At firm level, the gap exists because there is no compelling business case.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
Not to mention that quite often market "gaps" are often deliberately maintained chasms. It's much easier to see in media - eg. the furious resentment of women "invading" nerd culture, whining about casuals etc but it's a factor in most fields where men are a majority.
As noted above re bikes specifically, it comes out frequently enough in front-facing jobs where women are physically trying to put money in the retailer's hand - stands to reason that a similar mentality will infect the whole way down the line, including assumptions (or deliberate decisions to exclude) in bike design and manufacture.
As noted above re bikes specifically, it comes out frequently enough in front-facing jobs where women are physically trying to put money in the retailer's hand - stands to reason that a similar mentality will infect the whole way down the line, including assumptions (or deliberate decisions to exclude) in bike design and manufacture.
There is a lot of inertia in business decisions too. Nobody is going to get fired for maintaining the status quo. Pushing the company to do something that nobody else is doing is a risk for the one who pushed it. Maybe there are good reasons why nobody else is doing it — better to keep your mouth shut and accept missing an opportunity rather than put yourself on the line and risk looking an idiot.
8ball
AV REFUGEES WELCOME
And obv people just don't see things if their frame of reference doesn't allow it.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I thought I'd update my search for a bike. So far, I've gone to three shops. Every one tried to sell me a bike that didn't fit as a first offering. I test rode two bikes that were so big that I almost crashed just testing riding them.
The first shop was pretty discouraging. I was grudgingly shown a bike that didn't fit and the guy just walked away. I've since found out that he has a reputation as an asshole. You really have to work to get a two-star review on Yelp (Re-Cycled Bicycle - Lincoln, NE).
The second shop was better. The first cycle I was shown didn't fit. I test rode it and almost crashed. However, rather than just walking away, he showed me a bike that was designed for a smaller person. I test rode it and it was a decent bike, but it was a Townie bike. Better fit, just not what I was looking for.
Third shop I was shown a bike that didn't fit and test rode it. Again, I felt like I was going to crash it. However, the shop guy spent a little bit of time talking to me and he gave me a better idea of what I'm looking for. It's not a road bike, but a gravel bike. It's designed for riding long distances on a bike trail on loose gravel. He showed me a 47 cm Trek gravel bike and it was heaven. The only sticking point was the cost: $1,300. I'll have to save up for it. I wrote the information down and took his card so he's likely to get some business from me.
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