Feel Like Listening Instead?
Something to listen to while you make tea, fold laundry, or pause for a moment.
With March being Women’s History Month, I am taking this time to explore learnings, reflections, and experiences I’ve encountered as a woman. Today we’ll be in the Library exploring things many of us have learned that were actually built around men.
Did you know women and minorities weren’t included in medical trials until the 1990s because hormonal cycles were seen as “too complicated” for research? (source)
That means the male body has been treated as the “default human body” in research—not only in medical studies, but in how everyday environments and systems have been designed.
Listening To Our Bodies
Let’s start with a simple example: sleep.
I came across a post that mentioned the 7-9 hours of sleep recommendation was built around men, not women. This was slightly misleading as that recommendation does apply to both men and women.
However, according to Cleveland Clinic and sleepfoundation.org, because of the hormonal shifts and sleep disruptions women experience through various life stages (menstruation, pregnancy, menopause – we can’t catch a break), women often need more rest than men, especially during those times.
When you read it that way, it seems so obvious. But I never thought that just because I was in my menstrual phase I should be more intentional about getting more sleep than usual (more on cycle syncing in an upcoming post this month).
One Size Does Not Fit All
Even everyday environments were built around men.
Ever left a blanket or a cardigan behind at the office because you felt cold? That’s because office temperature standards are based on male metabolic rates. (source)
Do you work in a field that requires personal protective equipment (PPE) and it never feels like it fits right? Well, that’s probably because it was designed for male proportions. (source)
Or did you know women are more likely to be injured or killed in a car crash because crash test dummies were modeled on male bodies? (source)
It’s strange to realize how many things around us were designed with one body type in mind.
Work/Life Balance, Who’s She?
The same pattern shows up in larger systems too. Many of the structures we move through every day were built in a time when women weren’t expected to participate in the same ways.
This one really got me thinking: the 9-5 workday.
I’ve never been a fan of this work style, especially as someone in a creative field. There is no way I can be creative or productive for 8 hours a day. On top of that, once I am done at 5pm, I’m mentally drained and still need to make time to workout, shower, make dinner, and unwind before starting over again the next day.
The modern 40-hour work week was established in the United States in 1938 through the Fair Labor Standards Act, which reduced the 60-70 hour work weeks. During this industrial era households were built around the “male breadwinner,” where the man went and earned an income and the woman did the unpaid domestic labor.
It astonishes me that we haven’t revisited a system put into place more than 85 years ago, considering how much the typical household has changed. Today both my husband and I work full-time jobs, he actually works more than 40 hours a week. We’re so exhausted from trying to figure out the work part that we rarely get to the life part of work/life balance.
So What?
Honestly, none of this is truly shocking to me. What really shifted in my mind was realizing that when something wasn’t working for me, it might be because it wasn’t built for me.
This has made me more mindful about listening to my body and my intuition—and paying attention to what those signals might be telling me.
What’s something in your daily life you’ve realized might not have been designed with you in mind?
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