Do the potential benefits of designing my visualization outweigh the possible harm it may cause?
“I and my colleagues here at the FT, we really do think one of the most valuable things we can do as data visualization practitioners is add this expert annotation layer.” - John Burn-Murdoch (Financial Time)
"They operated under the assumption that what would have worked for them would have worked for society"
"We're so used to picking men as the default"
Data is the new oil
Data is the same old oppression
In today's world data is power
Examine power Challenge power Rethink binaries and hierarchies Elevate emotion and embodiment Embrace pluralism Consider context Make labor visible
Data feminism requires an expanded definition of data science
Belted female auto occupants have 73% greater odds of being seriously injured in frontal car crashes compared to belted males (after controlling for collision severity, occupant age, stature, body mass index and vehicle model year).
Female drivers and right front passengers are approximately 17% more likely to be killed in a car crash than a male occupant of the same age.
Any seatbelt-wearing female vehicle occupant has 73% greater odds of being seriously injured in a frontal car crash than the odds of a seatbelt-wearing male occupant being injured in the same kind and severity of crash.
Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) shows that males drive more miles than females, and are more likely to engage in risky behavior, such as speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol, and not wearing a seat belt.
the vast majority of automotive safety policy and research is still designed to address the body of the so-called 50th percentile male—currently represented in crash tests by a 171-pound, 5-foot-9-inch dummy that was first standardized in the 1970s (today, the average American man is about 26 pounds heavier).
No dummy takes into account the biological differences between male and female bodies.
(The female dummy sits in the driver’s seat for some side-impact tests.) This, despite the fact that women now represent almost 50% of drivers in the U.S., according to the FHWA.
The first stage is the vehicle crash—the impact of a car or truck into a foreign object. Stage two is the human crash, when the bodies of the vehicle’s occupants come into contact with seat belts and airbags—or worse, the dashboard, windows, or some other object. The third stage is the internal crash, which refers to the collisions of organs, bones, and soft tissue that happen within the human body.
But differences aren’t just about shape, size, and position. For example, the female pelvis has a geometry that’s different from the male pelvis, and the male neck is stronger when it comes to forces that bend it.
The agency’s use of 5th percentile female and 50th percentile male dummies represents “a broad spectrum of occupant crash protection rather than merely focusing on median body types,” its statement said. “Currently, NHTSA is focusing its research in new advancements in both sizes of crash test dummies, including the use of advanced instrumentation and criteria designed to better mitigate respective injury risks."