Invisible women

When ‘invisible women’ came out and got attention in the press, I figured it was right up my street. I bought it. And then didn’t end up reading it for a long time. 

This year I’ve been on a reading spree. I started with books that I had lent or been given. And when I got through that pile I started on this one. 

So for those who haven’t heard of it: the front of the book sums it up. It’s all about data about women not being gathered, and therefore women not being taken into consideration. And this spans many fields. Maybe the most obvious one is medical research; a lot of it has historically been done on men only. And then you get a medical science, fit for men only. I think many of us have heard of the worse outcomes for women if they have a heart attack; if only men are studied, the symptoms are only recognised in men. And delayed diagnosis is bad. 

This book goes into countless examples more! Everything from public transport to pensions and public toilets and disaster relief. And because she covers so much, she has to rush through it all, but she has an extensive bibliography, so you can see what it’s based on. 

I suppose all women have felt examples like this in their lives. When people think of ‘people’, you often realise they were thinking of ‘men’. (And straight white able-bodied cisgender ones at that, but that’s a bigger topic than suits this post). If there is PPE available, it’s often in one-size-fits-blokes. If you get a race T-shirt, it’s always a man’s cut. One’s line manager who walks into a meeting, sees three or four women sitting together, and immediately comments the women are banding together, and should he be worried? He’s seen three or four men sitting together countless many times, but that never solicited a response. I saw an interesting advertisement for volunteers for research on fitness. Then I read on and noticed they only wanted men. That was soon followed by a more inclusive one! Maybe there had been so much backlash they had to redesign their project. Phrases like ‘the world and his wife’. Or ‘there was a fire, and somebody’s wife died’. And so on. 

It was an interesting read! Not happy reading, obviously, but good to get an idea of the extent of the problem. And I know the bibliography will be aging, but once you have one article to start with, you can follow the trail. 

I would recommend this book to everyone! Especially men. They are more likely to not quite be aware of this. And it’s a good read!