Katherine Evans | Tarmac
Poorly fitting PPE is stopping women from reaching their full potential, says Katherine Evans. Is it time for governance to curb the issue?
Why does the majority of high-vis PPE suck?
There are brands out there flying the flag for sustainable, high quality, ethically produced, inclusive PPE, and yet businesses continue to buy heaps of high-vis landfill fodder that turns to rags in less than five industrial launders. Why are zips breaking, seams splitting, holes tearing, and reflective bands turning grey in the multiple sets of PPE we’re needing to buy each year?
It’s not sustainable, all this dying, making, packaging, shipping, washing, and binning. It doesn’t take an activist to see that. The quality of so much of it being pumped out is absolute dishwater.
Furthermore, it’s not even safe for anyone falling outside of the ‘average-size man’. This personal protective equipment isn’t even fit for purpose before it rips along the crotch. It’s time to take back the personal and the protective in PPE and make it fit for people who aren’t the ‘average size man’ while improving the quality and laundering process to back up claims of green credentials that businesses are making.
I can speak for the 700 plus women in the Bold as Brass tribe (a network I set up to help create equity for women in industry) when I say low-quality, poorly fitting PPE is still a major barrier to women reaching their full potential. I now have very smart PPE gifted to me by James Fuller at Blaklader as part of the Bold as Brass PPE fit and functionality trials. I now turn up to the site looking and feeling like a boss. My head is on the job and the job only, but it wasn’t always like this.
Stopping progress
I’ve had some terrible PPE in my time, or not enough of it because “Women don’t sweat”. (Eye roll). For example, I had a small man’s bomber jacket (I’m 5’ 2”, size 10, narrow frame). The arms so long and with no wrist tighteners they flapped over my hands; a pair of polycotton cargo trousers that I couldn’t lift my leg high enough to get into a Hilux; and a pair of men’s boots so wide and hard I had to clench my toes to stop my feet sliding around. My thoughts were centred entirely on keeping my medium-sized gloves on my extra small hands; my burning feet slipping around my boots, blistering as they lifted in and out, and concentrating on not turning over on my ankles as I stepped over dug rock on-site in my loose, canal boat clown shoes.
Manual handling was a massive challenge – walking was painful and core logging on the floor was almost impossible, making me look disengaged, lazy and uncomfortable on-site as if I didn’t want to be there, all of which couldn’t have been further from the truth. Eventually, after a while you stop being asked, stop being involved, stop learning, stop progressing and you see male counterparts excelling, being sponsored, being chosen, passing you by and no one stops to question it. It’s another one of those cases where “women just aren’t cut out for this industry” right?
Time for governance?
We’re going to need to look at this as an entire process because it’s not all on the manufacturers. I’ve been sent some brilliant PPE and been involved in its design process. There are ethical people in this industry who really do care about safety and inclusivity. Stockists also play a big role, as do purchasing managers. It turns out you can put a price on safety, and that price roughly equates to what it costs to dress an average-sized man in cheap, unsustainable kit, five teams times a year; instead of once every four. Buying kit that doesn’t fit puts strain on seams, buttons, poppers, zips, and the fabric in the wrong places, causing them to break. It makes no sense – we are doing this to ourselves with our eyes wide open.
I think it’s time a governing body got involved, such as the British Standards Institution or the Health and Safety Executive, who can lay down a baseline of expectations for kitting out people on-site. PPE needs to be suitable for the task and designed for the person wearing it, it needs to be fit tested and it needs to be sustainable, as do the processes involved in its life cycle, including its disposal.
We can’t continue the way we are, waiting for someone to get seriously injured or worse before we discuss “lessons learned”. Responsibility needs to be taken, and since we haven’t managed to sort this out ourselves over the past decades, we should take a leaf out of the book by the United States Department of Labour, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and go formal so there’s nowhere to hide.