Invisible woman: How we survive in a world created by men

Every woman should read this book, and men probably should, too. The exhaustive research Caroline Criado-Perez went through helped her unveil the hard reality of our male-dominated world and how it affects our everyday lives and health.

Caroline brings detailed research on how male-dominated the world we live in is. Every sector, almost everything, was initially created for and by men. The car we drive, the medicine we take, the computers we use daily, the commute, and the roads.

The impact on our daily lives

I moved out of London a year ago and love living near nature. My kids have a garden to go out to every day, and their school is in the woods. But we have to drive everywhere. And when I was reading Invisible Women, I realised why the people who designed this not-so-small town were thinking about how you could go around, but they didn't care about the walking part. And precisely as Caroline predicted, I'm mainly taking the kids around and doing the main shopping. My husband is the one who keeps working (yes, because his salary is the highest, among other things).

Luckily, I know and like driving, but sometimes I want to go for a walk.

Another thing that was shocking for me to hear was the medical part. How is it thought that the man is the default sex and the woman is the variation? Medicines are sometimes tested in men only because there's no law saying it should also be tested in women. It terrifies me to go to the doctor, and if he is a man, he might not be able to help me, not because he is incapable, but because he was trained or taught how to detect diseases, mainly in men.

My father worked in the vaccine industry his whole life, and I talked with him about this. He was 100% sure vaccines were constantly tested in both, but he couldn't find one study confirming his beliefs, and being a man, of course, he discarded my thinking immediately.
I thought this was very interesting, having conversations around this topic with men in my family. My husband was shocked, and he tried to empathise, and with a daughter on the way, I think he is more sensitive about this. Contrary to my father, who, with his background and blind eyes, trusted the industry and would never judge someone was doing something wrong. And let me tell you something: he has three daughters, one granddaughter and one on the way.

When I was a kid, he was conscious about actively helping in the house. He will do as many household tasks as my mother. He will do the cooking; she will do the cleaning. We were never told, "Girls don't do that," or "You can't be this because you are a woman". I love that about my childhood and hope to do the same for my kids. My husband didn't have that, and today, every time we go to my in-laws for dinner, I see my father-in-law sitting at the table while my husband's mother runs juggling with food, talking with people and cleaning the kitchen. He is a doctor, and I wonder what he would say if I shared this book.

Like every good book, this one got me thinking, and I want to do something about it. Womality is something we created with all these topics in mind. I want to help women thrive and have the power to be respected, valued and treated as equals.

Womality is the union of women + equality. I hope you will help me to make this as big as we want.

Thank you

Womality team.

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