Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
by Caroline Criado Perez
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez 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.
Recommendations from our site
“One of the things Criado-Perez does so well in this book is to describe the glass ceiling and the guardrails that society has in place to stop women from breaking out and succeeding. Statistics show that women earn less money than men for doing the same job, and women are tasked with more caring responsibilities and other unpaid work…Perez dives into the minutiae of daily life to reveal how the data that informs everything from urban planning to product design is based predominantly on men.” Read more...
“One reason that people have often formed not-particularly-accurate ideas about women’s situation in the world is because, in fact, there hasn’t been much data, and when the data has been collected, it has been collected with bias. And when it’s reported, it’s reported with bias, or the women’s part of the data hasn’t been reported at all. It’s a sweeping bias, from a research point of view, to exclude half the population. That’s really inexcusable. Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women book is very accessible. It’s not wonky.” Read more...
The best books on Gender Inequality
Linda Scott, Economist
“She goes through a number of examples, the ways in which design of everything from urban planning to healthcare and drug development has been based on men’s experiences. Gender bias has literally been built into the things that we use with sometimes awful effects. It is a polemical book. It’s a book that is right on message in terms of what I was describing earlier, the scepticism about technology and the way tech companies use data. The list of things she cites suggests we need to put them right, or at least take account of the fact that they may be wrong. The book is full of super quotable examples from across a whole range of sectors. It’s powerful.” Read more...
The Best Business Books of 2019: the Financial Times & McKinsey Book of the Year Award
Andrew Hill, Journalist
“Invisible Women is an exposé of just how much of the world around us is designed around the default male. Deploying a huge range of data and examples, Caroline Criado Perez, who is a writer, broadcaster and award winning campaigner, presents on overwhelming case for change. Every page is full of facts and data that support her fundamental contention that in a world built for and by men, gender data gaps, biases and blind spots are ubiquitous … The book, with all its passion and energy, is not about blame or conspiracy. It is a relentless and compelling appeal to examine the facts, to learn from the data, in key areas to seek much more contextualised data.” Read more...
The Royal Society Science Book Prize: the 2019 shortlist
Nigel Shadbolt, Technologist
Caroline Criado Perez narrates the audiobook of Invisible Women herself. With her passion, she brings alive the importance and wide-ranging consequences of past design gender bias.
Narrator: Caroline Criado Perez
Length: 9 hours and 24 minutes
