Book Club: Invisible Women
Last year the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report (available here) made a startling prediction: it would take 100 years to achieve gender parity across the world. Many believe we are well on our way and have made great strides toward better empowering and representing women in the home and workplace, but many women’s anecdotal experiences sing a different tune.
Countless articles have been circulating since the pandemic began, calling attention to the vast amounts of unpaid labor women endure, now that they are sharing the bulk of everything from homeschooling their kids to making meals to cleaning the house, in what feels like a step back for womankind. Covid-19 has exacerbated the paid labor market for women as well, as many of the industries most impacted are female dominated; women and girls face disproportionate impacts with far reaching consequences.
Last month’s book club choice was Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, an astute, data driven deep dive into the extent in which we live in a male designed world. Perez details countless examples. From medical research to seat belts to stoves and everything in between, what we’re witnessing is a crucial lack of data around the needs of women, effectively rendering more than half the world’s population voiceless and, as Perez reminds us continuously throughout the book: invisible.
Leadership positions are largely held by men, design decisions are largely decided on by men and, in addition to stifling female representation, the lack of data regarding female preference can result in real physical and emotional harm for women. This lack of data therefore also prevents solutions to chronic gender based issues because if you aren’t able to quantify inequality, you’re also unable to address it and legitimize the issue.
Let’s take the example of the workplace. Jokes about summer being referred to as “women's winter” due to offices optimizing temperatures for mens metabolic rates, about five degrees colder than what they ought to be, fall flat when you realize this practice is a relic of the 60’s and 70’s male dominated office. Flexibility with work hours, work from home and part time work has been a constant struggle with women that want to keep their jobs and also account for having small children, as one ex-Facebook data scientist chronicled recently.
Even the enlightened big-tech companies dominating their markets show tremendous resistance to creating truly inclusive environments without putting the burden on women to “Lean In,” effectively making the issue of female representation a “you” problem and not an “us” problem. Victim blaming does nothing to address environmental inadequacies of a company that’s unwilling to promote the well being of all employees and being told to lean in when we can all see there are real barriers to winning a seat at the table is intellectually dishonest.
You can lean in and ruffle feathers all you want, but if the broader culture is not an inclusive culture, this will be an uphill battle. If women are not being empowered and supported in the richest companies with the vastest resources, if those companies can’t communicate strong commitments to promoting inclusivity in their workplaces, what hope does that leave for the rest of us? Ultimately, what does it mean to create inclusive spaces? Is it an us problem?
Re-examining leadership, decision making and the importance of diversity is crucial if we are going to truly move forward and create meaningful progress for women. Sure, it may be more difficult to have diverse perspectives meeting to come to a decision. The decision may take longer to come to and it might cause frustration, but ultimately it will be a better decision. Uncomfortable conversations need to exist if what we’re striving for is a superior result, even if the journey there is more difficult.
The human rights component inherent in inclusive design cannot be understated as well. If women are dying more of undiagnosed heart attacks or seat belt failures because of selection bias or a lack of female representation during testing in what Perez calls the “data gap,” there is a real cause or alarm. The book specifically talks about gender and women, but outside of the binary, other groups in society are being impacted by data gaps. Minorities, the disabled and the LGBTQ community are routinely victim to the same crucial issue: the lack of diversity in design decisions that impact all of us.
Is Gen Z prepared or better equipped to fill the data gap? Kids these days are interested in the wider world and are increasingly educating themselves more than previous generations did, but given the UN’s dismal projections, even our youngest generations will likely experience the negative externalities of unilateral, male-oriented design. Last month, our NYC chapter started a skills based pilot program which took the resume (name and sex) out of the criteria and only organized candidates based on skill for referral to hiring managers. It was no surprise that more women were included on that short list when they weren’t being prejudged; a common side effect of the traditional resume based hiring process.
We cannot continue to wax poetic about empowering women without addressing structural and cultural barriers to their continued success. Perez doesn’t think that the gender data gap is necessarily deliberate or malicious, opting to describe her “male size fits all” perspective as a matter of practicality. After all, it’s costly to test experiments on every represented group before creating a prototype, but whether negative intention is present isn’t the real concern. The real concern is, with all this data, with this overwhelming evidence against female representation across the education system, work, scientific community, home and family life, can we compel enough cultural change to truly see progress in our lifetimes?
Then there’s the other side of the coin: dominant groups are not necessarily aware of what minority groups are experiencing, though I would hardly consider women a “minority” at this point. If half the population can’t accommodate the other half, some form of subjugation would logically seem inevitable, whether it's intended or not. Moving to a more egalitarian society would disadvantage dominant groups in order to better accommodate those traditionally left out of the equation.
We want to see more women and girls in leadership, in STEM and in positions of power. The first step lies in making all arenas welcoming, not just to women but to all groups, as we update inclusive design and promote communal well being for our collective evolution. I urge you to read this if you’re interested in getting in all the juicy details, charts and numbers Perez has so meticulously collected for us.
Let’s all take care of each other. We can all succeed and thrive together.
We must have the courage to believe that’s possible.
Irene Bratsis
NYC Chapter Co Lead