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By Myriam Miedzian

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Miedzian is a former philosophy professor and author. She and her husband Gary Ferdman are the founders of Monumental Women, a nonprofit which in 2020 placed the first statue to celebrate women in New York City’s Central Park, which previously had 23 statues celebrating only men. She now lives in San Diego.

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The hotel looked good and we were glad to be there. We needed the vacation. Just one problem — at the end of the day, I couldn’t get into the bed! I’m used to having some trouble with that — I’m 5-foot-1 and hotel beds are usually too high for me, but with some effort I manage to crawl up. This time it was impossible.

 

My husband went down to the concierge desk and explained that his wife needed a stepping stool in order to get some sleep. The only one the concierge had to offer was a large, heavy, beat-up mess, no doubt used for construction work. My husband brought it up to the room, but it was useless. So we turned to the small living room attached to our bedroom, and took two cushions off the sofa: wobbly, but it worked.

 

What happened that night was just a more extreme version of a problem we women are confronted with regularly in a variety of ways — in hotels, the beds are too high, the closets are too small and there aren’t enough hangers; the bathrooms don’t have cabinets, so cosmetics and meds have to be squeezed in around the sink, which puts them at risk of getting wet.

 

These problems don’t affect most men. While 75% of women are shorter than 5-foot-5, only 4% of men are, so most can get into a high bed without any trouble. On average, when traveling, men take fewer clothes than women, so small closets are not a problem. Cosmetics mean a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor and perhaps a deodorant.

 

It’s not just hotel rooms that don’t work for women.

 

Women’s upper body strength is estimated to be roughly 50%-60% of men’s. So we have much more difficulty opening heavy public doors.

 

In recent years, female pressure has led to an increased number of stalls in some “ladies’ rooms.” But women still have to wait often in long lines.

 

Cars are made for men as well. Seat belts don’t hit them on the neck, and headrests are placed just right rather than way above the head. It’s not only a question of comfort — cars are safer for men. Safety tests have traditionally used “crash dummies” to help design safer cars with better airbags, seat belts, etc. These crash mannequins were at first all male, but by 2011 female “crash dummies” were introduced. Continued research has led to the development of a further improved female one by late 2025.

 

If cars are designed for male safety, how come more men than women die annually in car crashes? Men drive more miles than women. They engage in more dangerous practices, such as speeding, not using seat belts and driving while impaired by alcohol. Crashes involving male drivers are often more severe than when the driver is female.

 

Another problem women confront came to my attention recently in a medical setting. My diagnosis required disrobing from the waist up, which I did, but when it came to hanging up my clothes I couldn’t reach the hook in the provided closet, so I had to reluctantly put the clothes on the closet floor probably intended for shoes.

 

This discrepancy reminded me that in listing problem areas above, I had forgotten to mention that hooks in hotel bathrooms and on closet walls are often much too high for me to reach.

 

There may well be other problems I missed. When conditions are so common, they become normal and we don’t even notice them. Design choices may seem neutral, but for many women they are daily reminders that the world was built with someone else in mind.