Invisible Women

On the one hand this is clear and infuriating, a wide ranging look at how male-as-default, often unquestioned or under-researched, in infrastructure, transportation, medicine, employment and care and GDP, etc, makes the world much worse for women and also for everyone. Yet the book speaks of women almost entirely as a monolithic global whole - slight mentions of hormonal or racial complications, but basically no intersectional or queer consideration. As the author is often asking for better nuanced and dis-aggregated data analysis on this single important binary, we could use a version of this book that took that conclusion to a full embrace of considered complicated no-simple-norms human society.

This is a must-read for every person. (See what I did there?).

I was starting to read this book assuming that I won't be too shocked. Women face so much unfairness, which – after seeing it once – is impossible to unsee.

Sadly, I was wrong. The most outrageous things I learned about were:

Uniform causing bone fracture in high-performance female professionals such as law enforcement, military, rescue.

Think about it – the objects that are meant to protect women instead damage them. It is known to manufacturers and governments, but it take lawsuits to get even a sliver of movement towards fixing.

Knowing refusal to sex the data.

Governments, academia, manufacturers refuse to sex the data of stuff like car crashes (!) using lame excuses. It's obvious that the idea is – if there is no data, it's impossible to be called out on a systemic problem. The same approach is happening in pharma. And it is true across the jurisdictions. Women die because men in high places are refusing to store the data that they demonstrably have.

Feminists having to deal with shitheads in their personal lives.

This book has two anecdotes from the author's personal life. One about her dating essentially a redpiller and one about her dating a techbro. This really shows how pathetic "dating market" is if for straight women.

Female warriors

The most outstanding example of male denial was the female Viking warrior story and how researchers would cut their tongues trying to swallow the Occam's razor arguing that it was a mix-up while processing archeological dig findings rather than admit the obvious – there were badass females leading their peers into battle way before Joan of Arc.

Quote of the book

I'll conclude with something from the field of economy. Where I thought that I know everything there is to know about pay gap...

There is no such thing as a woman who doesn’t work. There is only a woman who isn’t paid for her work

Think about it – the fact that women do 70-ish percent of household tasks means that they are more tired and have less time for hobbies and further education. Plus, the fact that at least 20% of their labour is unpaid vs slightly more than 10% of males, further contributes to pay gap!

This review only covers novel things for me and not all of those. Please read this book, there's a lot more research-backed examples. Talk about this book and share it. Data gap has to go, as well as male defaults, as well as male domination. It is in the best interest of the whole society, but that should be obvious to anyone.

Are you a 5’ 9” white male weighing 196 pounds? If not, the world was not designed for you. In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez covers the surprising male bias in your daily life. 49.6% of all people are just not studied in any significant way: car crash safety, economic output, heart attack signs, and the efficacy of drugs. Everything is simplified to fit the default male the mark is missed by half. Even the most thoughtful and conscious man is just going to miss huge parts of the female experience. To remedy this Perez suggests what RBG suggested “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.”

Invisible Women: slpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/12462739981

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.