We live in a world created by men, largely for men. A world in which male is the default, to the detriment of women. Anyone who doubts this, even though the evidence is all around us, should read Caroline Criado-Perez’s book ‘Invisible Women’, which does a brilliant job of analysing the gender data gap and how it discriminates against women in almost every aspect of everyday life.
And this isn’t just a minor irritation; it leads to dangerous outcomes for women. For example, PPE used in the pandemic was designed to fit male faces, not women’s. And crash test dummies are a standard male size which in turn leads to women being 47% more likely to be injured in a car crash.
Similarly, women who play football do so in boots that are designed for men and consequently suffer more injuries. Or at least that is what the evidence suggests. It needs a lot of scientific study.
The consequences of this are being analysed, but the stats say women are three times more likely to get an ACL injury like the tragic one England captain and all-round superhero Leah Williamson has just suffered. The same injury that Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema have also relatively recently suffered. And while it takes men typically seven or eight months to recover, it takes women 10 or more. This is important stuff.
This systemic discrimination isn’t a surprise. We know that women have had to overcome so many obstacles to play football at all – both mental and physical – and have so often been oppressed and dismissed by men for wanting to do so.
No big boot brand has yet produced a boot designed for women, though some are said to be doing so for this summer’s World Cup. That it has taken so long is symptomatic of how the needs of women have simply been ignored, or at best were an afterthought.
Writing in a journal called Sports Engineering, sports and exercise researchers, doctors and staff involved in the elite women’s game – including, ironically, Leah Williamson – point to the need for more kit and technology tailored to women’s needs, physique and body shape.
Male boots fail to accommodate the fact that women’s heels, feet and arches are typically different to men’s, so wearing them causes blisters and lack of protection means more foot injuries occur.
Even the length of studs is controversial for women. They are designed around male weight, bulk, movement and traction, but women are physically very different, they run differently, pressure and weight is…
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