In her book, Invisible women. Data bias in a world designed for men, Caroline Criado Perez delves into the gender data gap that continues to shape our world.
What if someone opened your eyes to what navigating the world as a woman feels like? Better yet, someone who would uncover things you've always ignored but maybe suspected?
Invisible women. Data bias in a world designed for men by Caroline Criado Perez is a book every man and woman should read in this day and age if only to recognize all the progress that needs to be made and all the fights that still lie ahead.
The author explores how the gender data gap affects how we perceive the world and in turn impacts the lives of millions of women and in all aspects of society, ranging from the workplace to the design of things surrounding us.
Even when we have sex-disaggregated data, careless leadership or survey design leads to the under-reporting of female conditions that may bring displacements, exclusions, injuries and even death.
A closer look
As we are heading towards what some people like to call 'the Renaissance of women' in this modern day and age, we might like to take a closer look at what's happening.
As Criado Perez puts it, "what matters is the pattern" and unfortunately "we read most things as male unless they are specifically marked as female".
Starting with how 'gender-inflected- languages shape our world view. "In 2012, a World Economic Forum analysis found that countries with gender-inflected languages, which have strong ideas of masculine and feminine present in almost every utterance, are the most unequal in terms of gender". A curious case study such as the emoji language one, show that even though women are the heaviest users of this language, until 2016 the world of emojis was predominantly male.
Since I was a child in the 90s, there has been a slow growth towards TV shows and films with more female leads, increasing women's speaking roles and their participation in crowd scenes. Glimpses of strong female characters such as Belle, Mulan and Pocahontas opened the way for the portrayal of female characters today and the ability of younger generations to measure that evolution.
It's true that change can be seen in the entertainment industry, with more women producing and hiring female leads, for instance Reese Witherspoon's production company, more representation of women in screen time and more actresses reporting sexual misconduct and abuse in the workplace.
The revision can also be admired in statues, banknotes and school textbooks that try to remediate the absences and lack of consideration for female role models.
All these have been consequences of the Default Male pattern. Periods such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment have excluded women from taking major roles in society and narrowed their rights. For so many decades, whenever someone spoke about scientists, novelists and sports teams, our brains were programmed to imagine men.
Occupying new spaces?
"There is no such thing as a woman who doesn't work. There is only a woman who isn't paid for her work."
We see the world of today as a more equal place for women. They are allowed to vote, have jobs, bank accounts in their name and study to name just a few improvements. However, the world of today also imposes a greater pressure on women.
Even if a woman has a full time job or earns more than her spouse, she still carries most of the load of unpaid house chores.
"Globally, 75% of unpaid work is done by women who spend between three and six hours per day on it compared to men's average of thirty minutes to two hours".
On top of that, pension plans do not acknowledge the load of unpaid work, maternity leaves and childcare services in some countries are designed in a way that women cannot afford them, forcing women to reduce their work hours or resign. Not to mention the health toll this provokes on women with no help and a difficult reinsertion into the market after the first years of motherhood.
Even though the percentage of women working today in what used to be male predominant positions has risen, it has been proven that "when women join an industry in high numbers, that industry attracts lower pay and loses 'prestige'". On the other hand, industries where women were usually employed, such as being a teacher or a nurse, still sense these disadvantages.
For female entrepreneurs wanting to kick-off their start-ups, the investment needed depends largely on male venture capitalists and loans.
As for women in the workplace, we find situations from uncomfortable parking lots for pregnant women to sexual misconduct, uniforms and devices that have been designed for male workers and have no adaptability for women or take a long time to be implemented. Failure to take into account women has led to VRs, headsets and voice-recognition software to be designed around male characteristics. We already experience these types of shortcomings when we find out that the average smartphone size is 5.5 inches, too big to fit in a woman's hand.
These data gaps that we find are produced by algorithms that do not account for a gender and ethnically diverse population. For example, "according to the Guardian 72% of US CVs never reach human eyes, and robots are already involved in the interview process with their algorithms trained on the posture, facial expressions and vocal tone of 'top-performing employees'"...whatever that means. When a test was run to see if voice-recognition software could be employed in a surgeon's room, they found that women's voices weren't recognized because of their tone, therefore leading to mistakes in note taking while operating. Alarming and scary indeed.
About systems and designs
Among the studies the book exhibits, one about how public transportation is designed in big cities found out that only male travel patterns were included in the structure. Men tend to have a more direct travel pattern, from house to work, while women are identified with what is called 'trip-chaining', a more messy travel pattern that tends to include dropping off kids at school, working, grocery shopping, doctor's appointments, etc.
Who hasn't been in line for women's restrooms while men serenely passed you by? In an attempt to make the restrooms distribution equal, most places have established equal floor space, but it doesn't really work that way when men have cubicles and urinals which double the amount of places where they can discharge, even though it has been proven repeatedly that women take longer in the bathroom and need to go more frequently, often accompanying children and elder people.
If you still think these problems are costly and maybe not your problem at all, take a look into the conflict that arose when the question is snow-clearing sexist? was put forward.
Many Nordic countries found out that most of the snow clearing was done in roads and not pedestrians sidewalks, which led to a high percentage of incidents in comparison to car crashes and a higher cost for healthcare and productivity. When the snow-clearing routes were re-designed, they found the number of incidents dropped dramatically.
Criado Perez also explores the safety for women in public transport routes, how government decision making can displace women to communities far away from their workplaces, often to houses that don't take into account the role women play in their communities, with no childcare, degraded playgrounds and sometimes without even kitchens.
Further chapters analyze in depth the risks women are exposed to when the world they live in has not taken the trouble to care for them. Car crash dummies not designed accordingly, seat belts that don't take into account a woman's anatomy, the lack of sex-disaggregated research in medicine, condemning women to drugs that don't work or ignoring their physiological needs.
Whether it is in public positions or car seats, it is time for the world to really see women and start closing the data gaps that exist. Let's start with the fact that gender-neutral does not mean gender-equal. Reading this book will help you understand the phenomenon, it certainly has helped me to be more conscious about our reality so that we can better work for a true Renaissance by and for women.
Commenti