Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

Author : Caroline Criado Perez
Title : Invisible Women
Published : 2019
Publisher : Chatto & Windus
Pages : 432
Genre : Nonfiction / Feminism

     Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, wherein a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognized or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you're a woman. Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap - a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women's lives. Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado-Perez bring together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories, and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the impact this has on their health and well-being.

     I have once again come to a book about the struggles of various women in our world. Or more importantly about all women living in the world today. This book has opened my eyes to just how our world is skewed. There is so much we take for granted in the world. How we are trained from childhood to see things a certain way. It's funny how we simply accept that things are simply the way they are. The author takes us on a journey into every aspect of life and how there is a inherent bias against women working away. 

     I was left reeling as she exposed one thing after another that when I looked at it more closely should have been oblivious from the start. But how often do we take a closer look at the world we live in. But are we really to blame for all this? In some ways, I would say we are we allow things to go by without questioning them. For instance, I was completely unaware of the increased risk to women in car crashes. This is due to all the data collected being taken on the biases of male drivers. Or women's medication being tested on male animals. It is a hard pill to swallow as the pages start to turn. The closer we look the more you start to realize that even the very basics of life fail to take into account the lives of women. As she shows this is down to the fact that our world is designed by men. And in doing so they only look for what directly affects themselves. 

     But as we see this is hardly a new phenomenon, even in the telling of our history women find themselves written out or pushed to the sideline. These are people who should be front and center but once again as most historians are male the choose to not mention them. It sill goes one step further as even when clear impractical evidence is given to them, they choose to go to great lengths to try and explain it away.  It is a book that if like me will make you angry, the further in you get the more you find your self questioning everything you think you know about the world. It is hard not to be left dumbfound by the sheer stupidity of how our world is laid out. This book comes as a wake-up call for anyone who chooses to read it. It will leave you with so many questions and at times I was left scrabbling on the internet to look deeper into the topics she brings up.

      It will come as no surprise that I will recommend this book to all of you. The author has clear devoted her self to trying to tell us the greatest amount of information in the most clear and concise way she can. It is a topic that should be front and center for every living person on the planet and in reading this book I know it has changed my approach to how I see things. It will make me question that information I revive and change how I approach my day to day life.