Podcast
I’ve spent years investigating the gender data gap, and how women are simply forgotten in a world designed for men. In this new 12-part podcast series from Tortoise, I’ll hunt for missing data, get into fights with manufacturing companies and, with the help of expert guests, try to figure out how to solve such a giant problem.
When the pandemic hit, Caroline Criado Perez was inundated with messages from female healthcare workers telling her that their PPE – things like masks and goggles – didn’t fit. In this first episode of her brand new investigative series, join Caroline as she goes on the hunt for missing data and asks: can we fix PPE?
In the first Visible Women bonus episode, Caroline Criado Perez is joined by producer Hannah Varrall and data correspondent Patricia Clarke as she listens to tales of ill-fitting PPE sent in by listeners. They discuss everything from offshore survival suits to armoured bras – and how they never quite fit.
Girls around the world are being pushed to the edges of their own playgrounds – forced into corners, or under stairs, as boys dominate the space. Caroline finds the data that shows why this matters — and asks what we can do to fix it. She also whizzes down some slides in the name of research.
In this bonus episode, Caroline Criado Perez speaks to a feminist architect and urban planner about superillas – street blocks that are designed to be friendlier, more sociable and safer for children. The Visible Women team goes to investigate
Artificial intelligence has the potential to drastically improve so much of our lives. But in a world where women’s heart attacks are already systematically under-diagnosed, AI might actually be making healthcare worse for women
In this bonus episode, Caroline Criado Perez speaks to a woman called Hayley Moulding about her experience of AI-gone-wrong – and tries to get to the bottom of why voice recognition software is so bad at recognising women’s voices
If a woman is involved in a car crash, she is 17 per cent more likely to die than a man in the same crash. In this episode, Caroline investigates why, and comes up with a campaign to fix crash testing
In this bonus episode we get to hear more from Dr Tim Nutbeam, the researcher behind the finding that women are nearly twice as likely as men to get trapped in a car following a crash. Tim talks Caroline through the even more shocking sex disparity he uncovered subsequently – and explains how we nearly didn’t get to see any of this research at all
In this episode the Visible Women team try to get to the bottom of one of the world’s most trying problems: the paucity of pockets in women’s clothes compared to men’s. Caroline speaks to a pocket historian, learns to make her own pocket, and takes on some troubling mysteries
Caroline sews her own tie-on pocket and takes it on a trip around London – with nearly disastrous consequences
Caroline has spent over a decade calling for more data to be collected on women – but what happens when that data gets used against us?
We are used to hearing about “illegal” abortion in the context of the US, but there are two women currently being prosecuted for having an abortion in the UK. Do we need to decriminalise abortion in Britain?
What can we gain from breaking the taboo over periods?
Dr Noémie Elhadad tells us how her experience with endometriosis led her to create an app, PHENDO, that is now collecting data on the condition – and using AI to improve women’s lives
The standard piano keyboard is too big for 87 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men. But how did pianos end up this size? Is it time we came up with an alternative?
New research suggests many women experience repeated concussions as a result of domestic abuse. Caroline meets the people working in this under-researched area, and hears from a woman who is still recovering from her own experience
In October 1975, the women of Iceland took a “day off”. It led to national chaos, and highlighted the importance of unpaid care work in the economy. In this episode, Caroline asks whether the pandemic could be the shock we need to fix what’s perhaps the greatest gender data gap of all
Why are women’s toilet queues always longer than men’s? Caroline investigates the history of public conveniences, the impact they have on women’s participation in society and why councils and businesses seem unable to get it right
If you ask any woman whether she’s happy with her contraception, chances are she’ll say no – but that she’s settled for the best of a bad bunch. Why are our family planning options stuck in the 1960s?