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A review by veeglessner
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez
challenging
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Okay! First off, what an amazing effort to compile and organize the research in this book. It will make you so, so angry reading Perez' thesis: the male perspective is the default human perspective and that fact has been doing women a disservice for centuries. There are many topics in this book that I hadn't thought to consider in a feminist lens. This book could be the strongest case for why the work still s not done, and an amazing rebuke to people who believe women have equality with men since the 21st century. We are literally sacrificing quality of life, being abused and even dying due to the system that this book analyzes.
Now: Despite managing to include race and to an extent class, this book does not in any way analyze the gender binary or the experiences of trans and NB people. As another reviewer pointed out, the words "trans", "nonbinary" do not appear even once in this book. How do you write 500 pages about gender without including at least a mention of these identities? The premise of the WHOLE BOOK is that discrimination by exclusion IS discrimination.
Also, there are a couple (one in particular) VERY graphic descriptions of abuse that were not necessary.
So I have to recommend this incredible feat of a book with those huge caveats. You will learn so much and become enraged, while thinking that the author badly needed a sensitivity reader and an ironically more inclusive perspective. At 6 years old, I think this book could really use a re-release with some updated statistics and information as well as addressing those gaping "data gaps."
Now: Despite managing to include race and to an extent class, this book does not in any way analyze the gender binary or the experiences of trans and NB people. As another reviewer pointed out, the words "trans", "nonbinary" do not appear even once in this book. How do you write 500 pages about gender without including at least a mention of these identities? The premise of the WHOLE BOOK is that discrimination by exclusion IS discrimination.
Also, there are a couple (one in particular) VERY graphic descriptions of abuse that were not necessary.
So I have to recommend this incredible feat of a book with those huge caveats. You will learn so much and become enraged, while thinking that the author badly needed a sensitivity reader and an ironically more inclusive perspective. At 6 years old, I think this book could really use a re-release with some updated statistics and information as well as addressing those gaping "data gaps."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Hate crime, and Misogyny