It’s a man’s world
An event in my family has brought home to me the fact that a heart attack in women may not present a clear pattern of symptoms. Ask anyone to name the typical signs of a heart attack, and chest pain is probably the first thing they will mention. But for women it is different, you will see other symptoms, such as nausea, dizziness, extreme tiredness and shortness of breath.
Owing to the fact that the symptoms experienced by women are recognized (too) late, it appears that in the Netherlands more women than men die of cardiovascular diseases. Fortunately, however, familiarity with these differences is growing in the medical world, and scientists are now studying the differences between men and women in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
In his typical satirical style, Arjen Lubach, host of De Avondshow, recently gave airtime to the fact that the average Dutch man is still the norm in our society. Whether you find his TV program funny or irritating, it has to be said that Lubach does shine a light on relevant subjects; it has even been known for the follow-up to go as far as parliamentary questions.
Lubach discussed a number of examples that made it clear that in all kinds of scenarios the average Dutch man is taken as the norm. This focus on men has had various consequences. Women have a much greater chance of suffering fatal injuries in a car accident than men, to name but one.
Evidently, to this day no crash test dummy has yet been designed based on the measurements of the average Dutch woman. Some ten years ago female crash dummies were being designed, but on closer inspection they proved to be male dummies but just a bit smaller. No one had taken account of the different physical build of women. And, believe it or not, the dummy was tested while it sat in the passenger seat. Leaves you speechless, doesn’t it?
Another example given was the temperature settings in offices. Similarly, as a rule, these are geared to suit the metabolism of the average man. Women have a different metabolism; they are more likely to feel the cold than men. At this point, I must reassure you that the temperature in Atlas is arrived at in an entirely different way. It is often so warm in the open plan office that even in the winter months my colleagues and I must sometimes dress for summer.
Nonetheless, I am optimistic about the future. Soon, Bachelor College 2.0 will be training our students to become self-guided engineers familiar through their numerous multidisciplinary projects with the various fields of expertise, including, of course, ‘user and society’. So the idea that they would fail to take account of the differences between men and women is simply unthinkable. Isn’t it?
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