- The Good: Data-driven collection of default male bias
- The Bad: Overwhelming; poorly structured
- The Literary: Highly researched
The modern world is built upon data. Feminist advocate Caroline Criado Perez investigates the lack of gender-based data, and how genderless data treats men as the default and women as atypical. This inherent bias creates a world built for men and often detrimental to the health and safety of half of the world’s population.
I love how data-driven this book is. Built on hundreds of studies, primarily in the US and the UK, the author focuses on how women are unequal in so many areas of our lives. There’s no bad guy here. No one is out to purposefully make the world less hospitable for women, but so many of the decision-makers are men who lack understanding of what makes a space safe or welcoming for women. Equal consideration to both men and women often requires unequal treatment, because—surprising as this may be to many men—women don’t necessarily have the same needs.
As a highly educated female scientist myself, I was surprised by how much I learned from this book. Not just in numbers either—this is a stark reminder of how much unpaid work women do around the house, raising children, and taking care of family members. I almost described myself as a working woman in this review, but this book reminded me that all women work, and only some are paid.
Some specific examples include:
- Men’s restrooms typically have more capacity than women, though everyone is aware of how long the lines are to a women’s public bathroom.
- Voice-recognition software works better for lower vocal pitches.
- Test dummies for vehicles are based on male proportions, and because of this, women are more likely to be seriously injured in car collisions.
- Women were not included in many clinical drug studies (until 2016 when it was mandated) because of their “messy” biology, i.e. our hormonal changes throughout the month.
- After recent earthquakes in India and a tsunami in Sri Lanka, homes were rebuilt without kitchens after NGOs asked only the male heads of household what is required in the aftermath of a disaster.
Though many of the scientific studies took place in the UK and the US, and though feminism often focuses on wealthy white women, this book is very global, taking into account many other countries, ethnicities, and religions. A few notable gaps are a lack of discussion about differently abled or trans or non-binary populations.
This book is an onslaught of information, and you’ll likely feel overwhelmed or numb as a result. Take it slowly.
This book will also make you angry. And you should be angry. But it will also make you feel heard and seen as a woman. You might realize that your house was designed to accommodate someone taller, or that your smartphone was designed for someone with bigger hands, or that the public transit in your city wasn’t meant to help you drop off the kids at school or go to the grocery store, only straight downtown. And it feels good to note these things consciously, so that we can speak up instead of just accepting sub-par products designed for someone else.
Everyone makes note of the default male bias, it’s real and it’s up us to change it. Not just for women, but all races, ethnicities, ages, genders, abilities, disabilities, religions, cultures, and sexual orientations.