Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. While some readers may suggest that equality has arrived and gender no longer matters, this book, which should have wide popular appeal, is a solid corrective to that line of thought.Ī neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer. In clear language, the author builds a strong case for greater inclusion with this thoughtful and surprisingly humorous view of institutional bias and gendered information gaps. She pinpoints how the personal and the political intersect in these data gaps, providing a lens to interrogate gender-neutral defaults and reveling in examples of how including women (sometimes a single woman) quickly “solves” persistent problems. In focusing on how research has ignored, obscured, or failed to address gender differences, the author offers a balance of statistics, provocative questions, and concise assessments of systemic bias and how to address it. Painting a portrait out of negative space-this is “a story about absence-and that sometimes makes it hard to write about”-Criado Perez draws attention to information gaps in fields as diverse as urban planning, tax law, design, medicine, technology, disaster relief efforts, and politics. However, like algorithms seeking simplicity, researchers may set aside differences as “atypical,” thus missing the data-rich point that while women’s perspectives aren’t necessarily problematic, ignoring them is. From heart attack symptoms to usage of public transportation, women’s patterns don’t always replicate men’s. The author provides an incisive narrative paced more like a novel than a scientific study, offering digestible information with a sharp dose of wit. A writer, broadcaster, and feminist activist exposes a global knowledge gap in data pertaining to gender.Ĭriado Perez ( Do It Like a Woman…and Change the World, 2015), who was named Liberty Human Rights Campaigner of the Year in Britain in 2013, takes on the challenge of telling the story of the unknown, addressing countless ways in which data about women have been-and continue to be-left out of research that informs everything from daily life to public policy.
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