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Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in an Economy Built for Men Audiobook
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An illuminating and maddening examination of how gender bias skews innovation, technology, history, and work, by Swedish journalist Katrine Marçal
It all starts with a rolling suitcase.
The wheel was invented some five thousand years ago and the modern suitcase in the mid-nineteenth century, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that someone successfully married the two. What was the hold up? For writer and journalist Katrine Marçal, the answer is both shocking and simple: because “real men” carried their bags, no matter how heavy. There were rolling suitcases before the seventies, but they were marketed as a niche product for the presumably few women traveling alone, and the wheeled suitcase wasn’t “invented” until it was no longer threatening to masculinity.
Mother of Invention draws on this example and many others, from electric cars to tech billionaires, to show how gender bias stifles the economy and holds us back. Our traditional notions about men and women have delayed innovations, sometimes by hundreds of years, and have distorted our understanding of our history. While we talk about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, we might as well talk about the Ceramic Age or the Flax Age, since these technologies were just as important. But inventions associated with women are not considered to be technology in the same way.
Katrine Marçal’s Mother of Invention is a fascinating examination of business, technology, and innovation through a feminist lens. Marçal takes us on a tour of the global economy, arguing that gendered assumptions dictate which businesses get funding, how we value work, and how we trace human progress. And it carries a powerful message: If we upend our biases, we can unleash our full potential, tackling climate change and wielding technology to become more human, rather than less.
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“A clearly needed wake-up call to future innovators not to view the world through a narrowly gendered lens but to pay attention to the skills and lived experiences of all.”
— Gina Rippon, author of The Gendered Brain
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“The joy of the book is how it manages to weave in stories of women influencing innovation in masculine spaces.”
— Science -
“Both bracing and highly entertaining.”
— Bookseller (London) -
“The author’s writing shines when she addresses perceptions of women throughout history…A must-read.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“[A] breezy read…Each chapter uses an animating story…on patriarchy, economics, and invention.”
— Booklist -
“Told in a conversational tone, this feminist directive…fascinates with its wealth of historical tidbits.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“From wheeled suitcases to witch trials, Katrine Marçal makes you look again at history in this funny, clever, and provocative book.”
— Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women -
“A smart, witty, and fascinating warning from history. I loved this book.”
— Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women -
“This is an absolute must-read. Equal parts informative and infuriating.”
— Fern Riddell, author of Sex: Lessons from History -
“Proves how male-driven technology over the ages has limited full human development by neglecting a liberating female narrative and perspective.”
— Jan Eliasson, former deputy secretary-general of the UN
Awards
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Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
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Longlisted for the Porchlight Best Business Book Award
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About Katrine Marçal
Katrine Marçal is a Swedish writer, journalist, and correspondent for the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Her first book, Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? was shortlisted for the August Prize and won the Lagercrantzen Award.