Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

I have been very interested to read this book since the first time I read the author's article in the Guardian about the kind of gender data gap that exists in our world and how it affects daily life of women. But I kept putting it off because I knew it would only make me mad and sad. But I finally got my copy from the library and it made me feel everything I expected it to.

To start off with the kind of book this is, it's possible a casual reader will find it dry. It's very scientific and research oriented, chock full of information about studies and loads of statistics that are important to understand the gravity of the issues that the author is trying to discuss. This can also come across as a little repetitive because ultimately, whatever the topic the author is talking about in a chapter, the conclusion is kinda inevitable.

But it's the overall impact of these statistics and how it feels to read it as a woman that's impactful even though I'm not a very numbers oriented person. From something as small as the average setting of the air conditioning in a workplace to highly dangerous like misdiagnosis of life threatening heart attacks, the idea that everything is designed and researched keeping an average man in mind is appalling but also not surprising. Right from how we grew up referring to our species as “mankind”, a man has always been the default and we the women, the aberration. And with men at the helm of every power structure since centuries, it's no wonder that the whole world is designed in a way to make them safe and comfortable, and any noise made by women or institutions asking for more gender specific research and policy are dismissed because women, their bodies, their unpaid labor - everything about them is too different, too atypical. And it just boils my blood that the differences of half of the population are considered atypical and too complicated to be factored into making life impacting decisions, as if only one half of the world deserves to be represented.

The author covers a wide range of topics like how the massive amount of unpaid labor by women goes unnoticed and isn't considered when making any policy decisions regarding social service budgets or infrastructure planning that would benefit their myriad tasks; how much of the industrial or agricultural equipment is made in a way that exacerbates the chance of injury and long term issues for women; how most of the drugs and treatments that we use have never even been tested properly to see how differently they would affect a woman or are they even effective on a female body; how every field of employment including tech and academia is structured in a way that benefits men who can work along hours but never takes into account the massive amounts of additional responsibilities women have to fulfill; how cars are never crash tested with female dummies, particularly drivers which leads to a much higher risk of injury and death. And the list just goes on.

But what scares me the most is the rise of using big data and algorithms for making any important decisions in the current day and age. And as men are still the ones in power and the majority in development of these projects, and data actually pertaining to women doesn't exist - any algorithms developed only exacerbate their existing biases and will harm women in even more substantial ways as the usage of technology keeps increasing. It's hardly surprising that even algorithms and AI seem to associate the terms doctor, genius and scientist with men while women are confined to nurse, nanny and secretary.

To conclude, this is a very informative book and I think everyone who is interested to know how our world works and on what basis decisions are made everyday, should give this a try. It's not a binge reading kinda book, so it maybe easy to handle in smaller doses. And if you are a woman reading it, I promise it'll make you very very angry and exasperated and maybe even scared. And while the author keeps mentioning that many of the issues discussed can be mitigated by gathering more gender specific data, none of what is actually happening gave me hope that it's possible in the near future. So many of the problems could really be solved if the decision makers just listen to women, but are they really ready to?

Such a disappointing read. For someone that claims to care as much about “data gaps” as she does, the massive gap in this book for people that are trans, gender fluid or non-binary is astonishing. Not to mention the very limited discussion of non-white races (only saw 2 mentions of black women in the entire book).

If you are a white cis woman that has no interest in intersectional feminism, then I guess this book might be for you. However, if you want an inclusive read that talks about trans and race issues as much as cis white women issues, then you can skip this, because you will finish the book with a very simplistic view of issues that are anything but simple.

If anything, she has managed to prove that just because a woman is included in the conversation, this does not guarantee that all women's views and issues will be represented in her speech.

This was really well researched and written, it felt like a huge fact dump without the tedium that usually comes with it.

The points here are unfortunately not too surprising, almost universally products and ideas are designed with the average person in mind, but the average person is actually the average man. In examples cited in this book, the failings repeated the most seemed to be the unaccounted for difference in size of the average male to the average female and the fact that women are far more likely to be the primary caregiver to dependents, though the book also dives into much more specific sex-based differences as well. Often times, it just reads as an inditement of capitalism in general, just point out that it treats women extremely disproportionately worse.

I like to think that I consider this sort of thing in my day-to-day life and work, but this book will certainly make me think harder about it and be more aware.

I listened to this via audiobook narrated by the author herself, which was really well done and felt more personal for it, I think. Highly recommend.

This is an deep dive into how our information world has had, does have, and sadly will mostly continue to have a women shaped gap. Highlighted here are examples from design of transportation, home building, and many more. This goes a long way to explaining why it happened and explains that it would be a fairly easy gap to fill - just start talking to women.

I am embarrassed to say how perspective shifting and eye opening this book was.

I am also not sure I would have read it if it wasn't for my daughter's influence on my life.

Edit: Other reviews have highlighted there is an oversight of the trans community, for which sex-segregated bathrooms, as an example, is more complicated. However I don't believe this is necessarily an all or nothing issue, bathrooms can still exist in all 3 guises (male, female and gender-neutral) giving users the choice as to where they feel most safe in their own circumstances.

Perfect is the enemy of better, but this book highlights the importance of at least this missing choice and the lack of sex-disaggregated data reinforcing these issues. More investigation would be needed to include the LGBTQ+ issues missing from this book, but it feels a reasonable scope for the book.

Edit 2: If anybody has a similar/related book looking into LGBTQ+ data-gap issues, please do recommend them.

Starts out fairly strong becomes drawn out and a little tedious towards the end.
As mentioned by other reviewers this book suffers from a case of White Feminism™ (which can happen even to non-white authors) but it makes good points and is obviously well researched so I don't think you should let it discourage you from reading it if the topic interests you.

This is a great book, and I think everyone should read it. I'm only giving it three out of five stars because I found the volume of data overwhelming to the point of becoming a bit of a slog. The intro hooks you with an easy-read but subsequent chapters become a bit harder to wade through. I also read this as an audio book, which was both good and bad. It's great to have the book ready by the author herself, you can hear her passion, indignation and frustration at points which makes it come alive. At times I found myself wishing I had a hardcopy to flip back and forth with.

I'd still recommend this tome to anyone and everyone and will likely become that annoying friend who gives copies of this as gifts.

The rhythm is smooth, the chapters are grouped by subject matter and were very clear and consistent with the topics discussed.

I only made it 41% of the way thru because the news was so disheartening and, as of her writing, not much in the way of improvement; solutions identified or implementated.

It's a subject that I'll continue to follow.

EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. NEEDS. TO. READ. THIS. BOOK.

It's not political, it's not biased, it's just a pure fact that the world is built for men. Until you read this book, you'll have no idea the depths of suffering that is directly responsible for that fact. If you're a man, you need to read this and be made aware of the tiny things you may do and how they impact women on a large scale. If you're a woman, you need to be aware of how this system impacts you and how to fight against it.

From health care and data science to political office and disaster response, every industry plays a role in making men the default being. It's not out of hate or even purposeful neglect, but out of missing data and women's voices that the needs of the female species are often completely ignored.

Nothing will change until the vast majority of culture begins to shift, but there are things every single person on this planet can do that will make an impact on how half of the population lives. Literal lives depend on men and women stepping up and making these changes in society, law, culture, and standard practices. Start by just reading this book, then ask yourself how you can make an impact.

I greatly appreciated this very dense and far-reaching collection of troubling statistics about the discrimination of women around the world and in all aspects of their lives. Reading the book made me feel mad consistently. The amount of injustice is overwhelming, but I appreciate taking away a renewed sensitivity for the injustice women face in so many areas. I come out of this book with a desire to be hyper aware of any injustice I witness in my life, and to help remedy it as best as I can.

I doubt there has been any other book published till now that has compiled the gender data gap corresponding to so many sectors/fields in a single place. The structure of the book is mostly smooth but some chapters do have the tendency to jump around a little bit. One thing I do wanna discuss is the references, the author has provided fairly adequate references but there are still some disparities among data, like The minimum paid parental leave duration in Portugal was downright wrong and there was no reference to it, and some other references just have the surnames of the researchers who have done the study and nothing else. I also did not like that she didn't explain some barely believable points like once she said that the average cleaning staff of hotels lift more than average builders per hour and didn't explain how(the reference was just as useless). I also didn't like that she didn't specify countries most of the time (you just have to guess it's about the USA/UK).
Even if I have some criticism for this book I can't explain how informative and essential this book is. I would gladly recommend it to everyone who is interested in learning more about the gender gap.
3.75 stars/4

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth” - Simone de Beauvoir

This is such an important book and I wish more people would read it. I had no idea of the severity of the gender data gap and its impact in our lives and future.
As a woman, I tend to be more aware of the invisible an unaccounted work we are doing. However, and probably naively, I had no idea of how much being a woman was ignored in the construction of the world we live.

We live in a world where ‘man' is the default - the default body, the default gender, the default occupation - while half of the population count as exception or minority. The resulting discrimination is either deeply ingrained in culture or happens without awareness because of the gender data gap. We simply don't know how policy decisions in general favor men over women, because we don't gender-segregate the data.

- Women die more often in hospitals because procedures and medication are primarily tested on men.
- Equally sized bathrooms forget about the fact that women are generally the ones taking care of children and elders.
- Women receives more injuries in car accidents, because their bodies are NOT scaled-down versions of male crash test dummies.
- Clearing the roads before pavements on snow-days, helps ‘men' drive to work, while interrupting unpaid female work and leading to higher numbers of female injuries.

Some of these might be obvious, other might only lead to a 10% advantage of men over women. But these percentages are steady and never tip the other way.

Criado-Perez does a phenomenal job at showing us a variety of examples from all fields of life, supported with substantial data and references, while also keeping the book an engaging read.

I think the arguments are counterproductive if the desire is equality and equity. Some arguments would increase othering. And some seem lacking insight.
I think the data portion is good, but the interpretation and politics are not my jam. Very neoliberal and trying to solve problems within the framework that creates the problems instead of thinking of changing the framework. (IE: there are no arguments about how the political/social system is failing by necessitating a caste/class system under oligarchical/plutocracy rule)

A must-read for everyone. This book illustrates very well that today's society's inequality is way more than “just” the pay gap. Being aware of inequalities and understanding it's effects is the first step for improving them. The second step is to learn from this book and take actions - trying to represent women more is one of the biggest challenges (that are possible to overcome!) in our society.

It's a man's world.

Sure, I'm familiar with income disparity, about how office temperatures are dialled to male physiology, and the head scratching oversight from Fitbit tracking various health statuses but not menstrual cycles. Obvious annoyances but this book outlines how much more is at stake.

How about the fact that it wasn't until 2011 that the US started using a female crash-test dummy. Up to that point they simply used a small male version which leads to cars being completely designed around the male body. As a result, females are nearly 50% more likely to be seriously hurt in a collision and 17% more likely to die.

How police protective armour is specifically formed to the male body leading to female officers having a higher likelihood of dying from a stab wound due to ill-fitting gear. How women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack because trials tend to use and research predominantly male participants.

Or how about that miraculous drug that helped alleviate menstrual cramps being deemed non-viable and unlikely to turn a profit that would go on to find life as a little blue pill to address male erectile dysfunction instead.

This book is filled with tidbits that spotlight our patriarchal data bias that go beyond the obvious to things like transit routes, snow removal and discovering the story of Mozart's older sister.

This is wall-to-wall knowledge that will having you nudging your partner, friend or co-worker with a “didja know?” that still leaves you shaking your head if not outright pulling your hair. Well worth the read, can't recommend it enough.

I very rarely write reviews, but I feel this book requires one. Reading this made me genuinely angry. As a young white male, beforereading this I was aware of some of the ways in which our world is not designed for women. The field in which I work is heavily male dominated, but there are some financial incentives in place to encourage more women, which I was somewhat resentful of. I agreed with more women in principle, but I didn't see why scholarships were the way to do that.

Now, however it is a different story. Reading this, Criado-Perez exposes the way in which our entire world is designed and structured to ignore wholesale the needs of 50% of our population. I was blown away by how insidious and ingrained this bias is - it pervades every aspect of what we do. This book made me ashamed of my own ignorance. It made me regret that I hadn't thought about this issue enough previously. After Criado-Perez shines a light on each issue, it makes it feel obvious, that it really was just staring me in the face and I couldn't see it. It made me angry that we allow this to happen.

I find Criado-Perez's work to be persuasive and meticulously researched. Every time I felt she would have been absolutely justified to make some snide comment about the blatant stupidity of the situation, she pulls up short and lets the data do the talking for her. This is one of the few books that I will be genuinely pushing my friends to read.

Good overall read. It can get a bit repetitive and some time throws out too many numbers for you to really comprehend and remember everything it talks about, but very interesting overall. It can be a hard read as well, because if you're like me, you'll find yourself getting angry at all the ‘subtle' ways sexism and inequality exists and how much if affects women in ways you may not even think about.