From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Caroline Criado Pérez

Start date: November 1, 2019

Finish date: November 30, 2019

Discussion: Book Club 2019

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Book Club 2019

December 2019 - Uninhabitable Earth
By Betsy , co-mod · 8 posts · 108 views

last updated Dec 21, 2020 08:09AM

November 2019 - Invisible Women
By Betsy , co-mod · 17 posts · 122 views

last updated Oct 18, 2020 06:07PM

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What Members Thought

Jan 04, 2020 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: unbearably-sad, non-fiction, academic-notations, favorites, science, very-very-disturbing-to-me, woman-warrier

'Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men" by Carolyn Criado-Pérez spectacularly describes factually and scientifically every problem all women have in navigating every society in the world. She uses scientific Big Data, and small data.

Criado-Pérez goes deep in describing the issues of Men thinking about Women and the results of that thinking:

-from physical safety to using tools/machines/weapons
-to difficulties in networking to harmful stereotypes
-to body-shaming.

Statistically ...more

49 likes · Like · see review

Feb 07, 2020 ktsn rated it did not like it · review of another edition

TL;DR Female chauvinism feigned as feminism.

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There are largely two types of feminism novels. One is like Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland, in which a women-only Utopian society eliminates war, oppression, and all maladies imaginable. The other type is like Naomi Alderman's The Power, which suggests women would fall into the same traps of bigotry and discrimination were they corrupted by power of domination, since they are still human beings, for both good and bad. Of course, everyone ...more

7 likes · Like · see review

Nov 08, 2019 Chinook rated it it was amazing

Shelves: europe, feminism

This entire book made me think, “Ok, men” along the lines of ok, boomer.

It is infuriating how men not only structure absolutely fucking everything for themselves and then are completely unable to even see that they do it. It’s exhausting.

It’s deadly.

Men as a class have a lot to answer for.

When we eat the rich, we may want to consider also eating most of their gender as well.

7 likes · Like · see review

Jan 23, 2020 Derek Langley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wow. A shockingly, gut-punchingly relentless exposé of the gender data gap.

I borrowed the book from my son and, having finished it, have bought my own copy since I do not want to do without it.

I confess that I approached this with some trepidation, the author being a well-known feminist and all that (I am a white middle-class male, btw). I’m not exactly a Bravo Two Zero man; I just hadn’t read any “feminist” literature before (whatever that means: see the problem?).
Turns out, if you’re a bloke, Wow. A shockingly, gut-punchingly relentless exposé of the gender data gap.

I borrowed the book from my son and, having finished it, have bought my own copy since I do not want to do without it.

I confess that I approached this with some trepidation, the author being a well-known feminist and all that (I am a white middle-class male, btw). I’m not exactly a Bravo Two Zero man; I just hadn’t read any “feminist” literature before (whatever that means: see the problem?).
Turns out, if you’re a bloke, that there are one or two rather serious questions to ask yourself. Actually quite a few more than two. And this is all supported by well-researched and referenced fact upon fact, so sit down counsel - objection overruled.

This book has changed the way I think.
I have absolutely never cat-called or wolf-whistled at a woman but I have certainly stood by (sat by) while my wife did far too much without any recognition. Unpaid, of course. And I have, for the most part, failed to notice how the world is designed for men: it really is, take a proper look. Smile while your wife/daughter/sister struggles to operate your electric drill. Wait patiently while they fiddle about with their seatbelt before you can hit the road. Be knowing and “woke” while they suffer their periodic and mood-swings and agonies, unaided. Read the book.

Better to try to do something about it, in some small way.

I am an (old) design engineer and a volunteer STEM Ambassador (that’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, although it does sound rather more sinister in this context...). For years I have been trying to encourage kids to do engineering and science subjects, something the UK has a desperate need for now and into the future. In particular, girls: they drop the subjects all too frequently and few go on to higher education in STEM subjects. But that’s more than just a statistic for me now, thanks to Caroline Criado Perez. The absence of women in engineering and science is one of the reasons that the man-shaped world persists today. And the reasons that girls drop the subjects in the first place are not unrelated to the same phenomenon. It’s the perfect circle.
So I’m going to put together a schools presentation that cries out for girls to get involved to help right the wrongs. I’m going to give it a go and try to change things, and I’m going to use this book as a reference and an inspiration. I’ll update this review if I survive...

And you don’t get that from an Andy McNab book do you? (Or, if you do, you’re a better man than I).

Essential reading for everybody, of all genders and all agendas, and at less than nine quid from Amazon, why wouldn’t you? I had many (past tense) excuses- what’s yours? ...more

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