A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
We landed ~~two~~ three rovers on Mars before medical science discovered the clitoris.
The Mars Exploration Rovers landed on Mars in January 2004. (See the reply below for the earlier one I forgot!)
An accurate anatomical model of the clitoris was not created until 2005.
"Medical science" didn't only just discover the clitoris 20 years ago... Fairly accurate descriptions of the structure of the clitoris go back to the 1840s. It's the textbooks used for medical training that were omitting the already known structures to the detriment of medical professionals and healthcare.
Never mind that discovering and accurately mapping something are very different. That's like saying we hadn't discovered the moon until we saw the other side.
It's a funny meme that scientists couldn't find the clit, but it detracts from the actual sexism that was preventing the known science from being taught properly to doctors.
My wording was for comedic affect. I agree with you, but it's still shocking how recently we mapped this organ in its entirety.
There's a fun article about the history of the clitoris here, if anyone's after yet more reading on this.
I love the part in the article you linked about Ben Shapiro, really made me chuckle. wonder how he felt after believing that lie.
I yearn for the day that an astronaut finally sets foot on the far side of the clitoris
When they did discover the clitoris, they immediately landed a rover on it
Now this is some fake news
Lmao, how is this 'fake news'?
The Mars Exploration Rovers landed in 2004 and the earlier Mars mission I forgot, is helpfully linked in a comment by user atomicbocks below.
In 2005 Australian urologist Helen O'Connell was the first to fully anatomically map the clitoris.
Or is this accusation of 'fake news' just you objecting to my comedic language about the historically male dominated field of medical science 'discovering' the clit?
I have a book to recommend:
Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.
-Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez.
I believe I first heard her interviewed on the 99% Invisible Podcast.
What does anatomically correct mean here? Should I switch to my alt account before searching?
Weight distribution and physical density.
Height is a big factor too
Height is a big factor. Being taller than average I notice a lot of backbreaking standards. Especially if I have to use facilities modified for shorter or wheelchair bound people. Look at airplane seats for example. Why do I have to pay more for a seat that won't crush my knees? And decorations; quite often I will go to a place festively decorated where things are constantly bumping me or in my face. There was even a fancy balloon arch used at one place I had to move out of a doorway to get through.
Why do I have to pay more for a seat that won't crush my knees?
I mean, it sucks, but the larger seats do cost the airline more to provide. I pay more for shipping inanimate objects that are long, even if they're the same weight.
We aren't long inanimate objects, we're human beings and we deserve to be treated better than a can of sardines.
Dr., this is Captialism; that level of empathy is toxic.
Then why don't we also pay be weight? I'd love to be able to pack an extra 20kg in my bag as I weigh at least 20kg less than the average male.
That's my whole point. If you're gonna ask the airlines to give different amounts of space for different sized people, don't expect your tickets to stay the same price.
The current system is that the ticket prices are the same (price fluctuations happen but not based on the size of the passenger), and that everyone of a particular fare class gets the same sized seat.
And also taking into account that women can get pregnant, and ride cars at various stages of said pregnancy, right?
Right?
Without looking up the details, I'm just gonna assume both facts are correct (no anatomically correct women dummies before 2023 and a pregnant dummy in 1996), by saying that the 1996 dummy was a pregnant man. Only two years after Arnold Schwarzenegger started in Junior.
Hey! Leave Otto's girlfriend out of this!
I'm guessing it has to do with interaction between seatbelt and boobs. And all previous tests just assumed a flat chest.
Boobs squish at crash forces. The pressure with crash testing is keep every variable consistent so that results can be compared over time. I read an article years ago about the trouble of maintaining a supply of "tea rose" colored underwear for that reason.
Test dummy with boobs, im guessing
What’s with the pointing-at-camera thing?
She's trying to look inspirational but ends up looking like an overly-confident real estate agent.
Yeah I can immediately tell she’s some business huckster, doing “motivational speaking” or some shit
It's got "I can sell you this" energy for sure
She's going to crash test you, dummy.
That’s how you know who is the main character.
Seems to satisfy the ask.
I mean, I knew medical research was misogynistic but this is still somehow shocking.
Has an "anatomically correct female crash test dummy" actually helped? What even is an "anatomically correct female crash test dummy" and how does it encompass all women's body types in a way that the, assumedly anatomically correct male crash test dummy wouldn't accommodate?
I am absolutely uneducated on this but to my uneducated mind this sounds like getting riled up over a non-issue.
Crash test dummies test the impact of vehicle accidents on human bodies. While more men than women are injured in vehicle accidents, they are more frequently involved in them in the first place. Women are 17% more likely than men to die in the event of a car crash, based on university studies in the US, and 73% more likely to sustain serious injuries in a front-end collision (Invisible Women, p186). In the world of crash test dummies, ‘human body’ has really meant ‘male body’; the first anatomically correct female crash test dummy was only created in 2022.
https://www.theactuary.com/2023/02/02/when-human-isnt-female
Before intervention
17% more dead women than men
73% more injured women than men
When women are in fewer crashes overall
I appreciate your effort to find that data but it doesn't really address any of my original questions.
Also, from what you've quoted at least, there is no differentiation between drivers vs passengers.
Your data absolutely shows there is a problem, it just doesn't show that the problem is the lack of an "anatomically correct female crash test dummy".
I don't think whether they're driving or not is a meaningful distinction at this level, people should be expected to sit in any of the seats of a car, so I'm making the fairly safe assumption they put dummies in various different seating arrangements.
The stats apparently originate from the US government, so it's going to be a pretty big sample size that should average out any differences in seating position.
I don't think there are really any conclusive after stats as the product was only introduced to the market a couple of years ago, I guess manufacturers need to buy these and then use them in their in-progress designs. Cars on the market that have used these dummies during design are probably only new designs sold in the past year or so.
I also can't seem to find it with a quick search, but I vaguely remember reading about this when it was new a couple of years ago, and there's a correlation with male safety improving with advances in the crash test process that aren't reflected equivalently with women's safety. But maybe take that with a pinch of salt unless you can actually find the source
I don't think whether they're driving or not is a meaningful distinction at this level
But it does! For example, if the driver seat offers better protection than the rest of the car, and women are more often than men in one of the other seats, it would explain the results and the dummy doesn't add much.
But if the fatality rate for women in the front passenger seat, for example, is the same as for men in that same seat, that's were probably having an "anatomically correct female crash test dummy" can be very helpful in understanding why these crashes are killing more women than men.
so I'm making the fairly safe assumption they put dummies in various different seating arrangements
The source doesn't use data from crash test dummies but from real life crashes. So we can't take seating arrangements for granted if it could meaningfully effect the numbers.
The stats apparently originate from the US government, so it's going to be a pretty big sample size that should average out any differences in seating position.
The sample size is irrelevant if cultural factors exist that could skew the results. Cultural factors like men are more commonly taxi/Uber/bus drivers, men are more likely to drive with their partner as a passenger than the inverse, etc.
I don't think there are really any conclusive after stats as the product was only introduced to the market a couple of years ago
That's a fair point, I don't expect there would be enough data for anything conclusive.
there's a correlation with male safety improving with advances in the crash test process that aren't reflected equivalently with women's safety
That would be an interesting read. I'll have a look for it.
One reason male crash test dummies are not representative of female vehicle occupants in an accident is that seatbelts do not sit in the correct position on female bodies, because of their breasts.
This is the only reasoning provided in that entire article
Previously what was used was a male crash test dummy but sized down. The word "dummy" makes it easy to overlook, but they're pretty technologically impressive bits of kit. They take into account the density of different tissues and their relative distribution in the body, and there are strategically placed sensors to measure the force distribution at different levels. It doesn't encompass all women's body types, in much the same way that the male dummy doesn't encompass all men's body types.
Lots of little differences between male and female bodies cumulatively result in the vehicle collision injury stats that others have quoted elsewhere in this thread. Things like the centre of mass being different, the outline of the pelvis/hips (which also affects the way one sits), women having a greater body fat percentage, that body fat being distributed differently to men's, women have less muscle. Then there's boobs, which aren't just something that can hinder seatbelt placement, but they can also be heavy, and bouncy, which means that the forces involved in a collision can be multiple times more than their weight, which contributes to whiplash and other injuries. On top of this, there's probably a bunch of other factors that we aren't aware of yet, but a more comprehensive testing process could help us to understand what differences between male and female bodies actually matter when it comes to vehicle safety. For example, on average, women tend to have longer hair than men, but I don't expect that would particularly impact injury rate in a vehicle collision. Women having larger breasts than men however, is most certainly a factor that contributed to the stats for women's injury rates being so much higher than men's.
On top of all this, before a dedicated female crash test dummy was designed, the downsized male dummy they were using was laughably small — the male one was designed to be the size of the average man at the time, whereas the downsized male one was so small that it only represented the smallest 5% of women at the time. That just seems absurd to me, but it's what you get when 50% of the population are treated as an afterthought, I suppose.
On the question of does an anatomically correct dummy help, it's a complex question because it takes time for the developments in car safety to actually make it out to the consumer, and even now we have a better crash test dummy for women, some manufacturers have been sluggish in implementing it into their testing — though now at least it's possible to apply pressure and say "hey, why are you not using this in your testing when women are at much higher risk when in one of your cars". Previously, manufacturers who were challenged on this could just shrug and blame the lack of an anatomically correct female crash test dummy, and development of one of those took a lot of time and research expertise, so wasn't something that could be done trivially. Now the resource exists and the industry has less of an excuse.
First thing that springs to mind is the chest strap on a seatbelt interacting with boobs
Than their required use. Gendered crash test dummies have been a thing for a long time, but AFAIK prior to this there was no anatomical requirements at all, including children (?). Obviously it's huge to include this since IDK a single woman who doesn't have troubles with the extremely male-focused design of all modern cars (fucking seatbelts do not play well with tits (how is this still a thing) women can't adjust mirrors to be useful since they sit below the sight envelope, blind spots, etc), but this is a bit sensationaist of a headline...
I feel like this probably isn't the preferred terminology.
