Caroline Criado Perez

A fact-based book with loads of data and statistics to show how the world is designed by men and for men, and how the lack of focus and data on women is perpetuating issues in medicine, public policy, product design, workplace safty, workplace bias, crisis management/recovery, sexual violence against women etc. You'll learn:
• How the "male default" and the lack of female-specific data reinforce existing gaps and biases in a loop;
• The differences between the male and female bodies, and the implications for medicine and health—where medical research and clinical trials have focused mainly on men, and there's a chronic lack of data about the female body and physiology.
• How and why women are disadvantaged by unpaid care work and gender biases at the workplace, the implications for women and society, and what governments and organizations can do about it.
• How women's needs and safety are typically neglected in product designs, workplace standards and equipment, leading to lost opportunities and real dangers.
• Examples and implications when women’s needs are overlooked in infrastructural planning, public policy, and crisis management.

Book summary at: https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-invisible-women-caroline-criado-perez/… (més)

This book delves into the issue of data bias against women.

The author presents evidence that there is often more to consider in the world than what men may think. For example, smartphones are designed for male hands, many medicines are tested based on male bodies, and equipment is designed based on standard male body measurements. More interesting, we cannot assume that women are simply a variation of men's bodies and that we are potentially ruling out drugs that would work for women in early trials because they don't work in men.

Instead of trying to make women similar to men, we should consider them as an equal half of the human population, not a minority.

The book also discusses how our culture is shaped by male-default thinking, which can discourage women from pursuing certain careers or interests due to lack of representation or motivation.

Personally, I found the book to be a bit dense with data, and some of the author's perspectives did not align with my own. However, overall I found it to be a good read and relevant to the current year 2023.… (més)

Brilliant! I learnt so much from this book. I had to listen to it in small bursts because it's full of data&numbers and I needed time to process it all. Also because it made my blood boil, so I really could only listen to half an hour at a time anyway. There are so many ways in which the world has been designed for men, by men, due to their implicit gender bias, and this book goes through all of them. From seatbelts safety, to city structure, drug trials... It's appalling, really. Worth a read!… (més)