Google Search Has Gender Issues…
Listed below are some frequently searched terms, with gender stereotypes and sexist phrases underlined in red. This doesn’t mean that the search engine itself is prejudiced, it just serves as a reflection of the sexism still prevalent in our society.
So, women can be either nice or successful, but never both?
Note: “Nice Girls Finish Fat” is a book title
Does that mean husbands can’t be good advisors?
Where did this chair obsession come from?
Note: “Women Fly When Men Aren’t Watching” is a book title.
The chair thing is physical and has something to do with the center of gravity. Standing in a certain posture, women can lift a chair but men can’t.
Try googleing the same phrases.
men cant
men shouldn’t
men will never
It isn’t women it’s everyone, and it isn’t google it’s the internet.
We already had included “men can’t,” but added “men shouldn’t.” The phrase “men will never” didn’t really render many results. Anyway hopefully we’ve cleared the confusion that “This doesn’t mean that the search engine itself is prejudiced, it just serves as a reflection of the sexism still prevalent in our society,” for both genders.
The chair thing is actually kind of neat. The other things are scary, especially the silent in church thing.
On another note have you ever tried just “I am” One of the first results is hilarious.
“I like to” is pretty great too. Where did the top 2 results even come from?
You should have included a “women aren’t” photo. Then you would find great tidbits like “women aren’t people.”
Even more disturbing is googling the percentage of women…
Context is key, and you often lose it when you come up with good search terms or phrases. Imagine forgetting the title of a controversial satire like A Modest Proposal and trying to search for it online. “Selling children as food to the wealthy” might be a likely phrase to enter into Google. Now, imagine if you saw that over someone’s shoulder, and you didn’t know they wanted to find Jonathan Swift’s controversial essay or maybe didn’t even know it existed. That would be a little frightening to say the least. Often, these strange suggestions from Google are based on searches for quotes from sources with some sort of satirical or comedic slant.
Now, I’m not saying that’s the reason for every single questionable search suggestion. I don’t doubt that some people believe ugly, nasty things and are looking for like-minded stupidity for validation. However, don’t assume everybody searching for those things are doing so because that’s what they believe. You’re likely missing their context.