Caroline Criado Perez facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Caroline Criado Perez
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Criado Perez speaking at a conference in 2019.
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Caroline Emma Criado Perez
1984 (age 40–41) Brazil
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| Nationality | British |
| Education | Oundle School |
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| Occupation | Journalist |
Caroline Emma Criado Perez (born 1984) is a British writer, journalist, and activist. An activist is someone who works to bring about political or social change. As a feminist, she campaigns for equal rights and opportunities for women.
Criado Perez is known for her successful campaigns. She started a project to get more female experts featured in the media. She also protested the removal of the only woman (besides the Queen) from British banknotes. Her campaign led to the Bank of England putting author Jane Austen on the £10 note in 2017.
Her most recent major campaign was for a statue of a woman in London's Parliament Square. Thanks to her efforts, a statue of Millicent Fawcett, a leader in the fight for women's right to vote, was unveiled in 2018. Her 2019 book, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, became a bestseller.
Contents
Early Life and Schooling
Caroline Criado Perez was born in Brazil. Her father, Carlos, was a businessman from Argentina, and her mother, Alison, is an English nurse who worked on aid missions. Because of her family's work, she grew up in several countries, including Spain, Portugal, and Taiwan, as well as the United Kingdom.
At age 11, she went to Oundle School, a boarding school in England. After trying a history course at a university in London, she left to follow her passion for opera. She took singing lessons for a while, paying for them with money from various jobs.
Later, she decided to return to her studies. She earned a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford in 2012. While studying how language relates to gender, she became an active feminist. She then earned a master's degree in Gender Studies from the London School of Economics.
Famous Campaigns
Criado Perez has led several important campaigns to promote equality for women.
Getting Women's Voices in the Media
In 2012, Criado Perez started a website called the Women's Room. Its goal was to help journalists find female experts to interview. She noticed that news programs often only had male experts, even when discussing topics like breast cancer.
She believed that the media has a big influence on public policy. If the media only shows one point of view, it doesn't represent everyone. She wanted to make sure women's voices were heard in important discussions.
Putting Women on Banknotes
In 2013, Criado Perez started a campaign when the Bank of England planned to replace Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note with Winston Churchill. This would have meant that, besides the Queen, there would be no women on the back of any British banknotes.
Criado Perez argued that public organizations should work to end discrimination. Her campaign gained 35,000 supporters. In response, the new head of the Bank of England announced that author Jane Austen would appear on the new £10 note.
Criado Perez said of the choice: "She spent her time poking fun at the establishment. All her books are about how women are trapped and misrepresented. It is really sad that she was saying that 200 years ago and I am still having to say that today". When the new note came out, she donated her first "Austen tenner" to a local women's shelter.
Fighting Online Bullying
After the banknote campaign, Criado Perez and other women received many hateful and threatening messages on Twitter. The online bullying was so intense that she had trouble eating and sleeping.
At the time, Twitter did not have an easy way to report this kind of behavior. Criado Perez spoke out, saying that social media companies needed to do more to protect their users. Her case brought a lot of attention to the problem of online harassment.
As a result of the campaign, Twitter apologized and added a one-click "report abuse" button to make it easier for users to report harmful content. The people who sent the threatening messages faced legal consequences for their actions.
A Statue for a Woman in Parliament Square
On International Women's Day in 2016, Criado Perez noticed that all eleven statues in London's Parliament Square were of men. She thought it was time for a woman to be honored there as well.
She launched a campaign for a statue of a suffragette (a woman who fought for the right to vote) to be placed in the square. Her campaign suggested honoring Millicent Fawcett, a key leader of the suffrage movement.
The campaign was a success. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Prime Minister, Theresa May, both supported the idea. The statue of Millicent Fawcett was unveiled on April 24, 2018. Fawcett is the first woman honored with a statue in Parliament Square, and the artist, Gillian Wearing, is the first female sculptor to have her work displayed there.
Invisible Women Book
In 2019, Criado Perez published the book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. The book shows how much of the world, from technology to medicine, is designed mainly for men. This "data bias" can have serious negative effects on women's lives.
For example, crash test dummies are often based on the average male body, making cars less safe for women. The book was a huge success and has been translated into more than 20 languages.
Awards and Recognition
Caroline Criado Perez has won many awards for her work.
- In 2013, she won the human rights campaigner of the year award from the group Liberty.
- In 2013, she was also named one of the BBC's 100 Women.
- In 2015, she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her work for equality and diversity.
- In 2019, her book Invisible Women won two major awards: the Royal Society Science Book Prize and the Financial Times Business Book of the Year.
- In April 2025, she won the first-ever Unwin Prize from the Publishers Association.
See also
In Spanish: Caroline Criado Perez para niños
