18 Leaders The EconomistNovember 23rd 2019
2 not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into
the territory it occupies.” The reality on the ground that Mr Pom-
peo ignores is that 2.6m Palestinians live in the West Bank,
which most of the world, and even past Israeli leaders, see as part
of a future Palestinian state. “You may not like the word, but what
is happening is an occupation; it is a disaster for Israel and the
Palestinians,” said Ariel Sharon, then prime minister, in 2003.
Mr Netanyahu, by contrast, courts the pro-settler crowd, who
have helped him win four elections. In September he vowed to
annex large parts of the West Bank, which no previous prime
minister thought wise. Cynics dismissed this as a vote-getting
stunt by a politician who is not really ready for annexation. But
by giving the enthusiasts a green light, Mr Trump has hemmed in
the prime minister—or whoever leads Israel next. The country is
in political gridlock after an inconclusive election in September.
If Mr Netanyahu forms a government, now or after another poll,
he will come under pressure from his coalition to annex the land
quickly, while Mr Trump is still in office. The prime minister,
who wants his allies in the Knesset to shield him from prosecu-
tion on corruption charges, is in no position to resist.
The settlements pose no less a challenge to Benny Gantz,
whose Blue and White party won a plurality of seats. Mr Gantz, aformer general who pummelled the Palestinians in Gaza, has
failed to form a government of his own. He welcomed the an-
nouncement by Mr Pompeo, and may yet team up with some an-
nexationists. But should he succeed in cobbling together a ruling
coalition, he will have to grapple with the settlements, too. He
has not presented any ideas for doing so. Nor has Mr Trump re-
vealed his own long-promised plan for the “ultimate deal” be-
tween Israelis and Palestinians.
The Trump administration may not realise it, but it is pushing
Israel into a dangerous corner. It is not just that the settlements
are “an obstacle to peace”, as even Reagan conceded, or that those
deep within the West Bank are a financial and security burden on
the Israeli state. They also challenge Israel’s character.
Annexation could eat up so much land that what is left would
not leave a coherent or functional Palestine. The resulting death
of the two-state solution would present Israel with terrible op-
tions in the occupied territories. One path would be to give the
Palestinians equal rights and watch as they matched or even out-
numbered and outvoted the country’s Jewish population. An-
other would be to turn them into second-class citizens or corral
them in Bantustans, both of which would turn Israel into a place
with different laws for different peoples—an apartheid state. 7T
ailors workedout long ago that men and women have dif-
ferent shapes. Yet this message has failed to penetrate many
other areas of design. Car seatbelts, for example, which date back
to the 1880s, are often still configured for men, who tend to sit
farther back than women when driving. Most protective gear
used by workers is designed for men’s bodies. And today the
most forward-looking place on Earth—Silicon Valley—is still
embedding old-school bias into new products.
Consider virtual-reality headsets. Women are significantly
more likely than men to feel sick when using them, perhaps be-
cause 90% of women have pupils that are closer together than
the typical headset’s default setting (see Science
section). This is not an isolated example. Most
smartphones are too big to fit comfortably into
the average woman’s hand, as are many video-
game controllers.
An obvious part of the explanation for Sili-
con Valley’s design problem is that men control
most of its companies—male-run firms receive
82% of venture-capital (vc) funding—and entre-
preneurs often build products to solve problems or address
needs that affect them personally. Male bosses and entrepre-
neurs may be unaware of the problems women face. They may
not flag up obvious areas of concern, or ask the right questions
when doing their research (famously, Apple did not originally
include menstrual-cycle tracking in its smartwatch, or in the
iPhone’s Health app).
Once an idea gets the green light it will then be handled by
product-design and engineering teams, three-quarters of whose
members are men. These teams often use data to make deci-
sions, but lumping all users together means they may fail to spottrends based on sex differences. Reliance on historical data, and
the sparsity of data on underrepresented groups, can also create
bias in algorithms. Amazon binned a hiring algorithm that was
persistently sexist, and Apple is being investigated over its new
credit card, which offers women lower credit limits.
Next comes testing. Naturally, designers test prototypes on
their intended customers, but they may not get feedback from a
broad enough group of people. There is also the risk of confirma-
tion bias—designers may listen to what they want to hear, and
discount negative reactions from some groups of users.
Tech’s design bias needs fixing for ethical, safety and busi-
ness reasons. The ethical imperative is obvious:
it is wrong that women have to make do with a
“one-size-fits-men” world, as Caroline Criado
Perez, a writer, puts it. As for safety, regulators
can tackle that by clamping down on things that
are dangerous to women—including seatbelts—
because they are not designed properly.
But there is also a powerful business case for
avoiding design bias, because huge opportuni-
ties are being missed. Women are 50% of the population, and
make 70-80% of the world’s consumer-spending decisions. That
means they control the deployment of more than $40trn a year.
Change may be coming. The first voice-recognition systems
struggled to understand female voices, but most now manage
just fine. “Femtech” startups, which focus on women’s health
and well-being, may raise $1bn by the end of this year. vcfunds
and tech firms are recruiting more women. Ensuring that pro-
ducts are designed for everyone would lead to happier and safer
customers. For the companies that get it right, that means higher
profits. What is holding them back? 7Debugging gender bias
Silicon Valley is bad at making products that suit women. That is a missed opportunityProduct design