Published in 2019
432 pages
Caroline Emma Criado-Perez OBE (born June 1984) is a British feminist, activist and journalist. Her first national campaign, the Women’s Room project, was for female experts to be better represented in the media. She opposed the removal of the only woman from British banknotes (other than the Queen), leading to the Bank of England’s swift announcement that the image of Jane Austen would appear on the £10 note by 2017. That campaign led to sustained harassment on Twitter of Criado-Perez and other women. Twitter announced plans to improve its complaint procedures as a result. Her most recent campaign was for a sculpture of a woman in Parliament Square; the statue of Millicent Fawcett was unveiled in April 2018, as part of the centenary celebrations of the winning of women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom. In a June 2013 profile by journalist Cathy Newman for her Telegraph blog, Criado-Perez commented: “the culture we live in is made up of little tiny sexist acts which you can just ignore but when you think of them collectively you start to see a pattern.”
What is this book about?
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 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 brings 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. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.
