01/28/2019

Feminist activist and journalist Criado Perez (Do It Like a Woman) exposes a persistent and disturbing data gap that contributes to discomfort, poverty, and risk for women. An assumption that “male” traits and experience are universal, she argues, is both cause and consequence of skewed designs in public spaces, government, medical studies, and the workforce. She produces solid evidence that the white male default infiltrates everything from artificial intelligence algorithms to disaster relief in Europe, Asia, and North America, leading to police officers who can’t find protective gear that fits them, cellphone users whose devices are too large for their hands, and gender-neutral parental-leave policies that unwittingly disadvantage workers who have recently given birth or are primary caregivers. She draws on new research and interviews with experts in such disciplines as city planning that suggest considering women’s needs in designs is more cost-effective, as well as more just. Criado Perez handles this material with subtle wit, calm authority, and a tendency to turn toward solutions. The book inaccurately treats womanhood as interchangeable with certain traits or experiences—like small stature, having given birth to one’s children, or facing gender discrimination in professional settings—which will turn off some readers. But this is still a provocative, vital book. (Mar.)

Feminist campaigner, Caroline Criado-Perez left us gobsmacked with Invisible Women, an in-depth look at how women are (still) excluded in society.

"An incredible book."

Brilliant … Invisible Women lays out in impressive detail the many ways that human beings are presumed to be male, as well as the wide-reaching effects of this distorted view of humanity.

Invisible Women is an absorbing cornucopia of thought-provoking facts - fascinating, alarming and face-palming in equal measures. Caroline Criado Perez shows up the shortcomings of a world designed for men by men. The consequences of treating men as the default option, or women just as smaller men – if they get considered at all - has wide-reaching implications for everything (and everyone) from snow clearing to seat-belts and many branches of medicine. I shall certainly think of this book next time I have a heart attack, a car crash or just want to go to the toilet at the theatre.

"Invisible Women takes on the neglected topic of what we don't know - and why. The result is a powerful, important and eye-opening analysis of the gender politics of knowledge and ignorance. With examples from technology to natural disasters, this is an original and timely reminder of why we need women in the leadership of the institutions that shape every aspect of our lives."

The thoroughness of Invisible Women doesn’t detract from its absolute readability. This is entertaining, scholarly and so very important.

Even with all the progress women have made in the last few decades, Invisible Women proves we still have a long way to go. Reading this book—preferably in a comfortably warm room—is the first step.

The most important book I have ever read.

Shocking, yet essential, reading.

As Invisible Women illuminates, in an almost overwhelming way, communities pay tremendous costs for the gender data gap: costs of income, time, women's health, and sometimes women's lives.

There’s a sense of rage simmering beneath the surface of Invisible Women, every now and then it bubbles up in the text, but the book’s force doesn’t derive from the power of its rhetoric – instead it’s the steady, unrelenting accumulation of evidence, the sheer weight of her argument. … Reading Invisible Women one might experience, as I did, the dizzying sensation that so many of my own stories, so many of my friends’ stories, so many incidents I had experienced as discrete and unrelated – at work, at home, on the streets, in hospital – are in fact interconnected. As women, we are so used to contorting ourselves to fit into men-shaped spaces, we’ve learned to ignore how often it hurts.

“Invisible Women is a game-changer; an uncompromising blitz of facts, sad, mad, bad and funny, making an unanswerable case and doing so brilliantly. … the ambition and scope — and sheer originality — of Invisible Women is huge; no less than the story of what happens when we forget to account for half of humanity. It should be on every policymaker, politician and manager’s shelves.

This book is a devastating indictment of institutionalised complacency and a rallying cry to fight back… Invisible Women should propel women into action.

"A blisteringly good book... never less than eye-opening, and frequently staggering."

A diligently researched and clearly written exposé.

Read this book and then tell me the patriarchy is a figment of my imagination.

An excellent book packed with practical information of the kind required by those attempting to dismantle the patriarchy.

Criado Perez doesn’t set out to prove a vast conspiracy; she simply wields data like a laser, slicing cleanly through the fog of unconscious and unthinking preferences.

Brilliant.

A diligently researched and clearly written exposé.

A powerful call to bust the myths and bridge the gap.

03/01/2019

In her introduction, Perez (Do It Like a Woman) explains that data bias toward men over women is both caused and perpetuated by "male universality" or "the presumption that what is male is universal" and that this failure to give equal consideration to the female perspective has put women's lives and livelihoods at risk. The bulk of the book is filled with copious examples of how this lack of female-specific data negatively affects and disadvantages women across myriad situations. The examples are divided into sections on daily life, the workplace, design, going to the doctor, public life, and when it goes wrong (conflicts, pandemics, and natural disasters). Perez concludes with an afterword in which she advocates for a shift toward the female focus that gives particular attention to the themes that appear frequently in the data bias examples—the female body, male violence against women, and women's unpaid care burden—and for increased female representation in decision-making and knowledge production as a means to make this happen. VERDICT Exhaustively researched and well argued, this volume will appeal to anyone curious about equality and social justice topics.—Sara Holder, Univ. of Illinois Libs., Champaign