Non-fiction

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Name: Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Caroline Criado Perez

21 minAudio8 insights

What you'll learn

•How gender data gaps shape everyday life and policy
•The economic and social costs of ignoring women’s experiences
•Why public spaces and transport systems often fail women
•How the workplace perpetuates invisible biases against women
•The dangers of male-default thinking in medicine and health
•How technology and design can reinforce or challenge gender bias
•Practical steps and policy ideas to close the gender data gap

Who should read this

✓Policy makers and urban planners
✓Leaders in technology and design
✓Healthcare professionals and researchers
✓Business leaders and HR managers

About this book

A revelatory look at how systemic male bias in data and design makes women invisible—and what we can do to fix it.

Did You Know?

“

The book inspired policy changes in several cities, including gender-sensitive urban planning in Vienna and Stockholm.

Audio Summary

Section 1

The World as We Don’t See It: The Quiet Power of Missing Data

3:45

7 Sections

Preview: The World as We Don’t See It: The Quiet Power of Missing Data

Let’s begin our journey with a gentle breath, inviting you to settle in and open your mind to the unseen. Imagine a world shaped by numbers and facts, where every decision—big or small—relies on data. Now, imagine that half of these stories are missing. This is the world we live in, where the gender data gap quietly shapes our cities, our workplaces, our health, and our daily lives. The absence of women in data is not always the result of malice; more often, it’s a habit, a centuries-old pattern of seeing men as the universal human.

Think of the office you work in, the temperature you shiver or sweat in: it’s set to a standard based on the average male body. The smartphone you hold may feel just a bit too wide for your palm, because its design was tailored to male hands. Even the car you drive is tested primarily for male safety, putting women at greater risk in a crash. These are not isolated quirks, but symptoms of a deeper, pervasive absence. When women are left out of data, the world forgets to design for them.

It’s tempting to believe that technology and Big Data can save us from bias, but the truth is more chilling: when algorithms are fed incomplete data, they don’t erase the gap—they widen it. A hiring algorithm, for example, trained mostly on male resumes, will learn to favor men. Medical research that ignores women’s bodies can lead to drugs that don’t work—or worse, cause harm. Garbage in, garbage out: if our data is incomplete, our solutions are flawed.

This gap is not just about numbers, but about whose stories are told, whose needs are met, and whose lives are valued. It is a silent force, shaping the world in ways most of us never notice—until we are the ones left out. As we move forward, let’s remember: To see the whole world, we must count everyone in it.

In the next section, we’ll step into the spaces of our daily lives and see how these invisible gaps leave their mark on everything from city streets to public transport. Let’s continue to unravel the hidden patterns together.