Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez

There are aspects of society where men are considered the "baseline" and women are ignored and considered deviation from standard. "Man" has historically been used as a collective word to represent all people. However, the definition of "all people" was primarily focussed on males. In much scientific research, the subjects are primarily men. Medical studies will often miss any variations based on females and hormonal changes. Even crash test dummies are created based on a men's body.

This book goes on to detail many areas where females are underrepresented and the societal improvements that result when women are better represented. In Bangladesh men forget simple things like kitchens in buildings provided after disaster. At Google, it took a female executive to advocate for close-in parking spots for pregnant workers. This case headlights the general approach and faults of the book. It picks out some group and then cherry picks areas where they are disadvantaged and how they can help society as a whole. However, this could easily said about any attribute. Even the same traits discussed here could probably be more narrowly identified. Would 5'4" red-heads make better leaders?

Immediately after reading this book, I started "Of Boys and Men". This one focuses on the disadvantages faced by women. The other, the disadvantages faced by men.  Both of them are filled with well researched statistics and anecdotes. If we focus too much on the one group we miss the fact that other groups are disadvantaged in other areas. Many of the disadvantageous women face are related to women moving into areas that were previously dominated by men. Men historically worked out of home, while women took care of family at home. Now, women have moved out of the home. However, men have not taken over a similar amount of at-home work. Women are still primarily raising children. Men are disadvantaged in homemaking. Women are disadvantaged in the workforce. 

There are also challenges in identifying differences in groups that represent half the population. The average male and female body size differ, but there are also men that significantly differ from this average and women that are very close to it. If you look at positive "feminine" attributes, you can find over-representative men and underrepresented women. Are we merely substituting a functionally identical woman for a man, while keeping the rest of the population underrepresented? Or are we really expanding the options for all women (and others) to best contribute to society?