Design Diversity: A History of PPE for Women
The long-overdue evolution of PPE for women reveals a deeper need for diversity, equity, and inclusion in safety equipment.
- By Patricia A. Reed, Francene Scott Diehl
- Jul 16, 2025
Women who chose careers in high-hazard workplaces in the 1990s experienced limited options as it pertained to personal protective equipment (PPE). For years, the concept of “shrink it and pink it” was the primary strategy used to outfit women for PPE in high-hazard jobs (Caputo, 2023).1 In 1999, OSHA released a report that determined that the lack of access to proper fitting PPE exposed women to serious health and safety risks (Walker, 2010).
These associated risks included falls, burns, arc flashes, and foot injuries. The market for PPE at this time when OSHA was still a new enforcement arm, was very limited. There was also very little research that centered around women in the access to PPE conversations.
Historically, there had been only one solution for women with unique body configurations and this involved taking items to a seamstress and having them custom-fitted. This approach often resulted in delays of having access to properly fitted protection required for dangerous jobs. Interim approaches required women to tuck and fold oversized items to establish some type of fit. Improperly fitted PPE resulted in risk-taking such as exposures to airborne contaminants from improperly fitted respirators, tripping hazards due to oversized footwear, and hand injuries from gloves that were too large, resulting in hazards from machinery or exposure to chemical contaminants (Onyebeke, et al., 2016).
Lessons from the past
Fast forward to today, the women’s PPE arena has greatly expanded. In 2020, it was reported that the women’s PPE market was valued at approximately $800 million, which has been driven by an increase in women across many industrial sectors (Caputo, 2023). Even with this expansion, problems in accessing a variety of PPE still exist today. A survey conducted in 2022 revealed that 88 percent of tradeswomen reported still experiencing difficulties sourcing PPE that fits, and 77 percent reported being exposed to hazards because of this (Vargas, 2025). A woman entering specialized fields that require PPE might still experience challenges when sourcing specialty PPE items, or simply if the person is very petite in stature. To meet this challenge, industries must look backwards and capture lessons from the past regarding workplace safety and design diversity.
The “Radium Dial Girls” during World War I were one of the first groups of women to hold jobs where exposure to occupational hazards posed long-term health risks (Cowen, 2022). During World War I, these women worked painting luminous numbers on the dials of watches, clocks, and other instruments in factories using radium-laced paint. Early studies showed that the women were also exposed to irritation and burning skin on the hands, but no protection was provided (Cowen, 2022).
During World War II, “Rosie the Riveter” became the poster image for women stepping up to help the nation during a time of war. During the war, women filled critical roles in factories, shipyards, and in assembling tools for war (Service, 2025). Although many of these jobs posed critical safety risks, none of the women featured in the advertisement wore PPE. This period established the idea that women possessed the ability to work in high-hazard environments.
Because there was no regulatory framework that required recordkeeping during the 1930sand 40s, we will never know the number of injuries or deaths experienced by women during this time. Further complicating this issue after the war, approximately only 20 percent of women continued to work outside of the home, but mainly in healthcare, legal, and educational capacities (Red Cap, 2020). This number increased from 20 percent in the 1970s to over 60 percent in the 2000s (Red Cap, 2020). As the number of women increased in the workforce, the variety in types of work also increased. As of 2023, women make up approximately 30 percent of the manufacturing workforce and approximately 12 percent of the construction workforce (Vargas, 2025).
It was not until the early 2000s that manufacturers began designing gender specific PPE, and even while doing so, political correctness kept several manufacturers from advertising it as women-only (Walker, 2010). Harness manufacturers of today still advertise small harnesses as created for smaller workers and not women specifically (Vargas, 2025). For women-specific products such as shoes, gloves, and clothing, manufacturers realized that they could not just shrink the size of existing male products but had to design a diverse range of products specifically for the female anatomy because women have slimmer feet, shorter arms, and smaller hands (Walker, 2010).
Design Diversity
Designing PPE for women continues to center the need for design diversity. To improve and expand the design diversity of PPE for women calls for studies that include women’s experiences, opinions, needs, and feedback to include satisfaction (Oo, 2023). Many PPE manufacturers may still be relying on averages as their design strategy, despite the safety industry’s unique understanding of anthropometrics and universal design (UD), which promotes designing for the 5th and 95th percentile. UD is the design of products to be usable by all people and can be summed up as “universal,” meaning “everybody” or “towards the individual.” It is the concept of providing user-friendly products to various populations of users (Baek, 2021).
According to research conducted in Australia in 2023, “the absence of recent women’s anthropometric data that could be used by PPE designers and manufacturers is the main barrier to equal access for women’s PPE” (Oo, 2023). Safety professionals understand the role that anthropometrics plays in designing workstations and equipment, and the safety community for years has pushed the concept of universal design. However, this has not translated into design diversity of PPE, which is often an employee’s last line of defense against hazards. The PPE manufacturers must acknowledge that women’s bodies have more variations in size and shape when compared to men and the role that pregnancy plays on body variations in women (Vargas, 2025). If PPE manufacturers begin applying UD concepts to PPE, this will create the path to ensuring that more women have access to properly fitted PPE.
Design Solutions
As industries adjust and recognize the need for design diversity and the expansion of access to women’s PPE, companies must also move away from the bulk-buying supply chain “one size fits all” mentality fueled by supply and demand (Onyebeke, et al., 2016). As more manufacturers move toward central distribution channels, the creation of a shared distributor anthropometric sizing database may be a feasible solution. Each year, companies grant employees money to spend with distributors such as Tyndale and Grainger to secure PPE and safety equipment. If the distributors collected sizing and body proportions from each employee before ordering, this might prove beneficial for the future. A final step in this process would be for manufacturers to include more women in the design processes, sales and promotion of PPE as well. Women having a seat at the design table will result in better designing of women’s products.
An example of targeted advertisement can be found in the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) annual Women’s PPE Fashion Show. For more than 10 years, ASSP has held PPE fashion shows for women where new and current distributors advertise available PPE designed exclusively for women. This show has resulted in various female PPE items moving into prior untapped markets. The authors of this article continue to champion this effort and have walked in the fashion show to raise awareness for the various types of women PPE in the marketplace.
REFERENCES:
- Baek, S.-Y. &.-Y. (2021). Universal Safety Design (USD) and Sustainability: Comparison of Guidelines between Universal Design (UD) and USD. Applied Sciences, 11.
- Cowen, R. (2022, March 16). New Jersey’s ‘Radium Girls’ and the NIST-Trained Scientist Who Came to Their Aid. Retrieved from nist.gov: https://tinyurl.com/3xmpcw6a
- Frederick (contractor), M. (2022, September 20). When One Size Doesn't Fit All: PPE Fit and Equity in Health Care. Retrieved from CDC.gov: https://tinyurl.com/mryx4mye
- Krivkovich, A., Field, E., Yee, L., McConnell, M., & Smith, H. (2024). Women in the Workplace 2024: The 10th-Anniversary Report. San Francisco.
- Onyebeke, L. C., Papazaharias, D., Freund, A., Dropkin, J., McCann, M., Sanchez, S., … Zuckerman, N. (2016). Access to properly fitting personal protective equipment for female construction workers. Am J Ind Med, 1032-1040.
- Oo, B. L. (2023). Women Workforces’ Satisfaction with Personal Protective Equipment: A Case of the Australian Construction Industry. Buildings , 1-12.
- Rubenfeld, N. (2025, April 3). 20 Pink-Collar Jobs That Shaped Women’s Work Before the 1980s. Retrieved from Excellent Town and MSN: https://tinyurl.com/4bastc97
This article originally appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.