Introduction
Summary of the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. Let us start with a brief introduction of the book. Imagine living in a world where everyday objects, policies, and ideas fit only half the people well. Yet this is the hidden reality many women face. From phone sizes that strain smaller hands to cities planned around the routine of men, women’s experiences often remain invisible in the data that shapes our world. This book peels back the layers of that invisibility, examining how biased assumptions and incomplete research have molded environments and norms that fail to reflect half the population. It gently lifts the curtain on centuries of imbalance, urging readers to step into the shoes of women navigating poorly fitting tools and unsafe public spaces. By shining light on these gaps, it opens the door to envisioning more inclusive designs and policies. If you dare to explore why our world feels off-kilter, you might discover how better data can help rebuild it more fairly.
Chapter 1: Uncovering how Ancient Beliefs still see Men as Default and Women as Invisible.
Imagine discovering ancient human remains that challenge our assumptions about who took on roles of warriors, explorers, or protectors. Over a century ago, Swedish archaeologists uncovered a Viking burial site brimming with armor, weapons, and clear evidence of a distinguished warrior’s status. Instantly, they assumed this formidable skeleton, accompanied by swords and battle gear, belonged to a man. In their minds, the warrior image naturally aligned with male strength and bravery. Strangely, it never occurred to them that these bones might be female. For more than one hundred years, this assumption sat unquestioned. When modern science finally re-examined the skeleton, it revealed a telling truth: the pelvic bone indicated this Viking warrior was female. Such an incredible oversight is not rare; it shows a deep-rooted tendency throughout history and research to consider men as the standard and women as deviations or afterthoughts.
This pattern of seeing men as the default and women as exceptions runs back to ancient philosophies. Aristotle, who lived thousands of years ago, wrote texts suggesting that the male form was perfect and normal, while the female form was a kind of mistake or odd variation. This notion influenced centuries of scholarship, medicine, and art. In fields like anatomy, early researchers studied male bodies extensively and treated female bodies like peculiar add-ons. Some vital female organs, such as the ovaries, went unnamed for centuries. By mostly ignoring female-specific body parts or female biology, society sent a message that women were merely a secondary template. These outdated beliefs, however subtle, slowly seeped into modern decision-making, engineering designs, and everyday products.
We might think that in our modern age, we have moved past old-fashioned biases, yet subtle forms of male-default thinking persist. Take something as commonplace as the emojis we use every day. Before 2016, the digital symbols on our phones were intentionally ungendered. Still, when it came time for platforms to visually represent certain figures—like police officers, runners, or construction workers—the chosen default image often appeared male. This may seem harmless at first glance, but it shows how routinely we slip into the habit of imagining men in central roles. Repeated countless times, these small details add up. They reinforce a world that subtly, but persistently, portrays men as the ‘normal’ humans who define our standards.
This skewed representation is everywhere. Across countries, historical monuments celebrate countless notable men, while women’s statues remain rare and often tokenistic. In the UK, there are more statues of men named John than there are of all non-royal women combined! On banknotes, in textbooks, and in public symbols, men dominate the narrative. Even educational materials frequently highlight male stories and contributions more often than female ones. This imbalance influences how both girls and boys grow up understanding power, worth, and respect. It shapes how we picture everyday life, our heroes, and our decision-makers. As we move forward, it becomes critical to question: what happens when entire societies treat men’s experiences as universal and treat women’s experiences as extras or footnotes? As the next chapters show, this bias deeply affects how our world is built and whom it is built for.
Chapter 2: Revealing how Overlooked Data and Biased Policies Prevent Women’s Needs from Surfacing.
Picture a snowy town in Sweden known as Karlskuga. In the past, when snow blanketed the roads, the local authorities cleared certain paths first, prioritizing routes that morning commuters used to drive to work. At a glance, this decision seemed logical: focus on car-heavy roads at rush hour. But when they finally examined the data more closely, they discovered a hidden bias. Those who drove early to full-time jobs were mostly men, while the people who walked on icy footpaths, often juggling part-time work, caregiving duties, or errands, were mostly women. Clearing roads first and sidewalks later meant men’s routes were always prioritized, while women slipped and struggled on uncleared paths. By failing to consider women’s mobility needs from the start, policies ended up helping men more and women less.
Why do such oversights happen so often? One reason is that key decisions—in transportation, urban planning, workplace rules, and even product testing—have historically been made by groups of men who unconsciously center their own experiences. For instance, until Sheryl Sandberg’s pregnancy at Facebook, the company hadn’t realized that expecting mothers might need closer parking spots. It was not that anyone meant to exclude pregnant employees; they simply never considered that scenario. Without intentional efforts to include women’s voices or needs in data collection, overlooked perspectives remain hidden. When policies are drawn from incomplete data, women’s challenges go unaddressed, reinforcing a world that fits men’s lives better than women’s.
Take public transport: in many cities, the public transportation system is structured around full-time workers making direct, peak-hour commutes—patterns more common among men. Women, who often combine paid work with caregiving or running multiple errands throughout the day, end up taking more frequent, shorter trips, often off-peak. Yet tickets and pricing structures rarely cater to this pattern. Instead, charges per trip, rather than distance, can raise women’s costs, making their journeys more expensive and less convenient. The data guiding these policies usually doesn’t differentiate by gender, missing critical insights into how women move around. When planners fail to account for these differences, they produce a skewed system that subtly punishes female travel patterns.
The result is a world where women pay more, wait longer, struggle more, and are frequently left on the fringes of policymaking. From transportation routes to priority in infrastructure spending, women’s life realities remain secondary. This gap in understanding leads not only to frustration and inconvenience but also to more serious consequences down the line. As we explore further, we’ll see that unexamined male-centered data, from the shape of smartphones to how we consider safety, can profoundly impact women’s daily comfort, economic well-being, and even long-term health outcomes.
Chapter 3: Examining the Hidden Costs when Public Spaces and Facilities Ignore Women’s Realities.
Think about waiting in a long line at a concert or a sports stadium. One sight is common: the women’s restroom line winding around the corner, while the men’s line moves swiftly. Why does this happen so consistently? Regulations might say the venue must allocate equal space for men and women’s bathrooms, but equal space does not mean equal service. Men’s rooms can pack in multiple urinals and stalls, increasing capacity. Meanwhile, women’s bathrooms, limited by design to private cubicles, serve fewer people in the same area. Add to that the fact that women often have more reasons to need the restroom—managing menstruation, caring for children, being pregnant—and it becomes clear that equal floor space does not translate into equal accommodation.
These inconveniences may seem minor in a modern, developed country. Yet, when we look at regions where private household toilets are scarce, the consequences of ignoring women’s needs become dire. Without safe and private facilities, women face serious challenges. Men can relieve themselves discreetly almost anywhere, but for women, the lack of secure, clean restrooms means risking their safety or resorting to unhealthy practices. In some communities, women hold their urine for hours, increasing their risk of urinary tract infections or kidney issues. In other places, women must travel long distances to poorly maintained communal toilets, often located in unsafe spots. This puts them at risk of assault and theft, and robs them of their dignity and health.
In India, for example, studies show that women without a private household toilet face a much higher risk of experiencing sexual violence when they venture out to public or distant facilities. This means infrastructure that fails to consider women’s privacy and safety exposes them to physical harm and trauma. If restrooms and public spaces were designed from the ground up with women’s realities in mind, we would see cleaner, safer environments. Such adjustments could range from adding more restroom stalls, ensuring lighting and proper sanitation, to placing facilities in more accessible and safer locations.
Neglecting women’s experiences in public infrastructure is not an isolated issue. It’s part of a larger pattern where the female body and daily needs are left out of the data that shapes our world. From the design of everyday objects to how towns and cities are planned, when women’s requirements go unmeasured, they go unmet. As we move forward, we must recognize this pattern’s reach: it doesn’t just cause inconvenience; it can mean poorer health, added expense, and even physical danger for half of the population. The next chapters will reveal more examples, moving beyond restrooms to consider how even the most common tools and products fail to acknowledge women’s dimensions and capabilities.
Chapter 4: Understanding Why Common Tools, Instruments, and Devices are Designed Only for Men’s Hands.
Consider a professional pianist sitting at a grand piano. Virtuosos glide across the keys with ease, spanning octaves that stretch well over seven inches. But what if your hand is smaller, as is the case for most women? The standard piano keyboard width was designed around a typical male hand span, making it more comfortable for male pianists. Studies show that top-rated female pianists often have unusually large hands for women, suggesting they succeed partly because they can adapt to this male-sized standard. Meanwhile, countless talented women with smaller hands face extra challenges that may limit their performance potential, purely because the instrument’s design ignores average female dimensions.
This problem extends far beyond concert halls. Think of smartphones, which are supposedly designed for one-handed use. Most phone sizes fit nicely in a typical male hand, but they can feel too big, heavy, and awkward for many women’s hands. Trying to hold a large phone in one hand while typing or scrolling can lead to discomfort, strain, or even repetitive stress injuries over time. Studies exploring the muscle and joint impacts of smartphone usage show that women’s bodies, on average smaller, suffer more from devices not scaled to their hands. While these devices seem universal, they are subtly tailored to fit a male standard user.
Tools like power drills, wrenches, and even safety gear often reflect a similar bias. In many industries, a standard glove or safety harness fits a so-called average user—usually modeled on male measurements. Women commonly find these one-size-fits-all products too large, heavy, or unwieldy, making their work more exhausting or less safe. Musculoskeletal issues and reduced productivity can follow, simply because the design did not consider female bodies. Such oversight suggests a chain reaction: if tools are harder for women to use, they might avoid certain careers, limiting their opportunities and perpetuating gender gaps in various professional fields.
These design mismatches, from pianos to smartphones, highlight a crucial point: when we assume a male template, we create a world poorly suited for women. This goes beyond mere discomfort. It can restrict women’s potential achievements in their professions, hobbies, and everyday tasks. With more inclusive data, designers could produce variations in tool sizes, offer different phone dimensions, or create flexible instrument standards. Unfortunately, until the gender data gap is acknowledged and addressed, we risk forcing half the population to navigate a world not shaped for them. In upcoming chapters, we’ll see that this issue intensifies when it comes to health, safety, and medical treatment, further illustrating the urgent need to question these defaults and demand more inclusive standards.
Chapter 5: Investigating how Safety Standards Center on Male Bodies and Put Women at Risk.
Picture the average office. Did you know that standard indoor temperatures often feel too chilly for many women? Modern office temperature guidelines trace back to studies conducted on a typical male: around 70 kilograms, 40 years old, and with a certain metabolic rate. Women, who often have lower resting metabolic rates, feel cold under these settings, leading to discomfort and reduced productivity. While being cold at work might seem a minor irritation, it’s an early hint of a more widespread pattern—one where safety, health, and comfort guidelines are tailored around the male body.
This bias becomes even more dangerous when we look at car safety. Crash test dummies, vital tools in developing car safety features, have long been modeled on an average male. The dummy’s size, weight, muscle distribution, and spinal shape reflect a male norm. Women, who are on average smaller and may sit differently or position seat belts differently, are rarely accounted for in mandatory tests. Without comprehensive female crash test dummies, vital data on how collisions impact female bodies is missing. As a result, women face a higher risk of serious injury in accidents. Studies have shown women are nearly 50% more likely to be badly injured in a crash compared to men. This disparity arises because the baseline data never included their body types or their ways of sitting behind the wheel.
This male-default thinking even influences workplace safety regulations. Many exposure limits for chemicals, radiation, or hazardous substances are set based on a reference man. But women’s bodies differ in hormone activity, immune responses, and organ sizes. Without considering these differences, women can be exposed to levels of toxins deemed safe for men but harmful for them. This can lead to serious long-term health consequences—such as increased risk of certain cancers or reproductive harm—simply because safety standards ignore female biology.
When the world’s safety norms revolve around a male average, women’s health and lives are placed at an unjust disadvantage. The result is more injuries, more illnesses, and preventable suffering. It’s not that people designing these tests and standards intentionally wish women harm, but they often don’t think to question default assumptions. This lack of questioning perpetuates a gap that endangers women every day. In the next chapters, we’ll see how deeply this male-centric approach affects medical research, diagnosis, drug testing, and beyond, further restricting women’s chances at equal health outcomes and overall well-being.
Chapter 6: Exploring how Women’s Unique Health Needs are Dismissed in Research and Treatment.
Open a medical textbook and count how many times the male body is shown versus the female body. A staggering imbalance emerges: images and diagrams tend to highlight male anatomy as the norm. Historical studies and medical references often treat the female body as a special case rather than a standard half of humanity. This imbalance seeps into the training of healthcare professionals, subtly shaping how doctors learn to diagnose and treat illness. If your reference point is typically male, you might miss signs and symptoms that present differently in women, leading to misdiagnosis or late diagnosis of conditions that affect them more severely.
Medical research, which influences everything from drug dosage guidelines to surgical procedures, also suffers from a gender data gap. For decades, women were deemed complicated test subjects due to their fluctuating hormone levels and reproductive cycles. Rather than valuing these differences and including women in all phases of testing, many studies simply excluded them. As a result, the recommended treatments, drug doses, and preventive measures are often calibrated around a male baseline. Serious consequences follow: a device that treats heart failure might be tested mostly on men, leading to timing guidelines that do not fully help women. In reality, what improves outcomes for men at certain heartwave intervals might be different for women. Without thorough female participation in trials, such essential distinctions remain hidden.
Consider how this plays out in medical devices. In some heart device studies, only one out of five participants was female. That leaves huge gaps in understanding how these devices function in women’s hearts. Later reviews sometimes uncover that women would have benefited from earlier implants or different thresholds for intervention, meaning many missed chances for better health. This is not theoretical—it’s real life. Skewed data means women might not get the life-saving treatments they need at the right time. Medication dosages set using male-dominated studies can cause women to experience stronger side effects or less effective results.
In short, ignoring women in medical research is not a minor oversight; it’s a dangerous practice that leads to poor health outcomes, misdiagnoses, and missed prevention opportunities. Women’s bodies differ in subtle yet crucial ways. Recognizing these differences, collecting data, and testing drugs and devices with women in mind ensures better care for everyone. As we move into the next chapters, we will discover how this lack of gender-specific data influences huge economic systems and political decisions—realms where neglecting women’s experiences costs society dearly, in more ways than one.
Chapter 7: Understanding how Ignoring Women’s Unpaid Work Undermines Economies and Distorts GDP Data.
The health, safety, and everyday comfort of women are not the only areas impacted by the gender data gap. Step back and consider our global economy. We use a figure called Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to measure a country’s wealth and productivity. But GDP focuses on paid work, overlooking a massive portion of economic activity: the unpaid work performed mainly by women. Childcare, cooking, cleaning, elder care—these unpaid tasks keep families functioning and societies thriving. Without them, the economy would suffer immensely, yet these hours of critical work remain invisible in the official figures.
What if we added up the value of all that unpaid labor? Studies show that if included, a country’s GDP would rise dramatically. The UK’s economy, for instance, would look significantly larger after factoring in unpaid household work. The same is true in places like the United States and Australia, where caregivers do countless hours of invisible labor that go completely unrecorded. This hidden contribution is not just a footnote; it sustains workplaces, communities, and entire nations. By ignoring this massive female effort, we undervalue women’s contributions and miss an important economic reality.
Failing to recognize unpaid work in GDP data has serious policy consequences. Without clear data, governments struggle to justify spending on social infrastructure that makes life easier, such as subsidized childcare centers, elder care support, or flexible working arrangements. If data showed that women are held back by domestic responsibilities, policymakers might invest more in freeing up their time. This would enable more women to join the paid workforce, increasing productivity, fueling innovation, and boosting overall economic growth. But with these numbers hidden, decision-makers may overlook solutions that help balance domestic burdens, leaving women disadvantaged and economies less dynamic.
In other words, the gender data gap doesn’t just inconvenience women in their daily routines; it can hold back entire nations from greater prosperity. By counting what women do for free, we recognize their worth and see how supporting them better can unlock a nation’s full potential. When women’s unpaid contributions remain invisible, everyone loses the chance to thrive. The next chapter will dive into how politics plays a key role in addressing these issues, and why having more women in decision-making positions can help close these gaps that hamper progress and fairness.
Chapter 8: Exposing Why Few Women in Politics Means Policies That Fail Women’s Interests.
Why, if acknowledging women’s needs benefits society, are policies still so slow to change? Part of the answer lies in who holds the power. Politics is often considered a men’s club. Historically, women have been vastly underrepresented in political leadership positions worldwide. With fewer women in positions to draft, debate, and pass laws, important gender-specific issues—from better maternal healthcare to safer public infrastructure—never get the focused attention they need. When the majority of voices at the table belong to men, policymaking naturally reflects male perspectives more closely.
Even when women break into politics, they often face harsh scrutiny and unfair judgments. Studies show that when a woman speaks in a domain considered masculine—like financial policy or defense—she risks being labeled as too pushy or aggressive. Men making similar statements are seen as confident or authoritative. This double standard creates a chilling effect. Female politicians may hesitate to speak out on women’s issues out of fear they’ll be criticized more harshly than their male counterparts. Social and cultural norms, plus online abuse and threats, can discourage women from running for office in the first place, perpetuating a cycle of low female participation.
This gender imbalance in political representation means that the laws shaping our societies are less likely to address women’s unmet needs. Research shows female lawmakers are more inclined to champion policies on family welfare, education, healthcare, and social services—the very areas often neglected in male-dominated assemblies. Where female politicians achieve a critical mass, we see an increase in legislation that helps narrow gaps in employment, healthcare, or infrastructure. For example, when local councils in some regions reserved seats for women, more funds were directed toward community wells, toilets, and roads that helped ease women’s daily struggles.
In short, politics itself suffers from a gender data gap—fewer women at the table means less information on women’s realities shaping decisions. Without female politicians actively pushing for equality, many male leaders fail to notice these missing perspectives. Ensuring more women participate in politics helps draw attention to unseen issues and sparks policies that truly serve everyone. The question remains: how do we challenge and transform these systems to better reflect half the population’s needs? The next chapter will explore ways we can confront the gender data gap and strive toward a world designed inclusively, ensuring that both women and men benefit from balanced, well-informed policies and practices.
Chapter 9: Discovering Ways to Challenge the Gender Data Gap and Reshape Our World Fairly.
We’ve seen how a male-centered approach misses out on essential information about women’s lives. The key to fixing this is to start collecting better data. When we design studies, write surveys, or develop safety tests, we must actively seek women’s input. This means including female crash test dummies by default, conducting clinical trials that truly represent the population, and analyzing how women’s travel patterns differ. By filling in these missing pieces, we reshape the foundation on which policies, products, and services are built. Rather than just adjusting after the fact, we must start from a place of inclusion.
In addition to better data, we need more diverse decision-makers. Having more women across fields—engineering, politics, medicine, economics—ensures someone is always there to ask, What about women’s needs? Over time, this can transform entire industries. A world where female office workers don’t freeze at their desks, where female drivers are just as protected by seatbelts, and where household caretaking is valued economically, is within reach. All it takes is the willingness to look for missing information and fix the blind spots.
Technological advances can help. Modern data collection methods, including big data analytics, can uncover patterns we used to miss. Careful gender-segregated research can show where women stand to benefit from policy changes. Smart city planning can integrate women’s travel patterns, while affordable childcare policies can emerge once governments recognize the economic benefits of freeing women’s time. The result? More balanced policies, safer products, and more meaningful representation in decision-making places.
Ultimately, addressing the gender data gap means admitting that the way we have always done things is not necessarily correct or fair. It requires curiosity, humility, and determination to challenge long-held assumptions and rewrite the scripts that shape society. By doing this, we don’t just help women; we create a better world for everyone. Eliminating these gaps can spark new opportunities, improved well-being, and a fairer distribution of resources. When we put both men and women at the center, we stop treating half the population like an afterthought and start designing a future that genuinely includes us all.
All about the Book
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez reveals the gender data gap in our world, highlighting how policy, design, and culture often overlook women, leading to profound inequities. This compelling read is a call to action for a more inclusive society.
Caroline Criado Perez is an award-winning author and women’s rights campaigner, known for her advocacy on gender equality and representation, making her an influential voice in contemporary social issues.
Policy Makers, Urban Planners, Health Professionals, Engineers, Data Analysts
Feminism, Social Justice Advocacy, Research, Data Analysis, Reading Non-Fiction
Gender Inequality, Data Representation, Social Justice, Health Disparities
The default male is not just a matter of individual bias, but a structural problem that perpetuates inequality.
Malala Yousafzai, Emma Watson, Michelle Obama
Royal Society of Literature Award, British Book Awards – Non-Fiction Narrative Book of the Year, Named Best Book of the Year by The Times
1. Understand gender data gap’s real-world consequences. #2. Recognize bias in research and data collection. #3. Learn how design often overlooks female needs. #4. Grasp the impact of healthcare biases on women. #5. Discover women’s exclusion in economic models. #6. See transportation systems’ inadequacies for women. #7. Identify skewed safety standards affecting women. #8. Acknowledge unpaid care work’s undervaluation globally. #9. Explore discriminatory practices in workplace environments. #10. Realize technology’s gender bias in development. #11. Comprehend gender disparity in disaster responses. #12. Appreciate the importance of inclusive city planning. #13. Understand financial system designs excluding women. #14. Explore media’s role in perpetuating gender biases. #15. Recognize the need for gender-sensitive policy making. #16. Learn the gap in education opportunities for women. #17. Understand biases in poverty measurements and impacts. #18. Discover myths about gendered brain differences. #19. Recognize women’s underrepresentation in political systems. #20. Understand impact of biased algorithms on women.
Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez, gender data gap, women’s rights, feminism, gender equality, female representation, data bias, social justice, intersectional feminism, women in society, men and women differences
https://www.amazon.com/Invisble-Women-Data-Making-World/dp/1419735214
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