Title: Invisible Women
Author: Caroline Criado-Perez
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK

[Synopsis]

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 forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being. 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. 

[My Review]

I can’t really fault this excellent non-fiction read, all about the gap in data about women – whether that’s in the world of work, technology, safety, economics… there’s so much out there that I hadn’t considered as biased towards men. The synopsis sums it up well. Be warned- reading this book will make you angry and outraged! There’s some really shocking parts to it which I can’t say I enjoyed reading as such, but I did find hugely interesting.

Some sections I found less gripping than others, but I absolutely loved the ‘Daily Life’, ‘The Workplace’, ‘Going to the Doctor’ and ‘Design’ sections. It’s packed full of facts and references, and quotes that I had to keep stopping to write down. Here’s just a few of them:

Globally 75% of work is done by women. Who spend between 3 and 6 hours per day on it compared to men’s average of 30 mins – 2 hours. The imbalance starts early (girls as young as five some significantly more household chores than their brothers) and increases as they get older.

PMS affects 90% of all women but is chronically under-studied: one research round-up found five times as many studies on erectile dysfunction than on PMS.

Because of this, it took me way longer to read this book than my usual fiction reads – I wanted to make sure I was really taking in and processing every paragraph.

Invisible Women a fascinating read and I really recommend this to anyone (whatever gender) as it really opens your eyes to ways that this world is designed around, and for, men instead of women – despite women making only just under 50% of the world’s population.

When you get reaaaally angry at something you’ve just read in this book, take a deeeeep breath and read on… because this is all real life, unfortunately!

[Rating: 4/5]

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