Designed for women

THERE HAVE been many impressive and inspiring innovations in PPE over the years, and workforces can now be protected by a range of highly effective, comfortable and pioneering safety solutions. 

But there’s one area of protective workwear that’s still not getting the attention it deserves and requires and that's true fitting women’s PPE.

Making do with men’s

It seems many employers are still not understanding or accepting that women’s body shapes are anatomically different – which means they require differently designed PPE. As a result, many women in safety-critical roles are still forced to endure ill-fitting, uncomfortable and often painful workwear designed for men.

And these differences are particularly apparent when it comes to safety boots.

Lack of women-specific PPE was reflected by a 2022 survey conducted by safety footwear manufacturer, V12 Footwear. They asked a group of women working in construction if when they joined their respective companies, they were offered specific female-fit safety footwear.

Some 75% said they weren’t - and had to make do with men’s boots.

What's the problem?

The problem with women wearing boots designed for men, lies in the structural differences in the anatomy of their feet. Compared to a man’s foot, women have a:

• narrower shape

• smaller Achilles tendon

• higher Achilles tendon

• higher arch

• more curved inside line

• shallower big toe

Given this, when women are forced to make do with wearing boots designed for a man’s foot shape, they can find:

• Footwear is too wide, requiring thick or multiple pairs of socks to keep them on, causing hot feet, or the wearer to push down their toes, leading to a range of potential musculoskeletal complications.

• Footwear is loose around the heel resulting in blistering, corns and calluses - causing distraction through discomfort, which in a safety-critical role is beyond dangerous.

• They are more vulnerable to ankle twisting due to instability from a lack of arch support.

Hardly surprising then that when V12 carried out another survey, this time with the University of Bath, statistics showed there were 36% more complaints about overall safety boot-related foot pain from females.

And when we say ‘foot pain,’ given the impact on the female body just mentioned, we’re not talking about annoying or inconvenient discomfort. What we should really be saying instead of foot pain is ‘long-term poor foot health, potentially life-limiting lower-limb complications and diminished safety focus in high-hazard environments.’

According to construction careers site ‘Construct,’ only 14% of people working in construction and engineering are women. But when the risk of working in such discomfort is so high, it’s easy to see why these numbers are so low. 

The solution – true women’s fit safety footwear

Thankfully, there is an increasing number of women’s fit PPE emerging on the market, enabling companies that are willing, to provide workwear which is both safe and comfortable for female staff.

A good example of a company who understand the importance of female-specific PPE is safety manufacturer V12 Footwear. Each of the styles in their women’s range is based on their innovatively designed last (which is the foot form around which a boot is built). They created it using over 4,000 foot scans to specifically support and contour the foot shape of a woman, enabling maximum comfort for their wearers through a fully bespoke female fit.

But this wasn't a last made as a token for a minority of female wearers – their women’s range features safety boots, hikers, trainers and shoes that span multiple industries, providing safety features including top-performing grip, patented met protection, right the way through to chemical resistance and reinforced ankle protection.

And while their safety styles might be a varied range in terms of specification, they all have one thing in common: each one is built from the same true women’s fit model. And footwear that fits is true safety footwear.

This wearer’s review of her new pair of V12s says it all. “These are amazing boots! Only taken 20 years of wearing crippling men's fit boots before I finally have something I can actually wear to do my job.”

Referring to their new true women’s fit metatarsal protection boot V2185 Invincible, this wearer’s review shows that the right-fitting footwear isn’t just a new, innovative ‘nice to have’ idea – it's a long overdue and potentially life-changing ‘must-have’ item of PPE.

Beyond the boots

But the benefits of correctly designed footwear for women go far further than the feet. When an organisation provides bespoke PPE to its workforce, it does more than just protect them from pain and danger: it shows that all employees – regardless of gender - are valued and respected.

And when you think about what a basic and reasonable workplace right that is, getting the right safety footwear for women doesn’t seem like just a good decision – it seems like an essential one.

Matthew Roberts is content creator at V12 Footwear. For more information, visit v12footwear.com