People & Blogs
Why the World Is Still Not Built for Women | Virginia Santy | TED
Design consultant Virginia Santy set out to create an office space built specifically for women, flipping the script on the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways that workplaces and cities still fail them. The results were striking: greater productivity, deeper collaboration and an environment where women felt genuinely valued, leading her to ask a simple question: What…
People & Blogs
This might be hard to swallow, but your favorite snacks are on the line #TEDTalks
What does a warming planet mean for the foods you love? Hosting a dinner party that features a menu of foods that could disappear within our lifetimes, culinary entrepreneur Sam Kass invites us to chew on the reality of climate change by exploring the things — like chocolate and coffee — it puts at risk.
People & Blogs
The Accidental Brilliance of Makeshift Signs | Kate Canales | TED
What happens when the design of everyday things misses the mark? People fill in the blanks. Designer Kate Canales has spent more than 20 years photographing the handmade, improvised signs that appear when the original falls short. From perplexing bathroom directions to our struggles with doors and point-of-sale machines, her photos capture something technology can’t…
People & Blogs
The secret to better conversations? Stop waiting for your turn to speak #TEDTalks
“Every conversation has the potential to open up and reveal all the layers and layers within it, all those rooms within rooms,” says podcaster and musician Hrishikesh Hirway. In this profoundly moving talk, he offers a guide to deep conversations and explores what you learn when you stop to listen closely. Stay tuned to the…
Dell Scales Up the AI Supply Chain to Meet Demand
This might be hard to swallow, but your favorite snacks are on the line #TEDTalks
IREN CEO: Have Great Relationship With Dell and Nvidia
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@asmilingguppy
April 26, 2026 at 2:13 pm
Women now have more w-2 jobs then men, are more educated then men, are more educators than men, have more vacation time on average, are incarcerated less, are not eligible for the draft and have lower rates of self… ending? The fact that institutions are still perpetuating a patriarchy narrative that includes “how does your butt feel in a chair” in 2026 is wild.
@beebopbop3074
April 26, 2026 at 2:15 pm
Instead of asking what has the world built for women, we should be asking what have women built for the world?
@KittyPepperPhd
April 26, 2026 at 3:52 pm
What have women built ‘for the world’? Every single human. Out of what? Their own bodies. They also invented cloth and weaving. Women,who were the main gatherers of the nomadic “hunter-gatherers” of pre-history, began planting seeds along their travel routes so that their group would have food available when they came back that way, which also makes them the originators of agriculture.
@ClockworkAvatar
April 26, 2026 at 6:23 pm
@KittyPepperPhda biological necessity is building anything
@niccolom
April 26, 2026 at 7:32 pm
They produced all the men who built everything.
So let’s not disparage them this way. Our argument should not come from this direction.
@joshfactor1
April 26, 2026 at 2:21 pm
what are you talking about? if you’re not able to literally open a door, i think that’s your own fault; say what you want about men but doors are not biased against anyone
@stevefox646
April 26, 2026 at 2:38 pm
“The world wasn’t built for women; it was literally built for men” is a brutally dishonest line wrapped in a righteous tone. It’s biased because it reduces centuries of messy, multi‑layered history into a simple, one‑sided villain‑and‑victim story. It’s false because it ignores that societies, economies, technologies, and cultures were shaped by countless forces—class, colonization, capitalism, religion, geography, and yes, women themselves—not just some shadowy “men designed everything” conspiracy. Saying the world was “literally built for men” isn’t a fact; it’s an emotional weapon used to shut down nuance, silence counter‑questions, and pretend complex problems can be blamed on a single gender.
@vortbio
April 26, 2026 at 4:42 pm
Exactly right.
@mmokhtabad
April 26, 2026 at 2:44 pm
Holly cow! More than what we have?!!!
@DS-pe8tt
April 26, 2026 at 3:06 pm
Thank you for showing the inequality for women in terms of what tangibly needs to be fixed. Yes value women.
@Montereycounty3322
April 26, 2026 at 3:17 pm
I’m also for women equality! We need to start drafting women into the military! ❤
@kerfbear8022
April 26, 2026 at 3:13 pm
The world may not be built for women, but at least all the kitchens are🎉
@Entertainment-w1f9c
April 26, 2026 at 3:47 pm
Women should put on hard hats and build their own city. Do all the work themselves
@Entertainment-w1f9c
April 26, 2026 at 4:14 pm
Careers advice is dominated by women. Why don’t these women advise young women to become builders so they can build this great city for women?
@Entertainment-w1f9c
April 26, 2026 at 4:18 pm
Is that canned applause
@RTXBRINGER
April 26, 2026 at 4:52 pm
But what if you can’t have kids…how different is anyone anyway?! I am out of a job by a woman who physically threatened me in a workplace. When men can be labeled as victim (all men) then so can women.
@AliothSpectranet
April 26, 2026 at 5:40 pm
Well explained design theory here! Hopefully it reaches the people that matter.
@MikeyHB
April 26, 2026 at 5:54 pm
A place safe for women is a thriving place for all humankind. I’ve seen the dismissive comments born of mysogyny and it’s a weakness. Women should be safe, equitable and equal, then we would all gain so much more.
@niccolom
April 26, 2026 at 7:28 pm
I agree 100%.
But the question is, why and how do they feel unsafe?
@gategatorade
April 26, 2026 at 6:19 pm
Instead of framing this as a gender issue, we should talk about Universal Design. The goal shouldn’t be to build for ‘women,’ but to build for the full spectrum of human capabilities. I think it’s kind of shortsighted/outdated.
@ClockworkAvatar
April 26, 2026 at 6:24 pm
ted talks used to be interesting and informative, in fact you can look back at the videos and see exactly where the shift happened.
@pixie_laluna
April 26, 2026 at 6:29 pm
Doors open easily for men ? Jesus. What else ? jar bottles are easier to open by men ? That is the saddest audience of all time, nobody is remotely interested or inspired by what she said. What a clown talk.
I bet TED will disable comment section soon.
@niccolom
April 26, 2026 at 6:53 pm
I recognize that women (or people of any gender) are intellectually equivalent to men.
But what’s discussed in this video is proof about why things are as it is right now.
Design work for the most efficient gender is the most efficient way to design things.
This is simply an “inconvenient fact.” It’s simply not cost effective and decreases efficiency overall.
Future of work: design offices for optimal efficiency, and let other genders work remotely. This way you can have best of both worlds.
And the gender pay gap: it isn’t about the value of the work produced between different genders — they are the same. It’s about the difference in the COST of the work produced being very different. And this TED Talk proves it.
@ZionistWorldOrder
April 26, 2026 at 8:55 pm
😂😂😂
@CanyonF
April 26, 2026 at 7:05 pm
Women can’t open doors? Children open doors all the time. My cat used to open doors lol. And places of business usually have buttons to open them automatically for the disabled
@SimplerThoughts1975
April 26, 2026 at 7:20 pm
I’m imagining a standard intersection with a four-way stop that is also a roundabout.
@toddmortimer6720
April 26, 2026 at 7:26 pm
I’d argue the world isn’t build for most men either. What she doesn’t see, is that the current economy needs to go. There is no point patching it up with little fixes for inclusion… we don’t need to be stimulating an economy when most of that is pushing people of any gender to work harder and see less of their family. It’s hard to see these people as ambassadors of change, but just hungry for a bigger slice of pie that spoiled many decades ago. Time for us all to get back to what’s important
@caraboska
April 26, 2026 at 7:32 pm
Amen! This is something that needs to be talked about a lot more ❤
@pepepistola9258
April 26, 2026 at 7:45 pm
WTF?
@pierluigit.1525
April 26, 2026 at 8:44 pm
And there goes my subscription, what a world we live in
@ZionistWorldOrder
April 26, 2026 at 8:55 pm
😂😂😂😂😂😂
@BigJerkPerson
April 26, 2026 at 11:14 pm
Buncha dude bros in the comments getting real offended this talk wasn’t about them
@carolinehorak7313
April 27, 2026 at 12:13 am
As a woman, these comments are scary…
@prateekgupta5945
April 27, 2026 at 12:28 pm
As a man, I agree.
@Joy-e3v9b
April 27, 2026 at 8:11 pm
Scared of yourself. Sad.
@jayfulf
April 27, 2026 at 12:59 am
That was… something. It seemed like more of a rant and misguided blaming. There are reasons other than simply to thwart women by making doors heavy. So absurd
@loriki8766
April 27, 2026 at 10:20 am
I’ve never come across a door that I could not easily open as a small woman in my entire 30+ year career.
@alexiscanet9009
April 27, 2026 at 5:05 pm
@l@loriki8766me people are disabled. She mentioned disabled in the begging of her speech. She’s talking about accessibility for all. Not just women.
@loriki8766
April 28, 2026 at 9:29 am
@alexiscanet9009 Even my children could open huge doors when they were small. AND office buildings, public buildings, shopping centers, every place I can think of is under Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) requirements to be accessible for everyone. We already have that.
@wsxstrus
April 27, 2026 at 1:31 am
It’s all backwards now.
Raising children is more important than some office job.
Stop leaving your kids with strangers in daycare. You are the best daycare your baby can dream of.
Women taking care of children and men providing for them have worked for thousands of years.
Mental illness epidemic that we are facing right now is effect of organizing society against natural order.
@homewall744
April 27, 2026 at 1:39 am
So it’s built for a man, but not for a trans-woman? LOL
@mariocasneuf2840
April 27, 2026 at 1:45 am
WTF?!?!?!
@mariaantoniettamontella9173
April 27, 2026 at 4:34 am
applausi enormi
@SibylleLeon
April 27, 2026 at 5:44 am
Excellent talk. From the ideal room temperature to the size of keys on a piano, everything is normed to suit men.
@PeterPaoliello
April 27, 2026 at 6:42 am
I came here to give this an honest go.. what a mistake.
@MrRoberthafetz
April 27, 2026 at 7:58 am
Playing the victim is a way to gain power that you either cant acquire by merit or dont deserve in the first place. It also indicates self loathing
@H3llSkull
April 27, 2026 at 8:03 am
Some nice dream ideas, but not really considering the costs and side effects…
like 1 trillion more gdp? and how much more spending? how much does the extra services etc cost? Like parking , daycare etc…
also for city planning etc… notice how its it moms and their kids go to transit stops.. but then shift to other parents.. ( probably realised there may be dads with kids too..) , or like the penalty issue of interests between men and women.. thats a thing? oh boy… erm oh girl / woman…
this ted is like imagine if everyone at an office had his own office, with his own kitchen area, and separate own toilet, an an separate parking spot… sounds like a dream state, would on paper increase mood and productivity i guess.. til you either see the bill for it, or realize how expensive all this is.. or that nobody is willing to spend that much for a “potential” increase…
@alexiscanet9009
April 27, 2026 at 4:39 pm
Public services don’t need to generate money. They are meant to serve the people. The idea that everything needs to generate money has been slowly killing us with things from fossil fuels to space exploration and factories. DuPont and even the meat industry are some of many examples. We over consume food and products.
@H3llSkull
April 28, 2026 at 6:49 pm
@alexiscanet9009 i do agree, but those are prestiges wishes.. like who in a free and open market would touch such projects? short of gov’s going and mandating such things, no chance that it will happen on a global space.. unless you want more and more gov control.
with a free market, you need to find someone willing to adapt / work / open a company at such places..
then also be able to afford and pay the rent, salaries etc.
planning, i agree can adapt sure, but then you need again gov going and “give orders” and then again with free will and capitalism etc, you gotta get enough gains to justify the costs for more space, more floors and rooms etc, and shareholders etc wont touch or agree with such plans, why put 1 person into a lets say 5 m2 space when you can squish 6 into a 10m2 space and so on…
such projects only work mostly if you go the china route of designing cities from scratch or making such things legal obligations when restructuring buildings, pretty sure there would be wide and global resistance from money holders etc…
and then again, many yell for gov to stay out, yet somehow want gov to meddle more..make up your mind..
@xLoziex
April 27, 2026 at 8:26 am
I’m a feminist, but this misses the mark for me, equity is really important and I agree with the principles in theory but it seems to ignore that men are also parents and that we are trying to create equity for men to be able to also be considered key caregiver to children, meaning that all humans that can be parents will be considered when designing spaces. Men need more paternity leave etc. I really hear the points about not using women in medical studies and crash dummies, these things are so important, but it feels like the tone of this is a bit villifying of men and hints at a separation of women as so different that the two’s needs cannot be met with the same policies and ways of living, and also doesn’t address whnat are to me bigger femenist issues than having more parking. I like to women more valued of course, but not at the expense of the isolation/seperation of the other gender.
@shontucker4504
April 27, 2026 at 9:16 am
What was that…. I think there definitely should be better facilities for mothers especially if the child still needs to be breastfed but once the child no longer needs breastfeeding its no longer women anymore its PARENTS and parenting. Heavy doors? and stroller access to train stations?? use an elevator, what was this, then she hinted towards females getting scammed with interests or something??? wth call the cops, this talk was something else.
@MrBence22
April 27, 2026 at 9:33 am
Oh my god, that was what I needed. I cringed 6 times in the first 3 minutes, and I hope there is more where those came from.
@lauraolsen8665
April 27, 2026 at 10:40 am
I’d love a city with more accessible spaces! More ramps for strollers or disabled, more convenient services, more compassion to women with children! More play areas for kids to get their zoomies out while their parents conduct serious business! Yes, I love these ideas! Let’s make cities more fun, accessible, convenient, and all around happier places to be.
@Joy-e3v9b
April 27, 2026 at 8:07 pm
💯👍🏾
@1stzee838
April 27, 2026 at 10:48 am
I’m a woman and I personally agree with everything she said. The comments down below will be sth to laugh at in the future. I’m not fully comfortable living my life and I really feel that everything in this world is built for men starting from the 9-5 jobs until having to perform the same way everyday. Women, we are amazing creatures which are full of the essence of life. We have joy, creation, caregiving and the most miraculous one; human making biologically and psycologically. I don’t undersatand how making someone living more comfortably would steal your well-being! Also, I don’t understand how highlighting the wellness of a group of people is shading the needs of other groups!(And this one is 50% of our planet and making generations of the other half). This speech is great. Big love. Thanks for TED to platform this one.
@igneosaur
April 27, 2026 at 10:52 am
This is totally crazy. I have turned off my YouTube history so I don’t get snared by the algorithmic feed of vapid content and rage-bait, with the hopes that my curated list of subscriptions are going to feed me well made and well thought out content. This video literally sounds like the ramblings of a mad person and is the kind of thing I want to avoid. I feel like I’m on Twitter or something, I don’t want this divisive content. @TED raise the bar, please!
@nurdreyer2171
April 27, 2026 at 10:57 am
From this video I learnt that TED is starting produce garbage, and that the sense of entitlement among western women has no boundaries.
@joemasserini
April 27, 2026 at 10:58 am
The examples she gave don’t seem women-specific at all. I’d love to see this stuff. Cities may have been built using men’s measurements, but I don’t think it’s “for” today’s men.
@titularhero
April 27, 2026 at 11:39 am
I hate this mindset that these people reinforce that whenever your life isnt litteraly perfect it’s someone elses fault, presumably a white man. News flash, everyone struggles. Get over it. No one is opressing you if you live in the west. Other than maybe the super rich.
@LanceBond-ey5io
April 27, 2026 at 2:08 pm
Civilization ends in 30 years without women. It ends in 30 hours without men. Name one thing that women contribute to infrastructure. Name one….waste water treatment, plumbing, car repair, roofing, drywall, coal mining, electricity, power plants, road repair, roofing, HVAC, maintenance work, septic repair, oil refinery, etc.
You contribute nothing to infrastructure. Your contributions are solely in climate-controlled environments that men created for you. Now get back to that useless HR job.
@Skyace13
April 27, 2026 at 2:19 pm
Half or more of these are childcare problems, not women’s problems. If you continue to treat childcare as only a woman’s problem, it will remain a woman’s problem.
@stanleywyt
April 27, 2026 at 3:22 pm
This is why I need to stop watching these Ted talks
@lemao9995
April 27, 2026 at 3:54 pm
Nice ragebait 👍
@marciliocarvalho8019
April 27, 2026 at 6:33 pm
❤
@Snafu2346
April 28, 2026 at 12:48 am
suddenly the dislike button is disabled.
@DildorabintuIlhom
April 29, 2026 at 2:42 am
I disagree
@jurjenbos228
April 29, 2026 at 9:05 am
As a male feminist, I don’t know what to think of this. I am offended at moments, but I do agree with universal design (not necessarily women-oriented).
@iPodFayne
April 29, 2026 at 9:13 am
Wow. All the comments here are either people making it about men or everyone generally (“All Lives Matter” logic) or insecure men subjecting people to their insecure reactions. Amazing that people this ignorant or obnoxious follow TED…
@billrenaud3015
April 29, 2026 at 1:00 pm
Are you kidding me? As a 75-year-old man that is 6’4″ tall, I find most cars too small for me. Also, the grocery stores put many items on the bottom shelf where I have to get down and lay on the floor to reach items at the back of the bottom shelf. Why do these self-absorbed women think they are more important than everybody else?
@ExistentialWolf
April 29, 2026 at 1:48 pm
Oh fat people. No, no we won’t be tailoring the world to individuals – let alone females or the obese. Life is an experience, and being put to bed isn’t one of them. Healthy men and women are indistinguishable in form and behavior, else there is concern. The best we can do is children, and again no bedtime is a private matter – you could find a tree.