Invisible Women
Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development to health care to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this insidious bias, in time, in money, and often with their lives. Celebrated feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates this shocking root cause of gender inequality in the award-winning, #1 international bestseller Invisible Women. Examining the home, the workplace, the public square, the doctor’s office, and more, Criado Perez unearths a dangerous pattern in data and its consequences on women’s lives. Product designers use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to everything from pianos to cell phones to voice recognition software, when in fact this approach is designed to fit men. Cities prioritize men’s needs when designing public transportation, roads, and even snow removal, neglecting to consider women’s safety or unique responsibilities and travel patterns. And in medical research, women have largely been excluded from studies and textbooks, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated, and misdiagnosed.
Stats for nerds
13recommend
23mentions
18people
2019–2026years
74% recommend26% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- you would probably like the book Invisible Women. Touches a lot on this subject and how there is so much "missing data" when we talk about these things and it carries through to the modern day
- Invisible Women
If you liked Freakonomics, you will like this. It's not a rant, just one example after another of how we fail to account for half of the population.
I just finished The God of Small Things. The writing is phenomenal, but it was not quite my kind of book, so it took me a bit of effort to finish.
- People are currently judging our time harshly for it, mostly researchers and progressives and women, and are being yelled at for being "woke"
Read "Invisible Women" by Caroline Criado-Perez for a strong take.
- Yes, the expectation to give up focus on the self and go into familial service is what directly leads to them missing opportunities to do things like marathons after they reach 30.
> Without reading too much into it, let’s not deemphasize family rearing importance to society in order to emphasize the need to fill some equality gap
Why not? Many women talk about it at length, it's already been a part of feminist theory and action for a long time.
Why should I not listen to them if they tell me they've been hurt? Because it "could be complicated?" On a site dedicated to intellectual stimulation that won't cut it for me.
I really recommend you to check out Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez to get a sense of the breath and number of barriers we put up for women. They are not being given a fair choice, and they're it loudly.
- If you haven't read Invisible Women[0] yet, you should. Don't be intimidated by the page count, a good 50% of the book is just listing sources of _everything_.
The tl;dr is that women, for example, have been excluded from all kinds of medical, scientific and safety studies just because it's too hard to include them. Them having periods and hormones and all that stuff that makes science HARD. It's easier just to test on men =)
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41104077-invisible-women
- I would insist that you try to open up your worldview slightly and accept that sometimes having a team with more than just white men can be desirable and lead to better outcomes for the end product. Maybe bandaids are not the best example, but consider pulse oximeters[0].
There are many examples like this if you care to look for them. I would recommend the books Weapons of Math Destruction and Invisible Women for some very well done research on the way that you can codify human biases in processes that should neutral.
I would also personally recommend that you give an earnest try to understanding why so many people argue for diversity. A genuine attempt. Even if you don't fully change your mind on it I think you will find it easier to approach the world with a little more compassion for people who don't look like you.
[0]: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/commentary-more-health-inequalit...
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