Invisible Women

Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women is an investigation into what she calls the gender data gap: the pervasive, often invisible bias that follows from treating men as the default human and women as a deviation from it. Drawing on hundreds of studies from around the world, she shows how a world largely designed by and measured around men quietly disadvantages women at almost every turn.

From crash-test dummies modelled on the average male body, to medicines tested mainly on men, to smartphones and office temperatures calibrated for male hands and metabolisms, to city planning and disaster relief that overlook the realities of women's lives, Criado Perez marshals example after example of data that simply fails to count half the population — and traces the costs in women's time, money, health, and safety.

Rigorous, wide-ranging, and frequently startling, this award-winning book reframes everyday design and policy as a question of whose needs get measured. It is both a work of popular data journalism and a compelling argument for closing the gap.