As part of the Catalyst book review series, Rissa Pappas shines a spotlight on gender inequity in data.
This review is part of the Catalyst staff book review series, in which Catalyst staffers highlight works that deepen our understanding of the experiences of women and members of marginalized communities so that we can build solutions to systemic barriers to equity in our communities and workplaces.
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed by Men by Caroline Criado Perez is a wake-up call that women are systematically discriminated against—but that much of the time, we don’t even know it. A lack of data about women—our priorities, experiences, even our biology—has consequences that are affecting and will continue to affect us in predictable and unpredictable ways.
Catalyst has long prioritized data collection to support creating workplaces that work for women—most recently with our global quantitative research on women in frontline roles, Team Dynamics on the Front Line: How Managers and Organizations Impact This Overlooked Key to Retention. As Criado Perez maintains, you can’t make change unless you have the data showing what needs to be changed in the first place. The good news is that this book shows us the way forward so that we can make change with data and metrics.
Criado Perez demonstrates that there’s way more information about women that we don’t know than we do know. Regardless of the industry, country, or area of concern, gender data gaps can be ultimately traced back to patriarchal governments and cultures enacting legislation and creating social norms that excluded women.
As for the scant data that does exist, Criado Perez has gathered and organized it in a straightforward way. Each chapter tackles a distinct aspect of women’s lives. I found that reading one chapter at a time and then taking a day to digest it helped me to further comprehend and retain the information. There is a lot to consider, but her style is engaging.
The best part of this book is that for women feeling gaslit by society at large, it validates our experiences. Were you told to take some aspirin and go home when you went to the emergency room? Have you found out you made less than a coworker with the same job and responsibilities? Did you have to choose between working a full-time job to pay for daycare and having no job but still working full-time? Your individual experience may feel isolating and be brushed off as anecdotal. But taken together, the data is illuminating (and a little infuriating).
Anecdotes like “Brigid Jones, a Birmingham City councilor, was told that she would have to step down from her role as cabinet member for children’s services [italics added] if she became pregnant” may make you particularly angry. You may feel called to do something, to start making positive change in the world for women.
And if you’ve been gaslit by a world designed to work best for men, you may also feel quite stuck. Where to begin? Where to go? What to do? It can all be overwhelming. Think of this book as a map for changemakers. If you don’t already think of yourself as a changemaker, this book will help you see what is possible.
Want to make change at work? Here’s what Invisible Women teaches:
Metrics matter. If you want to make the case for change, numbers will help prove your case. And if your organization has never gathered data before on retention or attrition or pay disparity, etc., you now know what to ask for first. Many companies are embracing pay transparency and are publicly disclosing all sorts of data. Gather examples to show what’s possible.
Data is power. Regardless of intentions, biases still permeate the systems and processes humanity has built. Criado Perez cites studies that show when people even think that they are objective and not sexist, you actually become more prone to subjective and sexist behavior. And with new systems including AI being built on top of the same old biased ones, we risk carrying the same problems forward. How do you shake up the status quo? Show those big companies how much better things could be, show employees the value of their work, and show customers how much buying power they have. Biases and assumptions mean much less compared to verified data.
We’re stronger together. There’s no such thing as a movement of one. The data Criado Perez gathered for Invisible Women came from the tireless work of data scientists and changemakers around the world. Check out Catalyst’s latest research to learn more about women at work and be inspired to help change your workplace and workplaces to come.
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