Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

We live in a world where ‘man' is the default - the default body, the default gender, the default occupation - while half of the population count as exception or minority. The resulting discrimination is either deeply ingrained in culture or happens without awareness because of the gender data gap. We simply don't know how policy decisions in general favor men over women, because we don't gender-segregate the data.

- Women die more often in hospitals because procedures and medication are primarily tested on men.
- Equally sized bathrooms forget about the fact that women are generally the ones taking care of children and elders.
- Women receives more injuries in car accidents, because their bodies are NOT scaled-down versions of male crash test dummies.
- Clearing the roads before pavements on snow-days, helps ‘men' drive to work, while interrupting unpaid female work and leading to higher numbers of female injuries.

Some of these might be obvious, other might only lead to a 10% advantage of men over women. But these percentages are steady and never tip the other way.

Criado-Perez does a phenomenal job at showing us a variety of examples from all fields of life, supported with substantial data and references, while also keeping the book an engaging read.