Without intending to consciously, I find myself reading what I think of as feminist literature. Years ago I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. I’ve started to get back into science fiction and decided to read it’s sequel, The Testaments. I started reading it on Saturday and just finished it.

On Saturday, I read about another feminist speculative fiction novel entitled Red Clocks by Leni Zumas. It’s about a future where “abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo.” This dystopia seems a little closer and a little scarier. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I don’t remember where I learned about it, but yesterday I started reading Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez. It’s already eye opening. The ideas aren’t all that new to me, but it is giving me a perspective I didn’t have before. Here is an example from the introduction.

The presumption that what is male is universal is a direct consequence of the gender data gap. Whiteness and maleness can only go without saying because most other identities never get said at all. But male universality is also a cause of the gender data gap: because women aren’t seen and aren’t remembered, because male data makes up the majority of what we know, what is male comes to be seen as universal. It leads to the positioning of women, half the global population, as a minority.

Obvious, but somehow I had never realized how ridiculous it is to refer to women as a minority as they are half of the population. I’m looking forward to learning even more as I read.