ŷ������

Thank you so much for mentioning this! I haven't finished the book yet but have felt frustrated with this aspect of it all throughout reading it and it's been making it hard for me to finish it. I'm happy that when I finish reading and write my own review, it won't be the only one pointing out this glaringly obvious problem.

My thoughts exactly!

Thank you! I've just started reading this book but it struck me immediately that the author deliberately erases nonbinary people. As an enby, it hurts. I want to finish it because the topic is super important but... how can you write a book about data bias regarding one gender and then completely omit the existence of another

I'm currently two hours into the audiobook currently and I'm feeling the same frustration here as a nonbinary trans girl.

The author is anti-trans (she wrote a whole article about hating the term cis, some other stuff the CUSU Women’s Campaign's brought up when they protested her at an event) so there won't be an inclusive edition.

I've barely started this book, and you've just summed up exactly how I feel about it so far.

Thank you!! I felt so alone in my review of this, and so betrayed when I eventually found out that the author is a massive TERF. So incredibly disappointing. Even if it was an ""oversight"", that's a pretty huge oversight in a book discussing how dangerous the mis-analysing / mis-interpretation / complete absence of gendered data can be. As a scientist, I feel it's just too much of a gap in the concept to be of much use, as there's a huge intersection missing that could have been SO interesting and informative. Sadly, due to the authors views, I doubt there'll be any follow-up with inclusion of this data - or at least not one massively based on the author's own bias against trans folk 🙄

This review and the comments are spot on! It would be funny that if it wasn't so disappointing... A book about the exclusion of women actually excludes many women. It is a pretty huge oversight.

AND minority groups were mentioned like 2x! If it’s not intersectional feminism, it’s still sexist. There are basically NO data on transgendered people which is WILD! We need that data at the most to at the most basic level, make transitioning a safe process. Trans ppl experience violence at a much higher rate. How was this entire group of women left out!?

Reading through other reviews I was so disappointed that most people seemed to overlook this gap 😑😑

Seeing these comments about her being transphobic makes that make more sense but how frustrating! Wish I would have known that before I read.

But it is quite clear from the intro that the book deals both with sex, as assigned at birth, e.g. when looking at medicine, tech etc - and gender, as culturally conceived, when dealing with attitudes to e.g. women in the workplace. One, other or both will apply to a lot of trans folks. I rather suspect, given the data gap that is at the very heart of the book and which covers 50% of the population, there is ANY data on those very very few people who fall between those various categories. There is a great deal to be written about the particular challenges facing transgender and other groups, sure, but in a book which will have had a word limit, and a great amount of data to cover, I'm not sure there was space to go beyond the massive issues already covered. By all means take issue, but does it really justify a one star review?

I actually gave it 3 stars initially, giving the author the benefit of the doubt for neglecting to acknowledge trans and nonbinary people unintentionally. I have since learned she is a terf, and updated my rating accordingly.

Thank you so much for bringing this to light- I had a sinking feeling the whole time I was reading re: the lack of focus on trans and non-binary identities, and was shocked to see it overlooked in many reviews. Wish I had known before I read, and would love to see more comprehensive + inclusive writings on data bias made available.

The author notes in her introduction that she would like to have more intersectionality included in the book but the data simply is not available. This does not make her action deliberate - it is a data-driven book. If we can’t get data on half the population, obtaining it for minorities and trans women is clearly even more difficult - instead of berating the author we should be asking why we do not have this data and what can we do to get it? Furthermore, large portions throughout the book are devoted to the social constructs women deal with in our male-dominated world, which trans women absolutely experience and can identify with. If we believe trans women are women wouldn’t such commentary be apropos to all women? By the standard this review expects, are the details on the bodies of biological women inappropriate and exclusionary because they do not apply to trans women? It is important to study these and it is certainly also important to study the similar details on the bodies of trans women as well.
I find the one-star review unfortunate also given the discussion on women in third-world countries. A majority of women around the world do not have the luxury of arguing whether a book is exclusionary and instead just try to not die in childbirth or not get assaulted on the way to use the restroom. These things must be discussed as they are the important and valid experiences of women in impoverished nations. Must every book be all things to all people and achieve all possible perspectives? This is an impossible task.

The counter arguments would be more believable, except the author is known to have made problematic statements and to be transphobic.
I wanted to believe it was an oversight, but the more I learned about the author the more I realised it wasn't.
If you take the statement "it is a data driven book. If we can't get data on half the population, obtaining it for minorities.... ". The data hasn't been available for cis women historically, but that doesn't excuse a book to centre on men only. Why would the same reason excuse a focus on cis women only with minimum intersectionality? It doesn't.

Lol
Funny how you refer to me as a "preop" trans woman.
STFU.

I didn't if you actually read the comment. It is just like the 70s again. Note IO haven't used rude terms - that is you.

Thanks for your review!
I've just finished reading the Preface and wasn't sure if I was overly sensitive or correctly spotted TERF rhetorics with this weird chromosomes allusion.
I will probably read the book anyways, but now I at least know what to prepare myself for, so thanks! ^-^

I have to agree with Teryn. Unfortunately, not all of the world moves at the same speed. I come from a country where women still don't have the same rights as men. So you can image, that there's no conversations happening about LGBTQ+ community at all, cause it's stil illegal! And it sucks and it's horrible and it's outrageous. But people in developed world do need to know what women face in less developed countries. As Tyren said, you can't please everyone.

I'm sorry, that's not what i meant. Of course there are members of LGBTQ+ community all over the world. What I'm saying is that, unfortunately, they unrecognised and in some countries illegal. Again, I'd like state that's horrible and unfair, and should be changed. But that is reality for a lot of people. Due to negative stigma, fear of prosecution or just simple lack of options, a lot of people won't say they belong to LGBTQ+ community. Up until I moved to the UK and then NZ I never met openly gay person in Russia.
To give you a very simple example, if you were to fill in any form in Russia and you are required to put your gender, you'll have only two option: M or F. You don't even have an option NOT to state your gender. How are you going to get data out of this? And that is a reality in a lot of counties, which would create a huge problem in. book like this.

When a civilization is heading towards doom. People forget science and technology, they concentrate exclusively on made up stuff like this review is.
Get real and see the real world.

They concentrate exclusively on made up stuff like misandry, SJWs and cancel culture.

Hi Lior. I just found out about her transphobia through a bookish account on instagram and I am appalled. I'm trying to find her statements so I can point others in the right direction in the future, but at least a simple google search isn't yielding much aside from one 2014 article. Could you point me in the direction of her statements? I'm ashamed to have been sharing this book with so many without knowing she wasn't actually an intersectional feminist. Thank you!

Thank you for sharing these! That’s atrocious. I can’t believe I didn’t know and have been blindly recommending her work. I feel terrible.

Well I’m sufficiently sickened. This is horrendous! Thank you so much for compiling and sharing all of this. These are all UK websites so I understand now why my US googling wasn’t rendering any results. Saving all of this for future reference. To think I thought CCP was intersectional and a role model.

Bizarre review

100% agree. For such a well-renowned feminist book published in 2019 to be conflating sex and gender and give off this strong of terf energy was a bit shocking to me. I was so frustrated while reading and so glad to find your review that so well articulated all my critique. Didn’t know she had a history of transphobia but the book makes sense now. Also—I was really disappointed in the lack of intersectionality and failure to acknowledge the differentiated experiences of women of different race and/or class.

What issues would you like to see addressed for trans women in this book?

Agree 100% with you Lior.

Grace Kavenaugh, I have to agree with you. I think the subject matter of the book has not been sufficiently addressed, this OP’s review focuses merely on their personal vendetta, taking an author down an account of her identity and
person. I suggest the reviewer go back to Twitter, there’s your appropriate platform.

Deleted.

Brittni wrote: "Thank you for sharing these! That’s atrocious. I can’t believe I didn’t know and have been blindly recommending her work. I feel terrible."

What exactly is "atrocious" about the article she wrote? It seems to deviate even slightly from the currently accepted party line is to be branded a heretic and burned at the stake. She is a feminist woman saying how her experiences have led her to feel a certain way about a relatively new sociological term.

The wholesale abandonment of some of the main tenets of the feminist movement by the new progressives is much more worrisome and atrocious in my humble opinion.

Sean’s comment nailed it again.

Your frustration is understandable. But that doesn't really make this book terrible, now, does it? The author might be an expert in the topic they chose to write the book in, and not being able to include things outside their domain shouldn't be held against them. Hell, non binary people should have whole books of their own on topics like these. But saying "this book about women is bad because it talks about women" doesn't make too much sense to me. And I was just scrolling through reviews since I'm considering to read it.

Thank you for this review. I picked up this as an audiobook in my local library but have been hesitant to actually hit the play button because my one fear was that it was filled with cissexism and transphobia. Guess I'm gonna sit this one out and look for better equivalents on the subject that do not overlook trans people's experience.

My issue with writing off this book because of its lack of information on trans folk, is that much of the world does not even recognize women as oppressed AT ALL. This book will deliver a far deeper understanding of the issue of sexism in the world... and then people can move on, with their new world view, and begin to recognize trans people as people, queer people as normal, etc.

This book is too important to shoot it down over this.

The segregated bathroom section discusses refugee camps specifically and how a lack of cultural understanding in their construction (not taking into account Islamic rules about women being separate from men) has led to many manyyyy refugee women being raped.

Is that worth shooting down over trans women potentially being harmed? Maybe... but maybe we should also care about the fact that thousands of refugee women are literally being raped.

You are the person who, when someone tells you about a problem they have, answers “Well, but I do have a problem too.�� This book is about how women are constantly overlooked and criticising that not every person might feel included is nothing but whining over small problems while not seeing the big ones. Besides trans people are a very, very small minority, so deal with it that you can’t include every small group

Its important to consider that feminists litterateur criticize the patriarchy. To talk about (and criticize) the patriarchy we have to use their language and thought process. In a patriarchy there are only two genders. Therefore you will find that most feminist discussions will talk only about a world with two genders. It is when we are talking about how a feminist world look like we can consider the gender binary and everything outside of it.

incredible. the problem with a book about misogyny is transphobia. this is exactly why i can't take trans right seriously, they gladly throw women under the bus to have their shining, oppressed moment

Sex and gender are interchangeable.

^ exactly! Forget the 50%, we need to focus exclusively on the .02%! (Don’t know the actual statistic, but it’s sure as hell not 1% even). How can schizophrenia be concerned a mental illness but stating you’re a woman/man when your biology says otherwise be accepted as normal? Is it more delirious to state you think you’re being chased by cops (something a paranoid schizophrenic might say) or that although you were born with a penis and XY chromosomes so therefore you’re a woman and it is HATE for everyone not to accept your alternate reality? 😆

*how can schizophrenia be considered, not concerned. Sorry for any other mistakes; my phone autocorrects perfectly correct words constantly.

Throughout the book I wondered how the shared statistics apply to queer couples, as well, since in many of those relationships, there is no "man" and "woman"...

Hi, I definetly feel you on the frustration of not seeing one single mention of trans women in the whole book (like come on I get that it makes sense to focus on the bigger picture but a mention would have been nice), but I have to disagree with you on the bathroom problem.
Reading this book has given me (a nonbinary person) a lot of data which helped me to define my stance on bathrooms. Before I thought that the answer was to make all bathrooms gender neutral and definitively break the binary, but now I realise how this stance just came from a place of first world priviledge. While making bathrooms gender neutral is definetly a helpful long run solution for solving gender polarisation and unreasonable fear of the opposite gender (men and women believe it or not are not some sort of incompatible animal breeds) it just cannot be proposed in places where patrirachy is so entrenched in colture that a woman is considered "ruined" if she goes out of the house unaccompanied. Or again, in places that are too uncontrolled and in too high criminality areas to allow for the safety of (mostly) females.
While allowing trans people to access any bathroom of choice is not a dangerous choice, gender neutral bathrooms are a solution that can be applied in only some protected situations, like first world schools and workplaces, but its like step 5 of a gender equality journey that in some places hasnt even fully got to step 1.
On a different note, Caroline Criado Perez has retracted all of her questionable writings on trans people or on the term cis, and honestly I think I can forgive her for not prioritising the needs of nonbinary and trans people on the face of what the average woman has to face in today's society (I mean she singlehandedly made the government put a woman on their banknotes, that's impressive as hell). I'm trying to write a book on Nonbinaism right now and I plan on building on top of Criado-Perez' analysis to make it look through our point of view, the data she collected makes it a lot easier to see where we queers fit in all of this oppression game. So her research is actually helping all of us

You’re literally brain dead for reading this and saying “what about trans !!!!! What about NB�� this book isn’t about them it’s about WOMEN. women are allowed to have things. Grow up. Write your own book, then, if the problem is so prevalent and important to you.

I am almost done with this book and I 100% agree with what you are saying. Its a great book but it does lack intersectionality and fails to include transgendered women and non binary folks.

Good heavens! Reading the comments on your review is sickening. I haven’t read the book, but if the people reviewing it and giving it five stars are those same ones who are so narrow minded and transphobic as to be so insulting to you, then I won’t bother!

She explicitly mentions trans women in the beginning of the book and explains her use of the words ‘gender�� and ‘sex.�� Lol

Also, the fact that there’s a lack of safe bathrooms for women globally is extremely relevant to her book. I’m confused about your comment. How is it creating problems for people who don’t fit the norm?

alyssa wrote: "You’re literally brain dead for reading this and saying “what about trans !!!!! What about NB�� this book isn’t about them it’s about WOMEN. women are allowed to have things. Grow up. Write your own..."totally agree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we always have to include these people like lmao write your own book ffs