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

I thought this book was engaging, validating, and at times painful but incredibly important. Overall I would recommend it highly, frankly especially to cis white men who don’t understand the very real risks women face every day as a direct result of historic and ongoing patriarchal norms. That said, I wish the author had spent more time on the racial/ethnic and cultural data gaps resulting from imperialist, colonialist, white supremacist culture, and digging into the gap in intersectional analyses. I would also have liked to see more acknowledgment of the queer and trans data gaps. I can understand why the cisgender binary was the focus, and I really appreciated the book for what it was, but it would have been nice to include an introductory piece explaining why she chose not to go deeper into these areas, and possibly a call for additional research on racial/ethnic, cultural, and queer & trans data gaps at the end.

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cattheteawitchfairy's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

4.0

Very interesting text that brought up lots of point with stats to back them up.

I had 2 main gripes. Firstly it was very binary. I would have liked to see some LGBTQIA*+ representation if possible although I get that it may not fit into the premise of the book. Secondly, it felt, tonally, quite man hating which I found quite difficult.

Overall very informative but not sure if I would read again because of the tone.

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ampam's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Eye-opening, and disheartening.

While I have known the world was designed for men (the phone I'm typing on right now is too big for my small, but not unusually sized hands, to be used one-handed easily), seeing the extent of it in everything from air bags to policy was very revealing. The book illustrated in many facets the repercussions of not taking women into account, and none are positive. It is quite daunting how much needs to be changed, and the book unfortunately does not offer any solutions for the world to be made more equitable from the flaws it pointed out in its writing. Additionally, the book does not delve into detail other intersectional identities like race, or at all for more prejudiced-against groups like LGBTQIA* folks. Regardless, it is a recommended read to understand how pervasive the idea of only designing for men and refusing to consider women is.

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