Mother of Invention: How Good Ideas Get Ignored in a World Built for Men – Marcal Katrine (2022)

Bestselling author Katrine Marçal reveals the shocking ways our deeply ingrained ideas about gender continue to hold us back. Every day, extraordinary inventions and innovative ideas are sidelined in a world that remains subservient to men, but it does not have to be this way. From the beginning of time, women have been pivotal to society, offering ingenious solutions to some of its most vexing problems. More recently, women have transformed the way we shop online, revolutionised the lives of disabled people and put the climate crisis at the top of the agenda. Despite these successes, we still fail to find and fund the game-changing ideas that could alter the future of our planet, giving female founders just 3% of venture capital. Instead, ingrained ideas about men and women continue to shape our economic decisions, favouring men and leading us back to the same tired set of solutions. For too long, we have underestimated the consequences of sexism in our economy and the way it holds everyone back. Katrine Marçal’s blistering critique sets the record straight and shows that, in a time of crisis, the ingenuity and intelligence of women may be exactly what can save us.