Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Amazingly researched, but let down by the lack of intersectionality. The main focus was on American and British cishet women. Other than that Criado Perez exposes the gender data gap and makes compelling arguments around increasing female representation to make a more accessible world for all.

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sydapel's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced

4.75

Truly proud of myself for taking the time to really dig into this book, as I'm walking with this incredible depth of knowledge about all of the pervasive and unrecognized ways the female population is discriminated against at every level of our lives. And how so much of it is the result of failing to ask women any questions. From prescription drugs to low income housing to disaster relief, this book is an absolute must read. I particularly appreciated how the author made space to talk about countries other than the US and UK, making this a global perspective on discrimination and gender gaps rather than a white European one.

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diana_raquel's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

Invisible Women is a book that shows us how the world is largely built by and for men, systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender bias at the root of the discrimination that affects women's lives on a daily basis. And that really seemed like something that I would like. And I did. Even with some problems, I was going to rate it 4-stars.

So, what happened? Caroline Criado Pérez happened.

The only criticism that I had for this book is that it had a cis-view of the world and that it could have a bigger focus on intersectionality. And I didn't make much of it because it could be unintentional. I was ready to give the benefit of the doubt. But then, in my research of the author, I found out that Criado Pérez is actually a TERF (Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminist). And this isn't a case of "oh she wrote some tweets that you didn't like and now you are calling her a TERF". No, this is an actual feminist association calling her out and a blog post that Criado Pérez wrote herself in her blog about not liking to be called ‘cis’ because she’s "a woman" (which is a very classic TERF talk). And, there's seems that she also wrote other blog posts with TERF arguments that were deleted. So, the cis-view of the word that I noted in the book, is actually intentional. And, apparently, she also reacted poorly to women of color calling her out for the whiteness in her feminism, and then I realized that maybe she didn't focus more on intersectionality because that's the problem with white feminism.

So, no, I won't be rating or recommending this book. You can say "well, what about the separation of the author from the book?". And I will say that this is nonfiction, everything that is said in this book is the beliefs of the author. And so there can't be a separation. Therefore, I'm not rating this book and I'm not gonna recommend it. And it's not on my shelf labeled "feminism" because feminism is about uplifting people and not picking on already vulnerable minorities and using your platform to harm people and spread misinformation.

I'm a feminist but I do not like or support TERFs. I stopped supporting Rowling and Adichie for this kind of behavior and I'm not gonna support Criado Pérez either. In my opinion, if you believe in TERFs arguments and say that you're a feminist then, to me, you're just trying to cover up a hate movement using feminist language. A feminist believes in upholding people. If you gonna be a bully and use your platform to spread misinformation and harm an already vulnerable group, then you're not a feminist, you're a bully.

So no, I'm not gonna support Criado Pérez. And I only wished that I would find out about her behavior before I read this book. I recognized that she makes good points about several issues, but as a feminist, I like to uphold people, not bully and harm them. Therefore, as I said, I do not recommend this book. You can still read it (after all, who am I to gatekeeping people from books?), but I do not recommend it.

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