This airport's new parking spaces pretty much imply that women are terrible drivers

Ladies, we're lucky that the Frankfurt Airport is looking out for us. The airport has recently revealed its new women's parking spaces, which are wider than standard parking spaces and also painted bright pink because – as scientists know – pink is the only color that women's eyes are capable of detecting. And thank goodness they've widened those spaces, because we're always too busy Googling "impractical shoes" and "ovulation tests" on our iPhones to pay attention to straight lines. Hell, sometimes, just being out of the kitchen leaves me so disoriented that I completely lose my spatial awareness.

On the airport's website, the new parking spaces are represented by — I'm not even kidding — a picture of a flower, and described as being bigger and "colour-coded and easy to find." Needless to say, not everyone is delighted by what the spaces imply: that women are terrible drivers who can't even remember which space they haphazardly slung their vehicles into. Geraldine Herbert, the editor of Irish car magazine Wheels for Women, told The Local:

It's very patronizing for women to be singled out in this way. All this does is reinforce the stereotype that women are bad at parking.

In the airport's defense, I guess, in the early 1990s, Germany began to require that a percentage of each state's parking spaces be designated for women. This was less about women's clumsiness behind the wheel, though, and more about ensuring women's safety. The women's spaces, which men were not prohibited from using, were typically near the exits of parking garages, brightly lit and frequently monitored by surveillance equipment. This sounds totally reasonable and those regulations still exist in the country, although, as The Local explained, the number of spaces required can vary from city to city.

If the airport wanted to prioritize women's safety, that would be one thing – one welcome thing, even. And a scrambling airport spokesperson was quick to highlight that aspect, noting the facility's "even higher" security measures near these parking spaces. A spokesperson for the German Automobile Association shared that group's concerns, telling the newspaper:

We believe that in car parks, every parking space should be a 'women's' parking space. This means making sure every space and stairwell is well-lit, avoiding blind spots and corners and installing sufficient electronic security systems – most importantly video surveillance and emergency call systems.

But what about the pink paint?