I came across this 2019 book in a second hand bookstore in Salisbury in the summer of 2020, and rediscovered it on my home office bookshelf a month or so back. Written by Caroline Criado Perez it’s an accessible and scholarly list of the very many ways in which the data we have about ourselves and our world systematically under-represents women. Caroline starts this book (her second) with a quote from Simone de Beauvoir:

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth”

What Caroline’s book comprehensively demonstrates is that - 70 years later - this is still the case. One of the many things I liked about this book is the acceptance that thinking beyond one’s own lived experience is hard for everyone - and that, thus, the natural way to address the gender data gap is to ensure women are well represented in data collection, interpretation, and decision making.

Caroline has a new book coming out next year, “Now You See Us”. Looking forward to it!