A Review of Caroline Criado-Perez’s ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’.
AUTHOR: MEGHNA AMIN
PUBLISHED: 5TH JUNE 2020
Feminism. A word that we’ve almost become numb to. A word thrown about online, that signifies so much more than equal opportunity. So much more than equal pay, equal parental leave, and equal voting. This is exactly what Caroline Criado-Perez’s revolutionary book ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’ explores.
We’ve exhausted the word feminist. And the reason for this is simply due to the fact that we’ve exhausted the word in a patriarchal world. Feminism doesn’t have a place in a world where it’s not the norm. And simply put, in this world women are just not the norm. So how can true equality even begin to exist?
Whilst two-thirds of British men believe women have the ‘privilege’ of equal opportunities in this day and age, Criado-Perez does not just argue back, she uses their own data to prove them wrong. From showing us how our smartphones are designed to fit within a male hand, to how seatbelts fit securely only around male bodies, Criado-Perez exposes the institutionalised privileges women are not afforded, and how the world has not been designed to fit around them.
Of course it’s a man’s world, when it’s been built by a man for another man. And we don’t need the data to tell them that. But perhaps it’s that very data which is needed for them to listen. To finally listen to the stories and experiences women have succumbed to throughout history. To understand why women are always cold in offices not designed for their metabolic rate, why women are 50% more likely to be injured in cars designed to protect men, and why Siri responds to a husband before it responds to a wife.
Criado-Perez opens our eyes to the real world. The world in which women have been severely disadvantaged, as they are blamed for lacking the properties of a default person. Because that default person is always a man.
As Criado-Perez investigates, gender-blindness in tech, politics, and even snow-ploughing in Sweden, have created a world for men by men, where women have been forgotten, side-lined and ultimately ignored. Gender-blindness is mistaken for equality, when in reality, it’s just blinding out women.
The power of this book lies in the highly impressive amounts of research, and seemingly endless examples of data bias that Criado-Perez presents, as she concludes that it’s not a problem with the data. It’s a problem with the policy and design that has produced this data, and produced a world with gender bias.
Funnily enough, it’s the data which sexists seem to hide behind. Because, as much as data does reveal, it also does hide the intention. Data shapes the world we live in. A world which is incredibly biased.
Not only is the data Criado-Perez explores incredibly biased, offering us conclusions based on statistics of men, which are leading to the technological advancements for men (again, ignoring women), yet it turns out that this male-led data is actually murdering women. The fact that medical research is mainly based on the default male, for example, leads to a misdiagnosis of heart attacks. And if it’s not shocking enough that women are not equally included in medical trials that affect men as well as women, it’s more shocking that problems affecting women only simply are not researched enough. For example, 1 in 10 women have endometriosis (a similar overall number to women affected by diabetes), yet it takes an average of 7.5 years for a woman to be diagnosed, as there just is not enough research on the causes, nor a potential cure. The lethal effects of problems like these and the ‘Yentl syndrome’ are still not enough for us to adapt our attitudes towards women’s needs, which has caused the ‘gender pain gap’, a deathly gap. It’s not just about the wants, but women’s needs when it comes to basic survival in a world designed around men alone.
The evidence is caused by the data and lies in the data. Yet somehow, this is not enough for change. It’s attitudes and intentions that must change. Structural policies that allows technology to advance with women in mind. A world with crash test dummies that consider female body shapes, with more streetlights for safety and comfort measures, closer pregnancy parking spots, and machinery accessible for women, starts with accepting women as the norm, allowing them to be seen and heard, not side-lined and invisible, especially considering they do actually consist in the majority.
Currently, as Criado-Perez continuously highlights, the society we live in is built for men. Women are forced to adapt. To change their lifestyles to fit around men’s. Yet, when they’re the ones being negatively affected, why should they simply sit back and adapt their lives? Why not adapt society around them? Data has shown that society as a whole succeeds better (on political, social and economic scales) when we consider all those involved and all those particularly affected. Criado-Perez’s simple answer to finally building that perfect society is just to collect more data, understand that data, and involve women.
This book shows us how data and knowledge are created, shared and repeated. Again and again. While women are forced further into the peripheral, as the algorithms continue to ignore them. Neutral strategies are male strategies. Neutral data is male data. Therefore, it’s time for a step up from neutral. It’s time for women to be just as involved.
And even when they are involved, currently they’re still side-lined, ignored, and even penalised. Criado-Perez explores the presentation and differences in perceptions in how men and women are treated in different sectors, how women have to find a balance (and are often criticised if they don’t achieve this perfection) between being too soft, and too emotional. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, apparently men can do it all better. Because when a professional is considered, it is always considered to be a man, and the image of a woman is forgotten, or even worse, ignored.
Criado-Perez herself knows what it is like to be ignored. Yet worse, she has experienced first-hand the oppression from men who claim to know better. Having received death threats for her successful campaign for British banknotes featuring Jane Austen, to countless educated men retaliating her research, Criado-Perez has published facts that cannot be silenced. With a chapter on the problems of women named (or rather, not named) in citations, she has not only shown us the importance of understanding where this data has come from, but has clearly told us where to go to search for more. The research her work is based on does not accommodate women in the sense that men are those who receive funding, grants and the accessibility to produce research. Yet somehow universities are blind to this problem, as they initiate quotas to ensure that women have equal opportunities. But this is not quite true. Not when projects relating to women’s needs aren’t funded and are not supported. We’re stuck in a cycle where women are not those researching, and not included in the research itself. The more this continues, the less hope there is.
Whilst this book is not a policy to change society, it is an incredibly well-informed read to change attitudes. To express women’s needs better than the law can or will. Laws rely on data, which is currently failing women. As the #MeToo movement has also managed, women who have been ignored and side-lined are now being heard, and changes are starting to be made. We need to become conscious and familiar of the position of half of society, in comparison to the other. The unconscious bias of the data that rules the world is exactly what Criado-Perez highlights. This is why her book creates a greater impact than a quick Google search, as she shows how we are subconsciously infected with sexism all around us.
It’s time to consider women as part of the default human. Whilst men are part of the problem in preventing this, it’s time to involve them in the change. To adapt their rules, their society and their policies. This may be something we’ve heard time and again, and something that we all think we’re fighting. Yet this eye-opening book shows us what we don’t know. Proves to us why change is so important. From simple technical disadvantages, to explanations of why women are scared and anxious so often, to lethal risk factors in domestic care, Criado-Perez forces us to accept the position of women in a society they’ve helped to build. A society where they need to be given the means to express their needs, heard by those around them, and involved in the data. We need to close the gender data gap.
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