PLEASE tell me you're all reading Invisible Women?!

[WyeWoman]

I keep speaking to people about this amazing book by Caroline Criado Perez called Invisible Women! It is soooo bloody amazing!!
Link here: www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1113605/invisible-women/9781784741723.html

I need to discuss this with people. This woman is brilliant.

I was waiting for it to come out in paperback
Amazon pre-order for the paperback is about £7 at the moment (out in March).

I’m reading it and DH is listening to parts of it, as I shout out “WTF, just listen to this, it’s unbelievable.”

I keep bracing myself to start, but can't manage to get braced enough. I've been aware of some of the situations she writes about and they make me want to howl with rage. To face all that plus a whole bunch of further examples I've managed to avoid knowing about is more than I can stand.

So, no, not reading it yet. When I'm up for months of being livid, I'll start. I can see just from the excerpts that it's brilliant.

Thesuzle, Inferior is by Angela Sani and takes a good look at women in science.

I'm currently reading 'Misjustice, How British law is failing women' by Helena Kennedy, awesome book by an awesome woman, another book that makes you go 'oh ffs' every few sentences!

Oops missed an I out of Saini!

Yes! I put it on my Christmas wish list, and Secret Santa delivered

I'm about to start reading it - but I am worried it will raise my blood pressure...

If anyone happened to be lying next to my sunbed last summer, I must apologise for my muttering.

I thought it was blooody brilliant.

I have to read it in short bursts because it makes me so ANGRY!

Read it last year and loved it - time for a reread as I have been recommending it to everyone since!

Agree about the rage inducement though.

Searched out this thread to join in. I've just stared the book and have not even finished the intro yet and I'm already 🤯😡.

DH doesn't read books any more. I plan to bore him with quotes.

Maybe I'll read it to my sons. And my students. And everyone. I am taking notes.

First up, the bit about identity politics being about everyone else because being white and male is seen as the default. Is this linked, do you think, with the increasing trend to Identify As, er, various other identities (if you catch my drift)? To be more special than one is if one is male and white?

A friend bought it for my birthday last year. It's infuriating, funny, insightful and scary in equal measure.

It's also inspiring. How women have succeeded and kept it all together with these ubiquitous, structural disadvantages.

It's interesting to have laid out all many of the aspect of being a woman that aren't so desirable to identify into, and ponder why that is.

I just finished it... Loved it!

It's made me think again about an issue I came across at work last year (involving important emergency equipment that is, in my opinion, completely unfit for purpose for those who don't have an average, Caucasian male sized face).
I am unsure of how to escalate it... I raised it at the time, but nothing has been done since as far as I can tell. Ironically, the industry I work in is very safety conscious but no-one else seems to see the issue!

I have experienced being told I was just mentally ill rather than physically having anything wrong with me by doctors over a health condition. I don't believe it would have taken me over 3 years and eventually private healthcare in order to get a diagnosis if I was a man, and I don't believe my gp would still ignore the factual evidence she now has in front of her telling her that I was born with an inherited genetic condition and continue to dismiss it and offer me antidepressants if I were male. I think I will get the book one day soon, but I understand that the book addresses the kind of thing I've just mentioned, and it is a touchy subject for me at the best of times. I was convinced I'd lost my marbles and it was not a good time.

Well not convinced that I'd lost my marbles...but it was like an internal battle going on in my head all the time. Am I making this up, am I imagining this, am I having a mental breakdown, am I lazy, etc, Vs no this thing is actually happening, this is real, I can't be imagining it, other people can see this, it's not just me, this is a real physical symptom, etc.

Sympathy, @BlueHarry

Anecdotal, I know, but I've had two male colleagues who've had their gall bladder removed seemingly only months after seeing a doctor. Yet many women seem to have to live with gall bladder issues for years before being taken seriously.

But I'm only up to chapter 2, in the bit discussing sexual harassment on public transport. There's a bit here: "women often aren't sure exactly 'what counts as sexual harassment and are afraid of the response of the authorities'".

We need to be teaching this in schools, don't we. This is sexual harassment: don't do it, and do report it.

But, as a woman who isn't sure what counts as sexual harassment, where do I find a list?

Remembered I could google myself:

"Sexual harassment is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature which:
• violates your dignity
• makes you feel intimidated, degraded or humiliated
• creates a hostile or offensive environment
You don’t need to have previously objected to someone's behaviour for it to be considered unwanted."

Why isn't that on posters on buses & trains?

WIBU to buy copies of this for the female leadership staff at work?

(On chapter 3, the beginning of the workplace bit & women's extra unpaid and unrecognised work. I'm sure they know all this, but wow isn't it great to have it recognised!)

Actually, maybe I'd be better off buying copies for the men...

I was thinking that...to buy it for some senior leadership people

I was talking to 2 female friends before Christmas, around the time of Maya and Harry's cases, and they - both engineers - surprised me by totally being on the TWAW bandwagon. Both were happy to give away women's rights as they didn't care / didn't use those services / hate all sports. We came to a very frosty compromise to not talk about it again. Met them both last weekend, and they had read this book. Total change! I think it was the seatbelts that did it. Stunned realisation that women's needs / rights etc are different and important, because we are different and important, and not just a smaller, weaker subset of men.

Chapter 5, on PPE why isn't this a big thing? Why are we letting women be at risk? Is this the kind of stuff WPUK and other organisations discuss and campaign for? Who can I give membership money to?

Yup, bought a copy last year; woman in local independent bookshop said it was very good and she'd just sold another copy the day before.

Dipping into it as it's packed with factual information, so I'm absorbing a bit at a time.

I've got it reserved at the library - nearly at the top of the queue, started at no. 32.

It's out in paperback on 5th March - £8 on Amazon currently. If you have to wait till then, buy your own copy. It's going to be a good reference text to keep, I think.

I got so appalled at the safety and PPE thing I've joined the Fawcett Society (after a very brief google). Hopefully my little membership contribution will help to actually make change, otherwise there's no point in being outraged.

Yep. Saw her and got it signed too. She's good to listen to if you get a chance.