Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women Wins the FT/McKinsey Book Prize

Caroline Criado Perez’s award-winning, Invisible Women is a well-researched exposé of the gender bias all around us. A compelling argument against the ‘default male’ policymaking, Invisible Women covers an impressive amount of ground from gender bias in medicine and technology to gender bias in urban planning and public transport.

In September this year, Criado Perez won the Royal Science Book Prize and now, Invisible Women has been awarded yet another accolade. On Tuesday 3rd December in New York, Caroline Criado Perez was presented the Financial Times and McKinsey Book Prize by Kevin Sneader, global managing partner of McKinsey. The author of Invisible Women was awarded £30,000 for winning the prize for her book which was described by Sneader as being a collection of “unassailable facts, backed by powerful stories”.

While Lionel Barber, chair of the award judges and Financial Times editor, described Caroline Criado Perez as being like, the French feminist, “Simone de Beauvoir with data”. Adding that, Invisible Women is “a stunning book that tells people about sexism that is hiding in plain sight. The data Criado Perez marshals are overwhelming and her call for action is compelling.”

This win for Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women marks the 15th edition of the Business Book of the Year Award, which was first presented in 2005. It is also only the third time a woman has won the prize after Esther Duflo who snatched the title alongside her co-author Abhijit Banerjee for Poor Economics in 2011, and Amy Goldstein, who won in 2017 for Janesville.

In response to her win, Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women and the activist responsible for getting Jane Austen on a £10 note, wrote on Twitter, “I know people always say they didn’t expect to win but I really thought I had no chance against all the amazing other authors. Just blown away.”

Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez is available in Hardback and eBook in bookshops and online now, with the paperback to be published in March next year.