Women-related reading - Invisible Women [EN]
My Saúde Integral da mulher course started in September. So, before it started, I decided to start with some light reading. I read "Bad Feminist" by Roxanne Gay - Which wasn't really about being a feminist, or even directly about the theme - Still, I thought it was really interesting to see different topics discussed from the point of view of a woman who is also an amazing African-American writer.
This is an incredible, important book that all women (and not only) should read. It’s a book about the world we live in, information on data bias regarding women, the female body, the absence of a woman’s point of view and how it's affecting every single aspect of our lives and society — backed by data and scientific studies.
It's not an easy, light read. It's disconcerting and at times, unbelievable.
And also, I should add, it's not necessarily blaming men for this data bias - It's blaming history, convenience and most of all, misrepresentation of women when all the big (or small) decisions are being made. How would men be aware of women's issues if they never experienced them, and particularly, if women are taught to hide or disguise them?
This book made me value myself as a woman more than ever, gave me tools and information to empower myself and made me realize that yes!, I should be reading more about women and their issues. I should be more aware, so that I can make others be aware too.
Caroline taught me (or confirmed glairing suspicions) about several different subjects:
Women do need a revolution in healthcare. There is a huge historical data gap when it comes to female bodies, a data gap that is continuing to grow as researchers carry on ignoring the ethical need to include female cells, animals and humans, in their research. (And indeed, this is still going on in the twenty-first century). Doctors need to stop dismissing women's needs and start studying them.
There's the modern office temperature, of which I've suffered from myself. Fun fact: The formula to determine this standard temperature was developed in the 1960s based on the metabolic resting rate of the average forty-year-old, 70 kg man. As a consequence, current offices are on average five degrees too cold for women, hence the usual sight of women wrapped up in blankets or oversized scarfs and men walking around in summer clothes.
And other equally important topics, such as, How cars were mainly designed according to male, and not female bodies, and how that impacts numbers on car crashes; How Google's speech recognition software is/was 70% more likely to recognize male than female speech; And something else which left me terrified: Did you know that heart attacks symptoms are different from women?
This book made me grow as an adult and as a woman. I only wish I had read it sooner.
My first "women-related" read had nothing to do with women’s health (or so it seemed), it was Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.
This is an incredible, important book that all women (and not only) should read. It’s a book about the world we live in, information on data bias regarding women, the female body, the absence of a woman’s point of view and how it's affecting every single aspect of our lives and society — backed by data and scientific studies.
It's not an easy, light read. It's disconcerting and at times, unbelievable.
And also, I should add, it's not necessarily blaming men for this data bias - It's blaming history, convenience and most of all, misrepresentation of women when all the big (or small) decisions are being made. How would men be aware of women's issues if they never experienced them, and particularly, if women are taught to hide or disguise them?
This book made me value myself as a woman more than ever, gave me tools and information to empower myself and made me realize that yes!, I should be reading more about women and their issues. I should be more aware, so that I can make others be aware too.
Caroline taught me (or confirmed glairing suspicions) about several different subjects:
Women do need a revolution in healthcare. There is a huge historical data gap when it comes to female bodies, a data gap that is continuing to grow as researchers carry on ignoring the ethical need to include female cells, animals and humans, in their research. (And indeed, this is still going on in the twenty-first century). Doctors need to stop dismissing women's needs and start studying them.
There's the modern office temperature, of which I've suffered from myself. Fun fact: The formula to determine this standard temperature was developed in the 1960s based on the metabolic resting rate of the average forty-year-old, 70 kg man. As a consequence, current offices are on average five degrees too cold for women, hence the usual sight of women wrapped up in blankets or oversized scarfs and men walking around in summer clothes.
And other equally important topics, such as, How cars were mainly designed according to male, and not female bodies, and how that impacts numbers on car crashes; How Google's speech recognition software is/was 70% more likely to recognize male than female speech; And something else which left me terrified: Did you know that heart attacks symptoms are different from women?
This book made me grow as an adult and as a woman. I only wish I had read it sooner.
“One of the most important things to say about the gender data gap is that it is not generally malicious, or even deliberate. Quite the opposite. It is simply the product of a way of thinking that has been around for millennia and is therefore a kind of not thinking. A double not thinking, even: men go without saying, and women don't get said at all. Because when we say human, on the whole, we mean man.” Caroline Criado Perez
Comentários
Enviar um comentário