Book review: Do It Like A Woman... And Change The World

Caroline Criado-Perez

Running through just a handful of instances from the frighteningly long list of gender inequalities Criado-Perez documents makes for maddening reading. Like the fact doctors are less able to recognise heart attack symptoms in women because they differ from those in men, or that university entry requirements in China are routinely tougher for women, or that thousands of girls are sold into marriage when they’re still children every year.

And yet this book isn’t wholly depressing. Far from it. Criado-Perez, an activist who faced months of misogynistic abuse in 2013 when she started a campaign to get a female historical figure reinstated on a British bank note, chooses to focus on the pioneers who, defiant in the face of sexism, are fighting to change the status quo — and not just in a white, western setting.