Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

147 reviews

korl's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

3.0

This book definitely changed the way I view the world, but it does have problems. Choosing to view the world as binary completely erases intersex, trans, and nongendered experiences which are even MORE invisible than the book describes. It also needlessly excludes men from many issues raised which would strengthen a lot of her claims (as frustrating as that is). 

I was quite surprised to realize this was written in 2019. It felt behind on many social issues and failed to include the full context behind the little solutions offered. Each chapter was just a reiteration of the previous, which does drive home the frustration factor of losing this data, but left me feeling annoyed and wishing to "get to a point"

I would still recommend this book, especially since it made me confront a lot of unconscious bias I had in myself; however, lots of discussion and further resources would be almost required

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Hate crime, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Sexual harassment

idesofmarch's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Slavery, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Murder, and War

gracie_reads_everything's review against another edition

challenging funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Literally everyone should just read this book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Physical abuse, Rape, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

She talks about so many important topics but trigger warnings since these can be hard to hear about.

callysutherland's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

Mandatory reading. In small chunks, so you don't get tooooo angry.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism

Minor: Ableism, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Violence, Medical content, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, War, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

unluckycat13's review against another edition

The author is a TERF, this is a TERF book. Not to undermine the honestly good work and important information in this book, but you can't remove it from the author's views. While it starts out seeming reasonable enough-- I think it's understandable even if not great to not separate sex and gender-- the author eventually begins to build her argument into women being an immutable biologically separate organism with most things in life attributed purely to biology. Of course there's no proof of this because of the data gap. The studies will surely show she's right though, as they always say. 

The book does start out acknowledging queer and disabled people, and it does talk about other countries with a non dismissive and non bigoted attitude, however the author is very quick to paint groups of people (such as western women, or British women) with a singular brush. Despite admitting that the so called standard male doesn't represent men in general, she's very argumentative in favor of a standard female model. It's hard to untangle her personal views on sex and gender from the rest of the book and the more you begin to think about it, the worse it gets. 

I would generally not recommend this book, and while it is a nice organization of some studies I have heard most of them before elsewhere. 

Being a book about sexism, you can expect a TW warning for basically literally every topic, albeit only passingly. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

haleybre's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Car accident, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and War

sydneyhenshaw's review against another edition

dark informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

I really enjoyed this book and I learned a lot from it. It really helped me realize that some issues that seem frivolous can actually really add up or be more dangerous than they seem. I appreciated it covering the realities for women all over the world and telling a diverse bunch of  stories. I wish it would have spent a bit more time touching on intersectionality and how largely that impacts data gaps also. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Car accident, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

epellicci's review against another edition

informative sad fast-paced

3.0

A touch disappointing for me. I felt like a lot of the data that Perez covers is research I had heard presented by other authors in more depth before. And because her aim was simply to uncover the information, it lacked to context and nuance that other books I have read, that focused on perhaps one of these issues at a time, did have. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this fact, it just wasn't what I was hoping for when I picked up the book. 

Also disappointing, and somewhat ironic, was the fact that Perez doesn't disaggregate for factors like race and sexuality. She excuses this in her introduction, essentially stating that the data isn't available and so can't be discussed... but wasn't the point of the book to examine that fact and highlight the hidden costs of missing data on those ignored groups? 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism

Moderate: Sexual violence

cvbazley's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

3.5

This read like a PhD thesis - regurgitating too much data without making enough insightful connections between that data. The book was far too long for the point she made. I felt like her approach was often just “women are victimized by men” and… that’s not a helpful approach to this topic. The data quickly lost its meaning and became a sea of numbers. I did learn from this book and came away with new perspectives on my own experience - but I was mostly annoyed with the author’s quips and shallow conclusions and therefore struggled to finish this book. Oh, and I am a woman, so don’t hate.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, and Sexual harassment

stindex's review against another edition

challenging dark informative

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Sexual violence, and Medical content