Caroline Criado Perez is sadly spot on to highlight that we are collectively undervaluing both paid and unpaid work by women.
Although there’s some talk of the enormous value of women’s unpaid work, in homes, families and societies, there’s far from global recognition and subsequent action.
And on women’s paid work, I still see an assumption in many circles that either there’s not a real issue, or that it’s in “other companies”, or that we’ve largely resolved it.
We so haven’t.
The evidence goes far beyond wage disparities or senior representation in company life. It gets a lot more dangerous, carries a much higher real *and* opportunity cost, and is a lot more insidious and hidden-in-plain-sight than that.
If it were truly valuing women’s paid work (heck, if we were truly valuing women), we wouldn’t have the travesties that Jacqueline de Rojas alludes to in her wonderful article “Who is writing our digital future? And why that matters”.
Excerpt – “Police stab vests are not built for humans with breasts. [just stop right there and think about the implications of that!] … Why are offices and meeting rooms on average 5 degrees too cold for women? Why is is that we do not know that female heart attacks have different symptoms than male heart attacks and that women are more likely to die from heart attacks due to unequal treatment? Why is it that most drugs are tested on male mice versus female mice, leading to incorrect dosages being dished out to women?”
Read Jacqueline’s article. And buy and read Perez’s “invisible Women”.
ESPECIALLY if you’re a man.
Buy the book here and you’ll support local bookshops. Our affiliate commission goes to a microloan fund to support female small business owners in developing countries.
Or I guess you could buy it somewhere else to fund 0.5 ml of rocket fuel to feed a man’s obsession with getting himself into space.