About The Author:
Ari Kristiana,
She is an auditor at Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan (SAI Indonesia). She completed her bachelor’s degree at the State Accounting College (STAN) in 2000, and obtained a master’s degree in Accounting from the University of Indonesia in 2005. During her career as an auditor, she has gained extensive experience in the audit of energy sector, such as energy transition and mining sector compliance. She has also participated in several audits in public sector, including financial and performance audit of both central and local government.
When walking in a shopping centre or at a crowded airport, have you ever noticed that the queue for the women's toilet is often much longer than the queue for the men's toilet? Or have you noticed that the size of most devices, mobile phones in particular, are actually too big for women's hands? Or have you ever wondered or even experienced why women don't have as many opportunities for advancement or promotion at work as their male counterparts?
These questions are answered in a book entitled Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez. In addition to outlining the causes of these problems, in the book, whose full title is Invisible Women, Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline clearly reveals how often women are ignored in various research, policy making, or product creation. As a result, women often face difficulties that are not experienced by men, sometimes to the point of being life-threatening.
The 432-page book opens with an interesting quote from Simone de Beauvoir, a French writer and women's movement activist, "The representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth.” Interesting, isn't it?
The book begins with a description of how the long history of the world has been designed with male standards, from ancient times to the present day. Evolutionary theories, anthropological theories, and the use of language, which is actually the most basic building block of social life, all contain gender bias. Even an online language that we often use today, namely the emoji, initially also had gender bias before it finally began to improve in 2016. Today, we can easily find a variety of female-specific emojis, something that we didn’t have a few years ago.
Furthermore, the author describes 16 cases of data bias grouped into 6 major sections, from the themes of daily life, work environment, product design, health, to disaster management.
In the health sector, ignoring the anatomy of the female body when diagnosing diseases or in clinical trials of drugs often leaves women without appropriate treatment. According to the author, this neglect has occurred for a long time, because in medical science it is assumed that there are no significant differences between male and female bodies except for size and the reproduction system, so for many years health education has only focused on the standard, which is the male standard. Meanwhile, the truth is that these gender differences are very influential in the mechanisms of the human body.
This explanation reminds me of the case of delayed menstruation that many women experienced after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine. The World Health Organization and vaccine manufacturers cannot explain whether the menstrual delay is related to the vaccination. The researchers did not separate, record and report data on clinical trial participants by gender. This is gender neglect in medicine, and it could be dangerous.
In the theme of everyday life, the author presents the case of a Swedish city's snow- clearing policy that was eventually changed to reduce gender bias. For decades, snow-clearing was prioritised on arterial roads, while pavements came last. This policy is very unfavourable to women who walk more frequently than men, because they walk their children to school every day, shop, or accompany parents to the doctor on foot. Finally, in 2011 the local government conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the policy, which led to a change in policy, with snow-clearing starting with pavements first. This policy change has benefitted not only women, but also children and the elderly who are more dependent on women.
In the chapter on the workplace, the book clearly depicts a meritocracy that is actually very gender-biased. It is an eye-opening depiction of how patriarchal the world really is.
Critics and the media gave favourable reviews of the book, which became a Sunday Times Bestseller. The Times called this book "a game changer", while Cordelia Fine gave an "eye opening" response because this book is indeed very enlightening. In addition to receiving a lot of praise from critics and the media, this book also received various awards, including in 2019 being the winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize, the Books Are My Bag Readers Choice Award, and the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award.
In my opinion, Caroline was able to write this book in a very interesting way and language. She starts the discussion with real-life cases to give the reader a clearer picture. For example, in Chapter 5 on The Henry Higgins Effect, she begins with a story about a Facebook executive who realised the need for a special parking space for pregnant women only after she had her first pregnancy. In One-Size-Fits-Men, Caroline opens the chapter with the story of a pianist who struggled for years to use traditional piano keys because his hands were smaller than most men. This story is followed by an explanation of how women's hands are smaller than men's, so female pianists often also struggle to use pianos designed with a standard male hand size.
In addition to providing case descriptions, the author adds to her argument with extensive data and statistics taken from various media and research. One small example is in Chapter 2 on Gender Neutral With Urinals, the author presents data on the number of toilets in Mumbai, India, one of which is that there are thousands of public toilets for men but none for women. What the government does provide are public toilets that are shared between men and women. The consequence of this is predictable, the number of sexual assaults experienced by women there due to this toilet shortage is quite high.
In general, this book is very interesting and enlightening. For policy makers, researchers, activists in the women's movement, and for the general public alike, this book is highly recommended. For SAI auditors, this book is also very useful, especially when conducting performance audits or when analysing government
policies, so that the recommendations given by SAIs to the government are the right recommendations.
The more people who are aware of gender bias, the greater the chance of correcting it. Because the first step to solving a problem is to realise it exists. Creating a world that is kinder to women is certainly an obligation for all of us.
Book information
Title: Invisible Women, Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men Author: Caroline Criado Perez Publisher: Abram Press
Year of publication: 2019
Number of pages: 432 pages