Welcome to the Everything with Val Podcast. This bonus episode of the Everything with Val Bookclub will be focusing on "Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez".

The book cover a range of datasets that shows how women through time have become invisible and that the world in which we live, work, eat, sleep and parent in is a mainly male dominated world. Thus, meaning that in a world of data they have little value and awareness in many instances.

The author dig deep around these issues and showcase the big ideas.

Part I: The big ideas

What is the big idea?

“The fact is that worth is a matter of opinion, and opinion is informed by culture. And if that culture is as male-biased as ours is, it can’t help but be biased against women. By default.”

• It's not that the author is insinuating that all men hate women or that it is in-fact in some instances done on purpose towards women but that they are overlooked or worse forgotten.
• Thus most people do not even acknowledge that there is a problem to begin with because there is not even an issue to solve at best

“It's not always easy to convince someone a need exists, if they don't have that need themselves.”

• A lot of things in this instance has become the norm. Even when we look for example at fashion a unisex size is most often than note still a male sized item especially when looking at t-shirts for example
• Belgium bathrooms - you can always find a urinal but to find a bathroom where girls can go is super difficult

“The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male experience, the male perspective, has come to be seen as universal, while the female experience--that of half the global population, after all--is seen as, well, niche.”

• This is also a case for women or people whom may have smaller shaped hands as they use iPhone's or other smart devices as it cannot fir their hand sizes

Now if we look at working. This is where the data became at certain points hard to listen to she says:

“Women have always worked. They have worked unpaid, underpaid, underappreciated, and invisibly, but they have always worked. But the modern workplace does not work for women. From its location, to its hours, to its regulatory standards, it has been designed around the lives of men and it is no longer fit for purpose. The world of work needs a wholesale redesign--of its regulations, of its equipment, of its culture--and this redesign must be led by data on female bodies and female lives. We have to start recognising that the work women do is not an added extra, a bonus that we could do without: women's work, paid and unpaid, is the backbone of our society and our economy. It's about time we started valuing it.”

I think this is such an important thing not only to read but to share. Women have always been overlooked, it is more common for women to pause and not follow their ambitions for their benefit of the families. They become "stay at home" mom's who get criticised and stigmatised for being just that. When in a lot of instances it is the only way the kids will have a caretaker and more importantly some women want to.

In more recent time we have seen this have a more natural shift but for it to become a recognised factor will still take many years. Leaving the following quotes still as important:

“There is no such thing as a woman who doesn't work. There is only a woman who isn't paid for her work.”

75% of unpaid work is done by women

Even if we look at intelligence evaluation in some capacities it is still taken with the male perspective

“Brilliance bias is in no small part a result of a data gap: we have written so many female geniuses out of history, they just don’t come to mind as easily. The result is when ‘brilliance’ is considered a requirement for a job, what is really meant is ‘a penis’. Several studies have found that the more a field is culturally understood to require ‘brilliance’ or ‘raw talent’ to succeed – think philosophy, maths, physics, music composition, computer science – the fewer women there will be studying and working in it. We just don’t see women as naturally brilliant. In fact, we see femininity as being inversely associated with brilliance: a recent study where participants were shown photos of male and female science faculty at elite US universities also found that appearance had no impact on how likely it was that a man would be judged to be a scientist. When it came to women, however, the more stereotypically feminine they looked, the less likely it was that people would think they were a scientist.” (Perez; p. 100.)

Even if we look at cities around the world the way we are transporting ourselves around them is facing a biases against women. The way for example a bus route is mapped out in certain cities. Or the access to do very natural human activities. For example Breast- feeding in public places. In some cultures doing this in public is extremely taboo but in other no one even bats an eye.

Part II: Why is it necessary

It is necessary in order to become a more diverse world. Grant access for those who have been left behind in all regards. A diverse world is a more beneficial one.

Part III: Overall review

I really enjoyed listening to the book. It was at certain parts tough to listen because of the severity of the data the author was sharing such real data sets. I would highly recommend that this is a must read. Especially if you want to know where the world is and what the standing of many things are. I am sure you will be surprised by things.

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Music: Epidemic Sound 

Art: Emma Crimaldi 

Thanks, 

Valerie