Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

“The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male experience, the male perspective, has come to be seen as universal, while the female experience—that of half the global population, after all—is seen as, well, niche.”

Perez uses a bit of sarcasm here to emphasize the absurdity of considering the female experience a narrow specialty. In courses, the male is the default. It is therefore acceptable to base a course around female authors but not white male authors.

“They didn’t deliberately set out to exclude women. They just didn’t think about them. They didn’t think to consider if women’s needs might be different. And so this data gap was a result of not involving women in planning.”

The biases in many designs and systems are not the result of malice. There are differences in male and female perspectives, however. When women are excluded, their interests are not as likely to be taken into account. The absence of data is tied to the absence of women in positions of power.

“Travelling to and from work is, they say, the most dangerous part of their day.”

Male violence against women is not considered in the design of transportation systems. When women are victimized on public transport, operators do not take them seriously and there are no accessible systems for reporting abuse. Women are justified in fearing for their personal safety in public spaces even when overall crime rates are low.

“There is no such thing as a woman who doesn’t work. There is only a woman who isn’t paid for her work.”

Perez emphasizes that women perform 75% of unpaid work globally. This work is essential to the operation of society and is undervalued. Women often have to perform this work whether or not they are in the paid work force. Perez seeks to make this female contribution visible.

“Some call women’s segregation into low-paid work a choice. But it’s a funny kind of choice when there is no realistic option other than the children not being cared for and the housework not getting done.”

Sarcastically, Perez argues that most women have no choice but to reduce paid work hours or accept inferior tracks in the professional world to fulfill their care responsibilities. After Perez produces data to support women’s greater likelihood to work in part-time and less lucrative positions than men, the reader sees that no sane person would choose to make so much less money—women just don’t have a choice.

“But if in Silicon Valley meritocracy is a religion, its God is a white male Harvard dropout. And so are most of his disciples: women make up only a quarter of the tech industry’s employees and 11% of its executives.”

Perez exposes the myth of meritocracy—something the tech industry fervently believes in. In reality, this industry is heavily biased against women. Those women who work in the industry experience poor workplace conditions and exit the industry at much higher rates than men.

“Instead we continue to rely on data from studies done on men as if they apply to women. Specifically, Caucasian men aged twenty-five to thirty, who weigh 70 kg.”

The male standard simply does not apply to women given biological differences. Despite the increasing realization of that fact, the default male is still used in product and safety tests to the detriment of women. 

“There is no doubt that women are dying as a result of the gender data gap in occupational health research.”

Often, women’s studies and feminism are dismissed as niche fields and criticized for over-sensitivity. Perez prevents such unfounded critiques of her argument by clearly highlighting that male bias and the gender data gap are literally costing women their lives.

“We have to start recognizing that the work women do is not an added extra, a bonus that we could do without: women’s work, paid and unpaid, is the backbone of our society and economy. It’s about time we started valuing it.” 

Exploitative working conditions, such as short-term contracts, victimize women in greater numbers than men and therefore contribute to the gender pay gap. Not only is women’s work undervalued or just unpaid, but the workplace itself is also often dangerous for women. Perez emphasizes the injustice and need for change.

“[T]hey still haven’t got the hang of consulting women and then designing a product rather than enforcing a centralized design on them from above.”

Describing the difference between male and female perspectives, Perez highlights the problems that result when men design products for women. They miss critical points, often making the products unusable or unpopular.

“[W]omen buying cars are unreasonably expecting voice-recognition software developers to design a product that works for them when it’s obvious that the problem needing fixing is the women themselves. Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

Using her trademark sarcasm, Perez exposes the deficiency of the male default in product design. However, instead of changing the default, men often expect women to conform to the male standard embedded in the product.

“But it’s Sergey Brin and the pregnancy parking all over again: even the best of men can’t know what it’s like to go through the world as a person with a body which some other people treat as an access-all-areas amusement arcade.”

It took a pregnant female executive to notice the need for maternity parking. Men were not opposed to it, but it had never occurred to them. Virtual game developers similarly did not conceive of the possibility of virtual groping, as they simply lacked an understanding of the female experience and perspective.

“They are products of a medical system which, from root to tip, is systematically discriminating against women, leaving them chronically misunderstood, mistreated and misdiagnosed.”

Perez uses anecdotes and studies to demonstrate how physicians discriminate, whether intentionally or unintentionally, against women. When women present with different symptoms than the typical male or suffer from diseases unknown to men, they are often dismissed. Doctors commonly attribute their physical ailments to a psychological problem, prescribing sedatives.

“[H]ow many treatments have women missed out on because they had no effect on the male cells on which they were exclusively tested?”

Male and female cells respond differently to stimuli, such as estrogen and transplanted stems cells. Because most tests are done on men, it is possible that many cures for various health conditions in women have been missed. There is a high price in health for the gender data gap.

“We no longer lock women up and cut out parts of their brains. Instead, we give women drugs: women are two and a half times more likely to be on antidepressants than men.”

Historically, women were placed in insane asylums on the say-so of men, often for simply behaving outside of feminine norms or asserting their rights. Here, Perez notes the continuity of that barbaric approach with current practices: Men are more likely to be prescribed pain medication, as physicians believe their reports of pain, while often attributing women’s health concerns to their mental state.

“It all sounds very scientific, but the truth is that the GDP has a woman problem.”

Perez clarifies that the determination of a country’s GDP is a subjective calculation, and that a deliberate decision was made to omit unpaid household work, such as childcare and cleaning. Because that work is predominantly done by women, their contribution to the economy, which is half or more of GDP, is overlooked and taken for granted.

“In fact, the best job-creation programme could simply be the introduction of universal childcare in every country in the world.”

Women, who are overwhelmingly the primary providers of care, have to work reduced hours or leave the paid workforce entirely when cuts are made to programs providing such care. If the government instead provided childcare, those providing the care would be compensated and women would have more opportunity to contribute to the country’s wealth.

“Together with our woman-blind approach to GDP and public spending, global tax systems are not simply failing to alleviate gendered poverty: they are driving it.”

Perez explains how tax incentives and brackets penalize most women: They are built on faulty assumptions and their impacts on women have not been studied. As a result, the tax system transfers money from the female purse to the male wallet.

“Social power for women is therefore intrinsically incompatible with professional power: if a woman wants to be seen as competent she has to give up being seen as warm.”

Describing the catch-22 that women in public roles face, Perez notes that women’s social power comes from warm personality, which can only be claimed if they renounce any competition with men. To be assertive, especially in a realm dominated by men, is antithetical to societal notions of femininity. When women compete for public office, they are seen as and penalized for being cold and uncaring, while men are not.

“Mistaking male bias for impartial, universal, common sense means that when people (men) come across someone trying to level the playing field, it’s often all they can see (perhaps because they read it as bias).”

Male bias is so ingrained that those challenging it are accused of bias. When women or ethnic minorities run for office, they do better if they do not engage in diversity-valuing behavior. Even then, their identity stands out and opponents accuse them of focusing on it.

“Because if we are reticent to include women’s perspectives and address women’s needs when things are going well, there’s something about the context of disaster, of chaos, of social breakdown, that makes old prejudices seem more justified. And we’re always ready with an excuse.”

Women are excluded from post-disaster planning and peace talks. As a result, their interests are overlooked, and peace settlements are less effective. Moreover, any crisis becomes a pretext to defer women’s rights and participation.

“It’s not the disaster that kills them, explains Maureen Fordham. It’s gender—and a society that fails to account for how it restricts women’s lives.”

Women, Perez explains, are considerably more likely to die in natural disasters. This disparity is largely due to the restrictions placed on women, particularly poor ones. For example, in some cultures, women are not taught to swim, which contributes to their deaths from flood waters.

“Failing to collect data on women and their lives means that we continue to naturalise sex and gender discrimination—while at the same time somehow not seeing any of this discrimination. Or really, we don’t see it because we naturalise it.”

Discrimination against women is so commonplace that it is considered normal. The male default is simply accepted. Perez urges the recognition of this injustice and the collection of data on women.