Our project group, Count Us 2! WA, is made up of women whose curiosity was sparked after reading Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed For Men, a book by Caroline Criado Perez. In her book, we learned about surprising and costly impacts that conventional data-gathering practices can have on women - impacts that cross racial and socio-economic lines. These practices have long ignored data on women, and negatively affect women, including things like: 

•  safety in car accidents

•  park planning

•  medical practices

•  personal protective equipment

•  financial planning

•  even snowplowing.

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We wanted to do something about it!

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We discovered that by changing the way data is gathered and analyzed, we could

• help save lives; 

• help assure public policy decisions look at more than age-old assumptions that say that female needs are the same as male needs;

• enlist support for the voices of BIPOC;

• save public funds, and in many cases, prevent injuries; 

• rest easier at night knowing real equality may be closer at hand!

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We are seeking to pass a bill that requires any entity using state funds to collect data, to break down the data collected by gender and race. This will assure that the experiences, needs, and wants of women and BIPOC would be acknowledged and accounted for instead of being hidden in the aggregation of data, currently used most often.

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We're developing this website to inform folks about the issue of data bias, how it affects us all, and to update items relevant to passage of legislation. We're also hoping you'll reach out to us with questions or suggestions! You are welcome to join us! 

 

If you’re wondering how you might get involved in this awareness-building campaign, we welcome your help.

• Suggest Invisible Women as a group’s next read

• Share personal examples of data bias in your life/workplace/community

• Raise the topic of data bias at forums and groups that you participate in

• Mail information to local officials in your community

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These are among the ways you could help grow this grass-roots effort! Join us and we will work together to get things done!

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Help us get COUNTED, 2!!