NASA names its DC headquarters after its first Black female engineer

From this point forward, NASA’s Washington DC headquarters will be known as the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters, named after the agency’s first Black female engineer. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the change today.Jackson was one of...

Female friendly products designed to empower you this international women’s day!

Intro

The Little Apricot Dresser by Tsing Hang is one dresser that lets you be in touch with your feminine side while maintaining a beautifully muted, wooden aesthetic that does not compromise on your need for a well-designed product. The felt wall holds your smaller products in place and seems to be easily removable, so you can go back to your minimal setup once you are done dressing up!

The Heer breastfeeding bench aims to conquer two existing status quo’s – First is to allow women to breastfeed in public without having to lock themselves in a tiny room to “finish their business”. Second is to still give them the comfort and privacy they deserve, keeping them safe from onlookers while being in a public setting. The cocoon-like structure of the chair envelops the mother and child with an open side that allows the mother to confer and stay in touch with their trusted companion while breastfeeding. Designed by 52 Hours, the Heer bench is normalizing women’s needs in an everyday setting.

The Present is a simple tweak to an existing product – the home pregnancy test kit, to help remove the fear and anxiety associated with positive pregnancy news at the first go. Aimed at couples trying to get pregnant, this kit gives a gentle reminder as to how the positive pregnancy test is the present the couple wants in their life. Designed collaboratively by Byeongjae Ha, Chi-eun Jang, Kiho Kim, and Jae Heum Lee, the strip is also equipped with a slot to showcase sonography pics for people who like to display this beautiful life-altering moment of their life.

Laila Laurel, a graduate from Brighton University has designed a unique set of chairs that helps to tackle manspreading! Using humor to address everyday issues, these chairs are designed for the female counterpart to spread-out and sit with east while another chair restricts the man’s legs, helping them sit straight and narrow while playing with gender stereotypes to create a neutral and comfortable environment!

Meet the Origamei outfit by Angela Wang, a project that has two purposes. One, to make fashion much more accessible, using the art of folding as a method to reduce a clothing item’s spatial footprint… and two, Origamei sees itself as more of an empowerment tool, as most clothes do, helping women dress in clothes that feel comfortable and make them feel confident. The fact that you can carry these clothes around in the palm of your hand, or even stash them in your clutch or the glove compartment of your car, means that the very confidence and self-esteem that you get from wearing good clothes, is made portable too.

Designer Anna Meddaugh has created a personal urinal, especially for women in refugee camps that can be used in shelters at night to avoid the threat of sexual violence outside. Meet the Night Loo, a portable and reusable toilet box with polymer beads that soak up liquid and odors, allowing women to pee in the relative safety of their space and empty out the contents during the daytime. The designer Anna actually received a US James Dyson Award for her prototype. Though designed keeping refugees in mind, this design can easily be repurposed to serve various other scenarios where women feel at risk while urinating.

The ALL DAY BAG by Johnathan Webster brings a new level of problem-solving and pragmatism to a product that’s clearly plagued with problems. By redesigning the core UX of the woman’s handbag, The ALL DAY BAG gives women the ability to do more and carry more, with the freedom of being able to wear their handbag the way they see fit. The ALL DAY BAG is essentially a well-designed backpack in the avatar of a woman’s handbag. It comes with a full-grain premium leather exterior in a silhouette that puts it at par with most high-end handbags, albeit with an adjustable strap system that lets you carry it like a handbag, wear it like a tote, or even strap it across your shoulders like a backpack (effectively freeing up your hands).

The Connect Life Jacket makes you critically question an age-old existing design makes it a success. The Connect integrates mother and child into one single jacket (also adhering with the practice of evacuating “women and children first”), allowing the parent and child to stay safe and more importantly together in the event of a maritime crisis. Designers Jialin Song, Kun Xu, Yumo Jiang & Chaojun Zhang have created the design in a way that the child’s positioning is conveniently close to the mother’s heart.

The Lapee is a shocking pink plastic structure that has three urinals arranged in a spiral, with curving backrests that provide privacy while allowing the user to remain aware of their surroundings. Designed by Gina Périer and Alexander Egebjerg, this product was aimed to help the standard female toilet for festivals and outdoor events that allows people to pee sitting down quickly and safely. The design is made to be used without a door, with its spiral design protecting the user from the front and back, giving them privacy without any additional risk of traveling to reach an enclosed private space only to urinate. Aimed at being the women’s alternative to men’s urinal, Lapee can truly change the landscape of public events!

Shahar Goren, a designer from Holon Institue of Technology in Israel has come up with the idea to design custom-made sandals that are not only fashionable but stylish too. Goren believes that as the structure of our feet are unique to us as individuals, it really isn’t a “one size fits all in that size” world. Goren’s idea sees making customized orthotics a solution to this problem. By taking a 3D scan of the foot at the shoe store the customer then chooses the shoe they would like. This scan is then digitally processed at the warehouse, to a CAD file of custom made orthotics. The factory then produces the orthotics, which are then created by a C.N.C. machine automatically. Then within a few days, the shop receives the orthotics for easy placement into the new sandals!

UN study finds female voice assistants reinforce harmful stereotypes

For the record, the appropriate response to being called a slut isn't, "I'd blush if I could." But that's what Siri is programmed to say. According to a report by the United Nations, the fact that most voice assistant are gendered as young women is r...

Study: Women are abused every 30 seconds on Twitter

Earlier this year Amnesty International released a report discussing what many of Twitter's female users already know: the social network is not always a great place to be if you're a woman. Now, a new study reveals the hard statistics on just how to...