Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

I very rarely write reviews, but I feel this book requires one. Reading this made me genuinely angry. As a young white male, beforereading this I was aware of some of the ways in which our world is not designed for women. The field in which I work is heavily male dominated, but there are some financial incentives in place to encourage more women, which I was somewhat resentful of. I agreed with more women in principle, but I didn't see why scholarships were the way to do that.

Now, however it is a different story. Reading this, Criado-Perez exposes the way in which our entire world is designed and structured to ignore wholesale the needs of 50% of our population. I was blown away by how insidious and ingrained this bias is - it pervades every aspect of what we do. This book made me ashamed of my own ignorance. It made me regret that I hadn't thought about this issue enough previously. After Criado-Perez shines a light on each issue, it makes it feel obvious, that it really was just staring me in the face and I couldn't see it. It made me angry that we allow this to happen.

I find Criado-Perez's work to be persuasive and meticulously researched. Every time I felt she would have been absolutely justified to make some snide comment about the blatant stupidity of the situation, she pulls up short and lets the data do the talking for her. This is one of the few books that I will be genuinely pushing my friends to read.