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A review by bookhoarder_alissa
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez
3.0
I really wanted to give this book 4-5 stars because I admire the amount of research that went into this book. It touches on so many aspects in which patriarchal structures just forget and deliberately ignore anyone who is not a (white & heterosexual) cis man.
The big problem, however, is that she talks of WOMEN in exclusively binary terms. There is not a single comment on trans or non binary folks! For large parts of the book I can understand why she focuses on women as one part of a binary simply because the data (or lack thereof) she is quoting does not provide any insights that go beyond the binary. Her point is that there is a gap in the data on women, so it's not surprising if there is even less on non-cis people. However, the least she could have done was to address this issue. Especially in chapters regarding sanitation and menstruation, the option would have been so easy to say "menstruating people" instead of "menstruating women" just as one example.
I don't believe that this should invalidate the research of this book, but it was a big disappointment to me and I was really hoping until the last pages to get some sort of statement.
And finally, another thing that bothered me was how some structural problem were presented as if they are caused by data gaps which suggests that they could be cured by acquiring more data. One example is men interrupting women* and also how women are perceived should they interrupt a man (both in politics but also life in general). Yes, more data may help to find strategies to tackle such issues, but at the heart of it, it is a problem of society teaching boys and men (and people of all genders) that women should not interrupt men. More data won't just fix that. Educating people to not be utter assholes does.
The big problem, however, is that she talks of WOMEN in exclusively binary terms. There is not a single comment on trans or non binary folks! For large parts of the book I can understand why she focuses on women as one part of a binary simply because the data (or lack thereof) she is quoting does not provide any insights that go beyond the binary. Her point is that there is a gap in the data on women, so it's not surprising if there is even less on non-cis people. However, the least she could have done was to address this issue. Especially in chapters regarding sanitation and menstruation, the option would have been so easy to say "menstruating people" instead of "menstruating women" just as one example.
I don't believe that this should invalidate the research of this book, but it was a big disappointment to me and I was really hoping until the last pages to get some sort of statement.
And finally, another thing that bothered me was how some structural problem were presented as if they are caused by data gaps which suggests that they could be cured by acquiring more data. One example is men interrupting women* and also how women are perceived should they interrupt a man (both in politics but also life in general). Yes, more data may help to find strategies to tackle such issues, but at the heart of it, it is a problem of society teaching boys and men (and people of all genders) that women should not interrupt men. More data won't just fix that. Educating people to not be utter assholes does.