CBS International Business School, 9 May 2021

Close the Gender Data Gap: Initiative for higher visibility of women

Gender Pay Gap and Gender Data Gap seem to be on everyone's lips at the moment. This debate was mainly triggered because of the book "Invisible Women. Exposing data in a world designed for men". Did you know that most offices are five degrees too cold for women? Did you know that many drugs affect women differently than men? Or that women are less likely to be involved in traffic accidents, but have a higher risk of injury? All of these phenomena are part of the gender pay gap or gender data gap. So what is the Gender data gap? The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in scientific, social, political, intellectual, and other aspects. It describes the fact that the scientific data on which our modern world is based was almost invariably collected by and for men.

"Invisible Women" - a book on Gender Data Gap

In her book "Invisible Women - How a World Dominated by Data Ignores Half of the Population", Caroline Criado-Perez describes various areas in which female needs and anatomy are not taken into account. The Gender Data Gap according to Criado-Perez' is not an intentionally created data gap, but rather the result of millennia of focus on men as human "prototypes." Women are not explicitly considered in this worldview, resulting in few gender-specific data collections. The consequences can be found in many different areas of life: Whether it is the architecture of residential or office buildings, car design, or drug dosages, Criado-Perez's book uses scientific evaluations to describe many examples of the gender data gap.

Eine Uni - Ein Buch : CBS wins funding award

Students and professors at CBS International Business School will be dealing with this exciting topic in the coming months. As part of the "Eine Uni - Ein Buch" german for ''One University - One Book'' competition, CBS won a grant of 10,000 euros for the academic examination of Criado-Perez's book. The Stifterverband and the Klaus Tschira Foundation, in cooperation with the Zeit Verlag publishing house, are holding the "Eine Uni - Ein Buch" programme for the fifth time. They are awarding prizes to the ten best ideas and activities and promoting their implementation.
The participating teachers and students have created a comprehensive plan with various events. More Info on the project can be found here.

#TheOtherHalf: Making invisible women visible!

For several months now, a team of students, employees, and professors has been offering a variety of presentations by managers and experts under the motto "#TheOtherHalf: Making Invisible Women Visible!" in order to draw attention to the problem of gender data gap. We especially thank Marina Schmitz and Silvia Damme from the Center for Advanced Sustainable Management for their great application and leadership of the project.

In addition, we would like to thank Jule Mäder, Noelle Krämer, Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Fröhlich, Prof. Dr. Anja Karlshaus, Jakob Frei, Prof. Dr. Ingvill Mochmann, Juliane Harnoth, Julia Daufenbach, Nils Ehlert, Prof. Dr. Laxmi Remer and Natalie Pontone, who actively supported us with the video for the Stifterverband.

Creating tomorrow - together

Tomorrow's society and politics should not only be shaped by one-half of the population but jointly by all - regardless of gender, origin, sexual orientation, or other characteristics. CBS is committed to this in accordance with its slogan "Creating Tomorrow".

The project team is looking forward to your participation in the events and the discussion about the Gender Data Gap and Caroline Criado-Perez's book. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Marina Schmitz at m.schmitz@cbs.de. You can find out more about Diversity & Inclusion at CBS here.

More about Gender Data Gap can be found here!

CBS International Business School

CBS International Business School is a state-recognised private university of applied sciences for business. We offer accredited Bachelor's, Master's and MBA degree programmes in German and English on a full-time or part-time basis. Throughout Germany, the university is represented at three locations in Cologne, Mainz, and Potsdam.

Download a brochure & learn more about us

Would you like to learn more about our Bachelor's and Master's programmes at home in peace? Download the CBS brochure for an in-depth look at our business study programmes.

We hope that you enjoy getting to know more about our school, study programmes and what we stand for. Follow us on Instagram & Facebook, get to know us at one of our Information Events, or Contact our student advisors to get more info.