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What we get wrong when we talk about the fertility crisis

Barren

'Criado Perez has a genius for seeing things that the rest of us miss' GUARDIAN 
 
What happens when the author of the bestselling, agenda-resetting phenomenon Invisible Women is hit with her own fertility crisis just as the world is becoming preoccupied with a global one – and increasingly convinced that rolling back women’s rights is the answer? 
 
We live in polarised times, but there seems to be one thing that most people agree on: plummeting birth-rates are largely the fault of women. Selfish, career-addled, cat-obsessed women. It stands to reason, then, that the answer to our baby-making problems must involve reining in these childless cat ladies. But, asks Caroline Criado Perez, what if we’ve got this all wrong? 
 
As she navigates her own fertility struggles, and arrives at a diagnosis of early menopause, Criado Perez is confronted at every turn with the wider crisis. With humour, heart and her signature deft handling of data, she takes in a fertility landscape full of punishing contradictions: women chastised for failing to procreate while poor maternity care, inflexible workplaces, inaccessible fertility treatment and incoherent policies make motherhood harder than ever. She interrogates the demonisation of menopause and our horror of ageing in a female body. And she asks: what would happen if we stopped blaming women, and started listening to the evidence? 
 
Wide-ranging, hard-hitting, myth-busting and deeply personal, Barren reveals what’s really going on in the fertility crisis – and how our response to it could determine the future for us all. 
 
Praise for Invisible Women 
'Changes the way you see the world' Sunday Times 
'Revelatory, frightening, hopeful' Jeanette Winterson 
'Criado Perez wields data like a laser' Guardian 
'A game-changer' The Times 
'Monumental' Caitlin Moran 
'Simone de Beauvoir with data' Financial Times

Caroline Criado Perez

Revelatory – it should be required reading for policy and decision makers everywhere

HELL YES. This is one of those books that has the potential to change things – a monumental piece of research

Revelatory, frightening, hopeful. A secular Bible

This book is a devastating indictment of institutionalised complacency and a rallying cry to fight back… Invisible Women should propel women into action. It should also be compulsory reading for men

Invisible Women takes on the neglected topic of what we don't know - and why. The result is a powerful, important and eye-opening analysis of the gender politics of knowledge and ignorance. With examples from technology to natural disasters, this is an original and timely reminder of why we need women in the leadership of the institutions that shape every aspect of our lives.

Invisible Women is a game-changer; an uncompromising blitz of facts, sad, mad, bad and funny, making an unanswerable case and doing so brilliantly…the ambition and scope – and sheer originality – of Invisible Women is huge; no less than the story of what happens when we forget to account for half of humanity. It should be on every policymaker, politician and manager’s shelves

Hugely readable, packed with facts and insight. An important book written with humour and flair

Here are the facts! Caroline Criado Perez shines her penetrating gaze on the absence of women from the creation of most societal norms – from algorithms to medicinal doses to government policy. Knowledge is power – we all need to know how our systems work if we want change. Arm yourself with this book and press it into the hands of everyone you know. It is utterly brilliant!

A blisteringly good book... never less than eye-opening, and frequently staggering

It’s a smart strategy to invite readers to view [a] timeworn topic through the revealing lens of data, bringing to light the hidden places where inequality still resides... Criado Perez wields data like a laser, slicing cleanly through the fog of unconscious and unthinking preferences.

It took the writer and campaigner Caroline Criado Perez to reveal the true extent of the man’s world we live in. What makes Invisible Women so compelling is the mountain of data she draws on. Data, it turns out, matters... The pervasiveness of the problem is staggering...this is a brilliant exposé that deservedly won the Royal Society science book prize

Guardian, Best science, nature and ideas books of 2019

Criado Perez comprehensively makes the case that seemingly objective data can actually be highly male-biased… Policymakers everywhere should take heed

Caroline Criado Perez brilliantly exposes the appalling gender bias that underpins the collection of data and how it’s used. From medical treatments that fail to take female biology into account, to car safety features that are designed for the male body, women are the invisible 51%. This deeply researched and passionate book is the most important contribution to gender equality in years

arguably one of the most important publications of the year

Wide-ranging and vastly well-informed, Invisible Women is a book that promises to transform the terms of the equality debate

In the Moment, **Books to Look Out for in 2019**

Anyone who doubts that we live in a world designed by and for men needs to read this book, with its implicit message that even what we’ve won so far can never be taken for granted.

Invisible Women shines a light on the gender gap in data and what every woman needs to know about it

Jaw-dropping… This book is a snapshot of the dangers of a world designed to fit a minority

Plain, detailed and almost overwhelming prose… There is no anger in Criado Perez's pages – she is too busy with evidence for that

Book that did most to change the way I thought? Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women... Perez has delivered a much needed correction: full of persuasive examples and analysis of areas from public policy, medicine, economics and elsewhere in which data have been gathered in such a way as to obscure or omit matters of most concern to women. I learned a lot

Invisible Women… is a book that changes the way you see the world

The book’s force doesn’t derive from the power of its rhetoric – instead it’s the steady, unrelenting accumulation of evidence, the sheer weight of her argument’

Caroline Criado Perez brilliantly exposes the appalling gender bias that underpins the collection of data and how it’s used. From medical treatments that fail to take female biology into account, to car safety features that are designed for the male body, women are the invisible 51%. This deeply researched and passionate book is the most important contribution to gender equality in years.

In Invisible Women…Caroline Criado Perez expounds the far-reaching consequences of the “default male” mode… She urges a realignment of priorities… [a] call to action

Ending the biases she [Perez] exposes wouldn’t just reduce inequality; it would, in some cases, save actual lives

Invisible Women is an essential handbook in the fight to build a more equal world. It’s based on enough data to satisfy even the fussiest scientist and will make you look at the world in a new light. However, the style is light enough that it doesn’t feel like hard work. Read it for yourself, then lend it to all your friends, of any gender

Perez’s analysis is wide-ranging and compelling… one of the most powerful takeaways from Perez’s book is the extent to which so much of this [gendered] bias is unconscious, such that we are all infected by it. Feminism is the process of unlearning this, but it’s an ongoing process, for all of us

An impeccably researched, determined and passionate demand for change

The depth and scope of this book will shock you… Invisible Women is an essential handbook in the fight to build a more equal world… Read it for yourself, then lend it to all your friends, of any gender

One of the most compelling books I’ve read in years

Invisible Women makes excellent points about how biased data are hidden and have pervasive negative impacts on the lives of women and girls

Criado Perez’s devastating indictment is a worthy bestseller

Few books this year are as important as activist Criado-Perez’s data crunch into the inequalities between men and women. She finds something to engage and enrage on every page

A fascinating look at the gender biases affecting our everyday lives

This book is comprehensive, well researched and thoroughly referenced with copious endnotes… [it] made me…shift my perspective

Not only a gripping but an important book… It’s funny when it’s not horrifying, deeply researched and done with real verve

Few books really change the way you look at the world. Invisible Women is one of those rarities

What makes Invisible Women so compelling is the mountain of data she draws on… a brilliant exposé

Every man should read this book… [Invisible Women] chats, in page after steely, meticulous page, precisely how the world…is designed around men, and how this puts women at an impossible disadvantage

Funny, exasperating and anger-inducing, there is something for everyone

The essential book of the year, mayhap the decade

A staggering expose of design prejudice and an impassioned call to action

Perez takes the truism that ours is a world designed for men and backs it with evidence. Impressively collating vast amounts of research

This calm, dispassionate, hilarious, entertaining, maddening, infuriating narrative is a highly readable manifesto for real change

This well-researched book turns everything we accept as normal on its head…[Invisible Women] succeeds in making a powerful case for change in a non-preachy, educative style… It is not entertainment; it is a thesis – and a powerful one at that

This incredibly well-researched and engaging book highlights how the lack of gender-focused data results in the needs of more than half of the population being ignored. The numerous examples cited by Criado-Perez – ranging from infrastructure to healthcare – are shocking and sobering… Invisible Women offers valuable insight into the transformative power of diversity and equality to drive better economic outcomes

Such an insightful book and a good read for everyone

Incredibly topical and relevant in a rapidly changing world, Criado Perez’s multi-award-winning exposé on data bias has seen her become an authority on modern day inequalities

Invisible Women...is already a classic, but I can't recommend it enough

Compelling... revelatory... Criado Perez provides bountiful evidence of her thesis

Invisible Women is highly recommended to both men and women as an incredibly readable piece of journalism... Many of you will also find you cannot put down this passionate and informative book until you've finished it... illuminating and engaging

Invisible Women is both heartbreaking and essential… This book doesn’t just ask us to do better; it provides a definitive starting point

Filled with hair raising facts and figures, [Invisible Women] investigates the jarring matter of discrepancy and representation in our modern world... make no mistake, once you begin reading, it's hard to stop

Glasgow Guardian, *Christmas Gift Guide 2020*

A deeply important and useful book... Fast, funny, angry and vital... A proper game-changer.

Criado Perez keeps the gobsmacking revelations flowing in a conversational manner, making the reader feel like she’s having lunch with a funny, knowledgeable and passionate friend

Caroline Criado Perez

Books by Caroline Criado Perez

Articles featuring Caroline Criado Perez

Books to help you fight gender inequality

Great books to give dads this Father’s Day

10 VINTAGE books to celebrate International Women’s Day

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