The full title is ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’
Here is the description:
Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.
Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.
Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are excluded from the very building blocks of the world we live in, and the impact this has on their health and wellbeing. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media – Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.
Yes! I’m a psychiatrist and learned loads from it - I recommend it all the time to my colleagues!
I agree with the points she made about the medical field (when I myself had heart problems, it was thought to be anxiety and not investigated/recognised as medical until I was admitted to the Coronary Care unit for a week and needed a pacemaker…), but I had already been broadly aware of these issues.
For me the more eye-opening chapter was about town/city planning and how development and transport issues disproportionately negatively affect women (e.g having a “flat rate” bus fare means women are more out of pocket as they often do lots of smaller trips (shopping, care, etc) rather than just to/from work!).
If anyone here is even slightly interested, I’d definitely say to them to pick it up! I “read” the audiobook first but then got a physical copy because I reference it so often! 🤓
I teach graduate psych students and often reference the same chapters. I just picked up a spare copy of the book for my office.