Women Not Included: Consumer Products

Loading player...
Design is never neutral and small choices can have a big impact.

Dr Ella Hubber and journalist Katie Silver explore how consumer products marketed to women are frequently developed without fully understanding their needs. Along with expert insight, they look at everything from footwear based on male anatomy to menstrual products tested with unrealistic methods, revealing how these decisions can affect comfort, performance and even health.

As awareness grows, they also ask what change can look like and whether everyday products can finally reflect women’s real needs.

Presenter/producer: Ella Hubber
Assistant Producer: Scarlett Victoria
Researcher: Elliott Prince
Editor: Ilan Goodman
14 Sep English United Kingdom Science

Other recent episodes

The Life Scientific: Gillian Forrester

What do the very first writhing movements of babies have in common with orangutans solving problems for food? Well, according to Gillian Forrester they may both offer clues about how we humans developed language. Working with her great ape colleagues, Gilly Forrester – Professor of Comparative Cognition at the University…
26 Oct 28 min

The Life Scientific: David Canter

Although books and movies might suggest otherwise, catching criminals is of course less about hunches and gut instinct, and more about gruelling analysis of hard data - including when it comes to the psychological side. David Canter is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool, who took…
19 Oct 27 min

The Life Scientific: Edith Heard

Imagine looking at a map of a city you thought you knew inside-out, only to discover a collection of tightly knit neighbourhoods that nobody had ever realised existed... Edith Heard has achieved something rather similar with DNA. Edith is a leading expert in epigenetics: put simply, the science around how…
12 Oct 27 min

The Life Scientific: Ginger Kerrick

What do you do when your childhood dream of becoming an astronaut is grounded at the final hurdle? If you’re physicist Ginger Kerrick, you go on to help run the missions instead. After failing the medical of her astronaut application process, Ginger went on to become Nasa’s first non-astronaut CAPCOM…
5 Oct 27 min

The Ocean Within Us

Here's a little fact you might have heard before: Humans are around 70% water. About the same percentage as a sweet potato, incidentally. But what does that actually mean? Sure, there's blood, that accounts for some of it. And the lymphatic system has a fair amount too, sloshing around. There's…
28 Sep 28 min