Olivia: A woman is 47% more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash than a man. It’s not because of how she drives. It’s because the car was designed for him. Jackson: Whoa, hold on. Forty-seven percent? That’s a massive difference. You’re saying that’s a design flaw? Olivia: It’s a data flaw. That startling fact is at the heart of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez. She's this incredible British journalist and campaigner—the one who successfully fought to get a female historical figure on UK banknotes. Jackson: Oh, I remember that campaign! So she’s a professional at making the invisible, visible. Olivia: Exactly. And this book proves it. It won the prestigious Royal Society Science Book Prize because it’s a masterclass in revealing the hidden data that shapes our lives. It’s been called a "game-changer" by reviewers, and for good reason. Jackson: And it's not just about cars, right? From that title, it sounds like it's… everything. Olivia: It is everything. And the most shocking part is that it starts in the most unexpected, almost absurdly mundane places.

Jackson: Okay, you can’t leave me hanging there. What’s more mundane than a car crash test dummy? Olivia: How about snow-clearing? Jackson: Snow-clearing? Come on, how can snow-clearing be sexist? Snow is famously neutral on gender politics. Olivia: You'd think so! But the book opens with this incredible case study from a small town in Sweden called Karlskoga. For years, their snow-clearing schedule was what you’d expect: clear the major roads and traffic arteries first, then get to the smaller roads and pedestrian walkways. Seems logical, right? Jackson: Yeah, get the main transport routes open. That makes perfect sense. Olivia: It makes perfect sense if you assume everyone’s travel patterns are the same. But when they were forced to look at their policies through a gendered lens, they discovered something fascinating. Men and women travel differently. Jackson: How so? Olivia: Men overwhelmingly tend to drive to work and back in a simple, linear pattern. One trip there, one trip back. Women, on the other hand, are far more likely to engage in what planners call "trip-chaining." Jackson: Trip-chaining? What’s that? Olivia: It’s a series of smaller, interconnected trips. Dropping kids at school, going to a part-time job, taking an elderly parent to a doctor's appointment, getting groceries, picking the kids up again. These trips are often done on foot or via public transport. Jackson: Okay, I see it now. The main roads are for the male commute, but the pedestrian paths and bus stops are the infrastructure for women’s lives. Olivia: Precisely. So by clearing the main roads first, the town was prioritizing men's travel and leaving women to struggle through inches of snow with buggies, wheelchairs, or shopping bags. Jackson: That’s wild. So what did they do? Olivia: They flipped the schedule. They started clearing pedestrian walkways and areas around public transport first. And here’s the kicker. It didn’t just make life fairer for women. It saved the town money. Jackson: Wait, how did it save them money? That seems counterintuitive. Olivia: Because the data showed that pedestrians were injured three times more often than motorists in icy conditions. And the majority of those injured pedestrians were women. The hospital costs from all those slips and falls were far greater than the entire winter road maintenance budget. Jackson: Wow. So fixing the gender data gap wasn't just the 'right' thing to do, it was the economically smart thing to do. Olivia: Exactly. It’s a perfect example of the book's central thesis. It’s not about malicious intent. No one in Karlskoga was trying to make women’s lives harder. They just never thought to collect the data. They defaulted to a male perspective of what 'transport' means. Jackson: It's like that story in the book about the Barbican Centre in London. They tried to be progressive and made the toilets "gender-neutral with urinals" and "gender-neutral with cubicles." Olivia: I love that example. What happened? Jackson: Well, the men used the ones with urinals, and everyone else used the ones with cubicles. So the queue for the former women's room just got twice as long. A 'neutral' solution that effectively doubled the toilet provision for men. It’s a design flaw hidden in plain sight. Olivia: A design flaw hidden in plain sight. That’s the perfect way to put it. And that same flaw follows us from the street right into the office.

Jackson: Okay, so I’m guessing we’re not just talking about the lack of women in corner offices. This is more fundamental. Olivia: Much more. Let’s talk about the temperature. Have you ever noticed that women in offices are often cold? Jackson: All the time! I thought it was just a running joke, the battle over the thermostat. My female colleagues are always wrapped in blankets while I’m perfectly comfortable. Olivia: Well, it’s not a preference, it’s physics. The formula for standard office temperature was developed in the 1960s. It’s based on the metabolic resting rate of a 40-year-old, 154-pound man. Jackson: You’re kidding me. Olivia: Not at all. Women’s metabolic rates are significantly lower, on average. The formula overestimates female metabolic rate by as much as 35%. This means most offices are set about five degrees too cold for women. So when a woman says she’s cold, she’s not being difficult; she’s providing a data point the original formula ignored. Jackson: So my constant comfort at my desk is basically a form of thermal privilege. That's both hilarious and infuriating. But that’s an inconvenience. Does this data gap get more dangerous? Olivia: It gets much more dangerous. Let’s talk about Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE. This is the gear that keeps people safe in high-risk jobs: construction, firefighting, science, healthcare. Jackson: Helmets, goggles, harnesses, lab coats... Olivia: Exactly. And most of it is designed for men. A 2016 survey in the UK found that only 29% of women wore PPE actually designed for them. Most are just given a smaller man's size, which isn't the same thing. Jackson: What’s the practical difference? Olivia: It’s huge. A safety harness designed for a male torso won't fit a female one correctly, creating gaps that can be fatal in a fall. Goggles designed for a male face leave gaps on a woman's, exposing her to chemical splashes. A stab vest for a policeman is designed for a flat chest; on a policewoman, it rides up, leaving her internal organs exposed. Jackson: That is genuinely terrifying. You’re saying a female scientist could be exposed to hazardous materials because her mask doesn't seal properly? Or a construction worker could fall because her harness is too loose? Olivia: Yes. The book is filled with these stories. A female coastguard whose one-piece overall, designed with a front-zip for men, makes using the restroom a "major operation" that requires removing all her gear, putting her at risk of hypothermia. Women in the army developing pelvic stress fractures from being forced to match a male soldier's marching stride. Jackson: It’s like giving a soldier armor that doesn't fit. It’s almost worse than no armor at all because it gives a false sense of security. Olivia: That's a perfect analogy. The system provides 'protection' but it's based on a default user that excludes half the workforce. This isn't a failure of meritocracy; it's a failure of data. The workplace isn't built for the 'best' person for the job; it's built for the 'best man' for the job. Jackson: So these data gaps go from inconvenient, to dangerous, and now it sounds like they can be downright deadly. Olivia: They can be, and often are. And nowhere is that clearer than in the doctor's office.

Jackson: Okay, this feels like the most critical area. If the data gap exists here, the consequences are enormous. Olivia: They are. The book introduces a concept called 'Yentl Syndrome,' named after the Barbra Streisand film where she has to pretend to be a man to get an education. In medicine, it means that women are often misdiagnosed or poorly treated because their health issues are only taken seriously if they present in the same way as they do in men. Jackson: Give me an example. Olivia: The most powerful one is heart disease. What do you picture when you think of a heart attack? Jackson: I picture a man, probably middle-aged, clutching his chest, with pain shooting down his left arm. The classic 'Hollywood heart attack.' Olivia: Exactly. And that is a classic presentation… for men. Women can experience heart attacks very differently. They might feel extreme fatigue, nausea, shortness of breath, or pain in their jaw or back. They might not have any chest pain at all. Jackson: And doctors call these 'atypical' symptoms, right? Olivia: They do. But they're only 'atypical' because the 'typical' is male. And because of this, women having a heart attack are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed than men. Jackson: Hold on. Fifty percent? So a woman could walk into an emergency room, actively having a heart attack, and be sent home with antacids because her symptoms don't fit the male model? Olivia: It happens all the time. The book is filled with harrowing stories. And the result is that young women are almost twice as likely as men to die in the hospital following a heart attack. Their bodies are sending out clear distress signals, but the medical system has been trained to listen for a different language—a male language. Jackson: That is just… staggering. It’s not that the data doesn't exist—the women are right there, presenting the data with their bodies—it's that the system is programmed to ignore it. Olivia: And it goes even deeper. For decades, women were actively excluded from clinical trials. The thalidomide tragedy of the 1960s led to regulations that, with good intentions, effectively barred most women of childbearing age from drug research. The result is a massive data gap. We simply don't know how many drugs affect women differently. Jackson: So we’re prescribing medications at gender-neutral dosages, even though men and women have different body compositions, hormones, and metabolisms? Olivia: Yes. A US government study found that women experience adverse drug reactions nearly twice as often as men, and a key reason is that the prescribed dosage is too high for the female body. We are, quite literally, overdosing women because the data is based on men.

Jackson: So we've gone from snow on the sidewalk, to the office thermostat, to a fatal misdiagnosis in a hospital. It's the same pattern everywhere: the world is designed around a default that excludes half the population. Olivia: It's a pattern of thinking, a "double not thinking," as Criado Perez calls it. Men are the default, so we don't think about them. And women are 'other,' so we don't think about them either. The result is a world full of data gaps. Jackson: And what's so powerful about the book is that it argues this isn't necessarily about malice. It's about a blind spot. A massive, systemic, and sometimes deadly blind spot. Olivia: Exactly. The book's core argument is that the absence of women in data isn't a neutral, empty space. It's a silhouette shaped like a man. And once you see that silhouette, you start seeing it everywhere. Jackson: That’s a chilling thought. It reframes so many things I've just accepted as normal. Olivia: And that’s the ultimate takeaway. The book gives you a new lens to see the world. Once you see the data gap, you can't unsee it. It poses a powerful, reflective question to all of us. Jackson: Which is? Olivia: Where in your own life do you see a world designed for a default that isn't you? In your office, your city, your technology, your healthcare? Jackson: That's a question that could keep you busy for a lifetime. We'd actually love to hear your examples. Find us on our socials and share the 'invisible' designs you've noticed in your world. It’s a conversation we all need to be having. Olivia: It absolutely is. This is Aibrary, signing off.