8 Comments
Mar 5, 2023Liked by Sahil Vaidya

This is highly relatable. And, I have observed that unpaid work, lack of quality education, and low female participation in India have drastic effects on the mental health of women. I read an article by BBC stating that 50% of the women who commit suicides are housewives and they are next after farmers.

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All are great points and totally relatable, but had never came across any article talking about the cold temp in office spaces. It is very true & needs to get highlighted across operational folks in office spaces.

Apart from this I feel the more pressing issues are unawareness among men about the health issues women go through apart from period pain (though this is indeed a big one). There's hormonal imbalances, PCOD, pregnancy treatments (IVFs), menopause etc which have a huge impact on female bodies, but women arent able to voice these or talk about these with their male counterparts because of the existing unawareness. This gets even tougher when you only have men on your team, and you have to reach out to the female HR to explain your history & ob/gyn problems, who then probably has to reach out to your manager & help out (because you cant use stomach cramps as a reason everytime with your team, these issues go beyond stomach cramps).

Lot of these ob/gyn problems also get triggered due to stress levels at office, or long work hours (startups etc), and the impact it can have on female bodies can be much different than male > awareness about this needs to exist.

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Can’t believe it’s a man behind the pen! I think most of the facts we are aware of, but it was a refreshing take on it though.

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author

Thanks, Babita!

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This is so relatable & agree with every word in this article. Recently i visited Bangalore & came to realization it's hard to be women in tech or anything, need to keep preparing myself mentally.

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author

That is actually corroborated by the experiences of a lot of women in tech, the book covers this piece as well

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Mar 9, 2023·edited Mar 9, 2023

Are you suggesting that Apple, one of the most innovative and profitable companies in the world known for amazing design, have not considered to design their most profitable and best selling device for women's hands (who are nearly 50% of the population)? And also Apple is one of forerunners in accessibility, inclusion and diversity. (https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ , https://www.apple.com/diversity)

I don't buy the statement that iPhone is not designed for women's hands.

And if it is really true, what is the source of that fact?

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author

Hi Hari, there's a section in the book 'Invisible Women' (Page 199 onward) where you can go through this entire discussion. In short, one hypothesis is that companies assume males will drive most of the sales so they design the phones based on average male features. Another one is that designers assume that phones will be kept in handbags and so larger phones are fine...except the fact that handbags are needed in the first place *because* women's pants DO NOT have pockets (at least usable ones).

Another fact is that when Apple launched what was touted as one of the world's best offices, they'd simply missed adding a childcare centre. Even if you're the most innovative company in the world, it doesn't make you immune to certain blindspots, more so when they're systemic and have been around for centuries

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