The full title is ‘Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’
Here is the description:
Imagine a world where your phone is too big for your hand, where your doctor prescribes a drug that is wrong for your body, where in a car accident you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured, where every week the countless hours of work you do are not recognised or valued. If any of this sounds familiar, chances are that you’re a woman.
Invisible Women shows us how, in a world largely built for and by men, we are systematically ignoring half the population. It exposes the gender data gap – a gap in our knowledge that is at the root of perpetual, systemic discrimination against women, and that has created a pervasive but invisible bias with a profound effect on women’s lives.
Award-winning campaigner and writer Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are excluded from the very building blocks of the world we live in, and the impact this has on their health and wellbeing. From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media – Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women. In making the case for change, this powerful and provocative book will make you see the world anew.
Just borrowed it from my e-library.
I can attest about medical issues; both my girls weren’t diagnosed with ADHD until adults because they didn’t fit the “criteria.” Which was based on boys. ADHD manifests differently in girls. Or the old jackass of a doctor who patted my hand and prescribed Valium for my “nerves.” I was experiencing a number of physical symptoms, turned out to be low thyroid, easily treated. I could go on.
Can you give some examples of how it manifests differently in girls?
In addition to the examples from other commenters, girls seem to be better at masking. When they’re alone, they might display more stereotypical behaviours, but they’re better at watching other people in public and mimicking them to fit in, even when they don’t understand the reasons for the actions.
Not the OP commenter, but generally speaking, boys tend to present with more external symptoms that are visible to others - fidgeting, difficulty sitting still, etc. Girls tend to have more internal symptoms like ‘spacing out’ that others can’t see. A diagnosis in kids is often based on observable symptoms and kids aren’t always asked about their invisible symptoms inside their heads, so boys get diagnosed more frequently. The example symptoms only scratch the surface of what ADHD entails, but’s that’s the gist of it.
As a teacher, one thing I’d say is that while boys often act out when they get distracted, what we see with girls is classic daydreamy behavior… so she’s paying attention, and then suddenly another student will do something disruptive, and instead of her attention snapping back to the lesson, we lose her looking out the window. Enough that it is having an impact on her grade/ability to relate to others. Then we start watching more closely (some kids just daydream! Just like some kids just get bored and mess around.)
Girls are underdiagnosed because their behavior (usually) isn’t disruptive; boys are massively overdiagnosed because parents sometimes are looking for a medical solution to their kids just being kids, as well as biases from within the system.
I’m still in the process of getting diagnosed as an adult, but I generally say that I have a bunch of anxiety keeping the ADHD in check.
Like, I’m not late for appointments… But only because I have 12 alarms and didn’t sleep the night before and any sleep I did get was populated by a fear that I was going to oversleep through my appointment and then I still left too late to make it on time so I ran.
My assignments aren’t late… Because when I realized I put it off too long, I stayed awake all night writing in a panic, and I only reread it 8 times instead of the 12 times I wanted to.
I don’t lose things… Because I put them in the same place, every day and if they aren’t there I get a little panicked and can’t find it, even if I walked by it multiple times.
Speaking of walking by, I need to try and do things the first time I see them, because if I let myself sit down, that chore vanishes.
I was diagnosed a year ago and I’m over 40.
I have somehow gotten by by masking (which can lead to a burnout), and various survival mechanisms I had developed in order to cope (such as writing everything down, and having a husband who is my executive function director).