This is 99% invisible. I am Roman Mars.

Today's show is about a design flaw that might be, and I'm not exaggerating here,

the single most common design flaw in human history. It potentially affects everything we have

ever built. Its consequences are felt by more than half of people worldwide. And most people

don't even notice it, but that's changing thanks in no small part to the work of one woman.

My name is Caroline Criado-Peres. I am a writer and activist who has written an incredible book.

My book is called Invisible Women Exposing Data Biasts. No, wait, sorry, that's the British

title. What the f*** is the American title? The copy I have is called Invisible Women.

Data bias in a world designed for men. I know that British people swear more than American people.

Is this a non-swery podcast? Well, you can swear all you like. We will probably bleep it.

Okay, I'll try to keep it to a minimum. And honestly, Caroline Criado-Peres has good reason to

swear, because this design flaw, in addition to being everywhere, is really annoying. But like so

many of the worst design flaws, it can be hard to notice at first. To demonstrate just how hard

Caroline started off by telling me a story that begins with a joke about gender.

So basically, in this town called Costco and Sweden, they were doing a gender analysis of all

their local town policies. And someone said, well, obviously, snow clearing won't have anything

to do with gender. And it does sound on the face of it ridiculous. How can snow clearing have

anything to do with gender? After all, the city of Krollsgoga plowed its streets the way you'd

think all cities would plow their streets, starting with the major arteries followed by local roads

and sidewalks. It seemed about as genderless as you could get. But actually, it turned out this

was heavily related to gender, because male and female travel patterns are not the same.

Men are far more likely to travel in a fairly simple way, using a car for a twice daily commute

...