Invisible Women

Last weekend I attended the first edition of the Portuguese Women In Tech Bookclub. I think of myself more as Portuguese than as a woman in tech, even though I’m not Portuguese, and I actually work in tech. I know -- we can make a whole debate starting from here. 

It was terrific. Inês and Liliana gathered over 35 women to participate in a very structured discussion about Caroline Criado Perez’s book Invisible Women.”

The concept of the book club is like any other: to read books and to meet (online) to discuss them. In addition to a regular book club, PWIT - together with their corporate partners - also gifted every participant with a book of their choice from the four books proposed for the book club. The women in this community are predominately Portuguese, however, the group is international -- with Portuguese women living abroad and some international women having Portuguese background joining, too. There's also a WhatsApp group used to talk about other books and some feminist topics. Some women knew each other already, some others barely knew another person. Like me.

I first met Liliana 5 years ago in Porto, back when FES Agency was in its beginnings, so I admired how she grew the company and then launched PWIT together with Inês. I couldn’t miss the opportunity of joining one of their activities. 

Here are my main takeaways after reading the book and participating in the book club:

1. There are still differences in how society treats women and men; even though I hear many men saying “this is no longer nowadays, you can vote, you have leading roles, etc.”. The differences reflect on a deeper level. Did you know more women are more likely to die of heart attacks compared with men? And it's simply because their symptoms (indigestion, nausea, fatigue, and restlessness) are not the same as the ones men have (pain in the chest and down the left arm). Due to this unaccounted difference, doctors tend to misdiagnose women.
2. Data is amazing and is the most persuasive argument we have in 2020 (be it for business or social cases). However, it matters how you collect, clean, analyze, and interpret data. Every step is essential. The amount of references and studies, Perez used for documenting and writing her book is impressive (93 studies only in Introduction).
3. The case with this type of discussion and feminism is not that men are the oppressors of women. Gender bias is embedded in women as much as it is embedded in men. What we talk about is called patriarchy and all the inherited assumptions that make us all judge women differently. Reading and talking with people, being curious about how others experience the world, is what helps us designing a more inclusive world.

I must say that book clubs never worked for me; I am too much of an independent reader with my rhythm and interests. Reading and having discussions - also when you don’t agree with people - are both good for one’s mind, so book clubs can enable both of these activities in one. So of course, two hours spent in the first edition of this bookclub challenged me, too. The next book in the book club is The Woman's Hour by Elaine F. Weiss.

 TL;DR Read books, read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.