Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (Book Review)

A really well-researched, informative book about the industrial design of everyday products we use and the urban infrastructure landscape where men are more often than not the reference point.

⛰ What It's About

The author, Carolyn Criado-Perez, writes about a number and wide range of examples where the design of everyday objects, clothing, and urban infrastructure, is often made with men as the reference point from which variations are iterated upon. She gives a number of really compelling examples of things we often take for granted when we aren't presented with a deep, everyday usage understanding of how this can have ripple effects on a community.

Examples given range from the design of car seat headrests and airbags, one-piece military uniforms that don't take women needing to disrobe to use the restroom into consideration, ballistic vests and other protective gear meant to shield wearers in law enforcement and on the battlefield, the design of bus stops, the concept of lighting, sidewalks, ramps, and pedestrian infrastructure, risk of sexual assault, the concept of back-to-back mini journey trip-chaining often taken by caregivers, location and accessibility of affordable housing projects, the absence of female decision-makers in earlier iterations of the iphone (i.e., no native period-tracking apps related to health), to breast pump design, to the design of public parks & playgrounds with accessible, multiple access points, the design of manual hand tools, and the overall concept that all women work, but not all women are *paid* for their work.

🔍 How I Discovered It

Randomly, when browsing through library offerings.

🧠 Thoughts

Incredibly eye-opening, thought-provoking, well-researched, and compelling.

🥰 Who Would Like It?

Everyone should read this, but especially data scientists, analysts, researchers, industrial designers, policy-making decision-makers, urban planners, CEOs and other C-suite executives.

📚 Related Books

Unknown.

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

1. Most things in life are designed, by default, with the reference persona of a tall man in mind.

2. Simply scaling down a garment that was based on anatomic male proportions often results in a non-tailored version for women, which, in some cases, may prove extremely detrimental and unsafe. Examples given: weight, shape & construction of large industrial boots & risk of injury, and needing to remove protective gear in order to use the restroom with one-piece military uniform jumpsuits.

3. The way women use public transportation (often larger proportion of users, and who often make multiple, shorter trips, that tend to not be in/out of city centers) is markedly different than the way men use public transportation (who tend to only make trips in/out of city centers, once a day, in one uniform, more predictable direction). This often has detrimental individual effects since transportation modelers often only focus on paid commuters who have simple, predictable, one-directional public transportation to go to/from a city center, whereas there are many women users of public transportation (especially when it comes to bus systems which are more circuitous, take longer, run less frequently, and with multiple transfers, ultimately costs them more money to get to their destinations) whose patterns of travel, which may be somewhat predictable, often fail to be modeled and accommodated for and whose routes are more likely to be cut from budgets.

🎨 Impressions

Excellent book. Eye-opening, timely & salient.

How I Discovered It

From browsing book offerings at the library.

Who Should Read It?

Everyone should read it, even if they don't personally take public transportation.

☘️ How the Book Changed Me

Gave well-researched, concrete examples, that urban planners & designers can take into consideration when designing infrastructure that will likely have an impact for decades to come.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

📒 Summary + Notes

Read this book. It's also available as an audiobook. You can check them out at a library near you, or purchase from Amazon. https://amzn.to/3bFHpZ1