“Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.” Malorie Blackman
The quote very succinctly surmises a crucial aspect of reading books. Yes, everyone reads to gain more knowledge, inform opinion, seek advice or to escape reality. Whatever maybe the reason to read, books and their authors provide us a way to form new perspectives and adjust our old ones. And as we “walk in their shoes” for some time, we get to learn something about ourselves too.
I recently read “Invisible Women” by Caroline Criado Pérez. Caroline is a British author, journalist and women’s rights activist. In 2013, in an interview with The Telegraph she remarked "the culture we live in is made up of little, tiny sexist acts which you can just ignore but when you think of them collectively you start to see a pattern." This book is about putting a lot of different pieces together, analyzing them and realizing the world is biased against women more than we would like to admit.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the odds in this world are not stacked equally. More often than not, women end up receiving the shorter end of the straw because of how the world, as we know it, has been designed by men, for men. In a society where most of the decision making has historically lied with men, it is easy to see how things are tilted in the favor of the male species. However, the book argues, it is not always due to some dubious plan by the male community to establish superiority but is embedded in the subconscious that whatever applies to men should by default be applicable to women. The book presents a nuanced argument about the lack of women in decision making roles, especially for those decisions that affect women directly. When men are the ones making choices for women whose bodies, minds and personalities they either don’t understand well or will never face the same problems, the solutions that come up are often lacking in efficacy.
This problem finds its roots in the vast data gap that exists for one of the halves of humanity. No prizes for guessing which half. Data which has not been collected either by design because it would make it harder to arrive at a solution or subconsciously assuming things about the female counterparts without little research. The book is replete with examples from a wide range of industries which demonstrate this finding. Car-crash testing dummies are made keeping an average male in mind which leads to the car being more suited for a man to drive and be safe in. Women drivers need to adjust several settings in a car beginning from uncomfortable seat belts, restricted fields of vision as they drive and poor ergonomics of the cabin which makes it much more likely for a woman to be injured in a crash. Drug testing is often done on male-only sample sets even for the medicines that will be given to females, just because it will be “difficult” to account for hormone changes as the female goes through her menstrual cycle. From design of public transportation to algorithms, there is a dearth of female data, which makes the outcome biased against women by default. Machine learning algorithms which are now commonly used for recruiting and talent acquisition, are primarily tested on male data, skewing the results to favor men. The examples are endless with each one more appalling and infuriating as the next.
The book does draw a few silver linings around what seem to be really gray clouds. Some nations and organizations are becoming increasingly cognizant of this chasm and have begun to do far more than mere lip service. The book outlines that several issues faced by women can be better addressed by just listening to women and having them at the decision table. When society is actively trying to solve problems for everyone, it is imperative that there is representation from each of the affected population. Even though this is common knowledge, but women have thus far been missing from the narrative in a big way. At the very least, the book reminded me the importance of empathy and perspective. It cleared some of my biases, reminding me to think and do better.
