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Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Book by Caroline Criado Perez · 10 quotes · Feminism, Women, City Planning

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Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men Quotes

“The male-unless-otherwise-indicated approach to research seems to have infected all sorts of ethnographic fields. Cave paintings, for example, are often of game animals and so researchers have assumed they were done by men - the hunters. But new analysis of handprints that appear alongside such paintings in cave sites in France and Spain has suggested that the majority were actually done by women.”

“The reporting rate is even lower in New York City, with an estimated 96% of sexual harassment and 86% of sexual assaults in the subway system going unreported, while in London, where a fifth of women have reportedly been physically assaulted while using public transport, a 2017 study found that 'around 90% of people who experience unwanted sexual behavior would not report it... Enough women have experienced the sharp shift from 'Smile, love, it might never happen,' to 'Fuck you bitch why are you ignoring me?'... But all too often the blame is out on the women themselves for feeling fearful, rather than on planners for designing urban spaces and transit environments that make them feel unsafe... Women are often scared in public spaces. In fact, they are around twice as likely to be scared as men. And, rather unusually, we have the data to prove it.”

“Clare Castillejo, the specialist in governance and rights in fragile states, points out that 'women frequently bring issues to the peace-building agenda that male elites tend to overlook,' such as the inclusivity and accessibility of processes and institutions and the importance of local and informal spheres.”

“Throughout this book I will refer to both sex and gender. By 'sex', I mean the biological characteristics that determine whether an individual is male or female , XX and XY. By 'gender', I mean the social meanings we impose upon those biological facts. The way women are treated because they are perceived to be female. One is man-made, but both are real and both have significant consequences for women as they navigate this world constructed on male data. But although I talk about both sex and gender throughout, I use 'Gender Data Gap' as an overarching term. Because sex is not the reason women are excluded from data - gender is”