New year kicks off with gender

Several tools have been developed to help experts in technical committees both in the IEC and ISO develop inclusive standards, including gender aspects. But the best way to explain how to go about it is to ask experts who are grappling with the issue themselves to share their own experience. Bearing this in mind, the IEC Academy organized their first webinar of the year around case studies both from ISO and IEC. <_o3a_p>

Jacques Perronet, the chair of IEC TC 64, which prepares standards to protect human beings against electric shock, spoke of his TC's efforts and some of the difficulties met along the way. "We looked at how to include gender several years ago and we noticed that we already had quite an important focus on diversity in IEC 60634 on electrical installations, taking into account different heights, body weight, specifying installations that are compatible with babies, children and older people. We therefore decided that we did not need to add any specific gender requirements, as these were already covered, so to speak. We can probably still improve these standards and we are open to suggestions. When it comes to protection against electric shock, or IEC 60479, we have a data issue, because there is no testing of the effects of electric shock on humans but only on animals. We try to infer from that and there are differences probably due to skin dryness, skin tissue and body fat. A way around that is to focus on data from testing on deceased people, but that is not totally satisfactory," he explained.<_o3a_p>

Lise Aagesen, the Secretary of IEC TC 29, which prepares standards for hearing aids among other things, described how her TC is focusing on gender. " We have identified three areas where we would like to act. The first is to assess gender when considering new item proposals and, as suggested in the guidance document, assume that there are gender implications. The second is to screen our current portfolio of standards with a gender lens, so as to see which standards have gender implications either directly or indirectly. This will help to see if we have enough data and prompt the seeking of additional data if possible. Gender could become a key driver for revision. The third is a little more long-term and is to strive for a more balanced representation in our committee, with more women on board, even if we already have quite a few women serving as Secretaries, Convenors and a previous Chair."<_o3a_p>

From the ISO side, Shinichiro Ikeda, the Chair of IEC TC 94/SC 13, which deals with personnel protective clothing, including gloves and helmets, showed how the standards the TC develops now include female morphology. "Our aim is to specify equipment for all workers who need protective equipment and all individuals involved in hazardous environments. This includes gender differences and the variations in body shape. The standard which does that is ISO 13688 which covers the general requirements of protective clothing and ISO 8559 which covers size designation of clothes."<_o3a_p>

In the future, the TC is planning to focus on defining gender aspects for a thermal mannequin used to predict burning, which for now has only been specified with the male anatomy. "We will also focus on the different metabolisms in the future as well," he added.<_o3a_p>

In concluding remarks, IEC SMB vice-president Gilles Thonet drew attention to the work being done with OSD, the online standards development programme. "It will provide a more collaborative way of working for our experts. We could probably use OSD to have a systematic awareness raining of gender aspects," he said.<_o3a_p>

All participants agreed that one of the future steps was to look at inclusivity of standards globally and that would mean taking into account disability or origin in a systematic way, but that gender was the place to start, as, said Sonya Bird, one of the members of the joint strategic group on gender responsive standards, "women make up around or more than 50% of the global population."<_o3a_p>