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There is so much relevant, important, fascinating, and deeply troubling information here about the ways in which the world, in big and small ways, is built for white men. BUT. I have to give this book two stars for its appalling erasure of trans and nonbinary people. The words themsleves (transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming) do not even appear in this book. Not once. Nor does the word cisgender. In a book about the ways that a lack of data renders women invisible, and the ways that invisibility literally costs women their lives, it is, frankly, inexcusable that Criado-Perez does the exact same thing to trans people. In her world, apparently, trans and nonbinary people do not exist.

This does not have to be a book about trans issues. It is not a book about race, and yet, Criado-Perez includes some analysis of race in the various scenarios she examines. It is not a book about class, and yet she also includes analysis of the way class affects the various data biases she examines. There is very little analysis of queer sexualities, AND YET she manages to precede almost all the data she gives about married couples with the word "heterosexual", which at least renders queer people visible. But she does not give this same basic consideration to trans and nonbinary people.

There's a whole chapter about the accessibility of public restrooms, in which she does not consider the ways that access to restrooms specifically affects trans and nonbinary folks. There's a whole bit about gendered language, and the ways it shapes how he think and act (which was totally relevant and important) that does not even CONSIDER how gendered language might and does affect (and harm) people who fall outside the gender binary. There's a chapter on how public transit and its infrastructure (bus stations, subway stops, etc.) are not designed with women in mind. She goes into the ways in which various infrastructures are unsafe for women, and the ways in which women experience violence in public places. But she does not once mention specific violence toward trans women, or how likely trans women are to be the targets of violence.

I'd read a few reviews before I started this, so I was prepared to be upset by it, but I decided to read it anyway because I found the subject matter as a whole so compelling. But Criado-Perez's failure to even mention the existence of trans people, and people outside the gender binary, just made it nearly impossible for me to take anything she said seriously. This happens a lot in nonfiction and I'm always exhausted and angered by it. Sometimes the oversights are small enough that I still feel the book has some merit. But in a book ALL ABOUT GENDER, and specifically the ways in which ignoring gender leads to serious harm--it's just too big an erasure to get past. The irony is heartbreaking.

Do better.