rae . *. ⋆’s Reviews > Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men > Status Update

for millennia, medicine has functioned on the assumption that male bodies can represent humanity as a whole. as a result, we have a huge historical data gap continuing to grow as researchers carry on ignoring the pressing ethical need to include female cells, animals and humans in their research. that this is still going on in the 21st century is a scandal. it should be the subject of newspaper headlines worldwide.

leadership in all sectors is male dominated and the reality is that men do not face this kind of aggression the way women do…. many organizations don’t think to put in procedures to deal adequately with sexual harassment and violence. it’s another example of how much a diversity of experience at the top matters for everyone — and how much it matters if we are serious about closing the data gap.

but if in silicon valley meritocracy is a religion, its god is a white male harvard dropout. and so are most of his disciples: women make up only a quarter of the tech industry’s employees and 11% of its executives. this is despite women earning more than half of all undergraduate degrees in the us, half of all undergraduate degrees in chemistry, and almost half in math.

the culture of paid work as a whole needs a radical overhaul. it needs to take into account that women are not the unencumbered workers the traditional workplace has been designed to suit, and that men are more likely to fit into this automaton deal… after all, it is simply a fact that none of us, including businesses, could do without the unpaid work carers do. so it is time to stop penalizing them for doing it.