In July, The New York Times published an essay by science-fiction writer Mary Robinette Kowal in which she called out the gender bias of space programmes, including the historic 1969 Moon Mission, outlining how they were created around ‘male bodies’. Some readers responded saying that the reason women had not been sent into space was because there was no technology for them to urinate in zero gravity. In a detailed twitter thread Kowal showed that the real problem was that a technological solution for this problem – common to both sexes – was only sought for men at first.
It made me think of the millions of women in India still waiting for their right to take a leak in public space right here on Earth, for much the same reason. Public spaces in India are designed by men, for men, and women are not welcome.
