First things first: the designer of this book was clearly on a roll. The font is clear and delightful. The italics, in particular, are so beautiful I had to take a picture of them and send it to my friend so he could appreciate them too. The cover design is subtle and fantastic. When you take the dustjacket off, the overlaid blue male figures disappear, leaving the invisible women behind, which ties in wonderfully with the book’s overarching message. The texture of the dustjacket and hardcover is delightful, with a velvety-smooth overlay that is really pleasing to the touch.
The book is heavily referenced throughout with endnotes. These are collected directly after the acknowledgements, a full 69 pages of references. The impact of this collected body of commentary serves to underline the density of information and dedication of the research which went into this book. While I’m not a fan of endnotes, personally, the stylistic choice to collect them all together gives undeniable weight to the book, and makes it difficult to dismiss its conclusions.
But that’s enough about the physical construction of this book (for which Chatto and Windus deserves great praise). What about the content itself?
Well, I read this book with a combination of mounting horror, frustration, and rage. Criado Perez takes the reader by the hand and gently leads them along a journey of discrimination against women which is endemic in all areas of life. Split into six thematic sections (Daily Life, The Workplace, Design, Going to the Doctor, Public Life, and When it Goes Wrong), this book catalogues a pantheon of circumstances where what is female is considered as abnormal, as less than standard, as Other. Collected together, the ignorance of design to the differing needs of 50% of the population is both fascinating and incredibly infuriating.
Criado Perez doesn’t use this book as a stick with which to beat the patriarchy, however. Rather, she delicately unpicks the circumstances which lead to a lack of consideration of the needs of those other than what is considered to be the default. Her examples are wide-ranging, touching on every area of life, and consistently return the same conclusion: women just haven’t been thought about. It’s not that their needs have been considered and dismissed. It’s that the fact that they might have different needs hasn’t even occurred to the people creating these structures.
(Generally. There are some notable exceptions. One quote from Tim Schalk really burned my cookies. But it’s not actually the norm.)
From Sheryl Sandberg’s explanation at Google that heavily pregnant women can’t walk long distances to Apple Health’s omission of allowing tracking of a menstrual cycle, for many examples in this book, the reason for these omissions is that people didn’t even think of them as a potential need. Cars are crash tested rigorously before making it to market – but the dummies used are 1.7m tall. This is the size of the average man, not the size of the average person, and it leads to shocking statistics like the fact that women – despite being less likely to crash – if they are involved in a crash, are 47% more likely to be seriously injured. Criado Perez points out myriad ways that this unthinking acceptance of male as default – and as applicable to all – unfairly impacts on women, and leads to their being unconsidered in further development.
The book has one overarching message, which calls clearly from every page. Do something about this. Don’t accept data as applicable to all. Sex-disaggregate data, and investigate how men and women are differently impacted. In an era which relies on big data more than ever, the gender data gap needs to be acknowledged, counteracted, and filled. And it needs to be done with a specific focus on counteracting the detriment which the gender data gap had caused. Otherwise we end up with situations where a policy designed to create more family-friendly situations actually end up disadvantaging those it intended to help.
Criado Perez is not myopic in her discussions either – she skillfully acknowledges the intersections of race, gender identity, disability, and other minority identities can have to create a cumulatively detrimental effect. Invisible Women is a primer on how not to design, a feminist manifesto, a fantastic example of hard research with incredible readability, and a thoroughly engaging experience. It has filled me with rage and frustration – my friends and family have borne the brunt of several rants already – and I’ll be passing it on and recommending it to pretty much everyone I know.
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There is no such thing as a woman who doesn’t work. There is only a woman who isn’t paid for her work.Highlighted by 2,913 Kindle readers- The fact is that worth is a matter of opinion, and opinion is informed by culture. And if that culture is as male-biased as ours is, it can’t help but be biased against women. By default.Highlighted by 2,639 Kindle readers
- For him, the way he saw the world was universal, while feminism – seeing the world from a female perspective – was niche. Ideological.Highlighted by 2,305 Kindle readers
- When you have been so used, as a white man, to white and male going without saying, it’s understandable that you might forget that white and male is an identity too.Highlighted by 2,076 Kindle readers
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Compelling, enlightening and entertaining data review!
The brilliance in this book is that Criado Perez presents multiple examples of a blatant male bias in the aggregate data being used to make decisions that affect women and men and leaves it sitting there for all to see that acceptance of the status quo is untenable, for any progressive and healthy society. There is no man-bashing here, thankfully. On the contrary, Caroline states that this gender bias is not malicious, it is and always has been unintentional, but it does disadvantage women in terms of vehicle safety, healthcare, and in myriad other ways. As a parent of three girls and two boys, several of whom are pursuing careers in STEM, this text is incredibly relevant to us. I could waffle on about the ways that this bias exists and that my offspring have encountered ad nauseam, from lab coats and goggles in only male sizes to consultants that think girls only exist to make coffee and look pretty. Enlightening, fascinating and mind-blowing data presented in an engaging and entertaining format - a very worthy 5 stars!I saw Caroline being interviewed at the Edinburgh book festival recently and was impressed by her candour about the online threats she has received simply by putting her head above the parapet to campaign to have just one woman represented on the new bank notes and also by her reticence in being perceived as a strident feminist. What she has written here is simply a factual representation but it has brought her into the line of fire from all kinds of misogynists and people who would wish to silence the voice of truth and reason. These entrenched biases are not going to be corrected overnight, despite how detrimental some of them are to us as women, but the more of us who tentatively stand up and say 'actually, we matter as well' then perhaps the more likely we are to finally be heard. Although in the current political climate - terrifyingly - the reverse might be true.
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