Exposing the "Pink It & Shrink It" Strategy in The Fashion Industry | Really? no Really?

Here's something may not have known: men's feet are more square and more rectangular and women's feet are more triangular. You'd think companies that design sneakers for women would understand that but instead, what they do is use the anatomy of a male's foot to design a woman's sneaker and then "shrink it and pink it". Creative designer and author of the book, Man-Made, Karen Korellis Reuther, previously served as Vice President of Creative Direction and Innovation at Reebok and Global Creative Director at NIKE, where she led major product, merchandising, and brand strategies. She joins Jason and Peter on this episode of the Really? no Really? Podcast to explain how fashion, clothing and other major industries haven't been accurately designing their products for female consumers through "shrink it and pink it" strategy. She joins us to explain how companies can rectify the lack of gender diversity in the design process to not just make their product serve an actual female consumer base without having to charge them more.

It's not just the sneakers industry that's being impacted by the pink tax and the lack of gender diversity when it comes to design. Women firefighters have higher injury rates than their male counterparts because their helmets and uniforms are still designed for men Female surgeons have had to stand on stools because the operating tables didn't go low enough. Even the female dummies created for crash tests and CPR training are just male shrunken versions of male dummies.

So how can we solve this problem? Korellis Reuther says the next big movement is to get companies attention to get them to fit their products properly for women to be safe in their professions.

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