My Best Book of 2019
By FAR the best non-fiction book I’ve read this year (and I’ve read 93 books so far) is Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez.
Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.
Invisible Women, promo summary
The data on All People are actually data on The Average Man. The world is designed based on these data, so the cars, medicines, bus timetables, and every single other thing that (the actual) all people use are all designed for The Average Man. Sure, we know that already, below the surface. Bringing this fact up into consciousness where we can fact check against our own experience is a slap in the face for anyone who thought we might be heading toward parity.
Everyone should read this book. Everyone of all genders. Everyone designing studies. Everyone gathering data. Everyone designing material goods and social structures. Everyone who operates in the world. That’s all of us.
Caroline Criado Perez isn’t just pissed off. (Though, she is pissed off. Most of us are.) Page after page of referenced data and studies are followed by what we can do about this. This is the most important point of all: if you know, you must act on that knowledge.
Buy this book, read it, and pass it around. Get a dozen copies circulating. Send copies to your elected officials. Start a book club with diverse readers.
Spread the book. Spread the information. Spread the change that must follow.