No doubt you’ve heard about the Google search item.
Here’s a simple and powerful campaign idea from UN Women using real suggested search terms from Google’s autocomplete feature. Campaign creator Christopher Hunt, head of art for Ogilvy & Mather Dubai, offers this summary: “This campaign uses the world’s most popular search engine (Google) to show how gender inequality is a worldwide problem. The adverts show the results of genuine searches, highlighting popular opinions across the world wide web.” Each ad’s fine print says “actual Google search on 09/03/13.” While Google users in different countries are likely to get different results, a quick test shows that several of these suggested terms definitely come up in U.S. searches. Since its creation, autocomplete has become a popular device for social debate and even inspired a recent epic visual from xkcd, but these ads do a stellar job driving home the daunting fact that enough people around the world share these vile opinions that Google has come to expect them.
So I tried, and sure enough. Of course some of them will be people like me looking for nasty bullshit, but all the same.
Check out the article for what the campaign did with some. Here are the ones I harvested.
Women should not put up with this crap.
It’s kind of sad that I don’t find this surprising.
Decided to try and be positive and put in “women can…”
Output:
Women cannot
Women can’t have it all
Women cancer
Women can’t drive.
Men can…
Men can stop rape
Men canvas backpack
men can lactate
men cancer.
Hmmmm.
Did those search suggestions just now, btw.
I hope this isn’t taken as criticism or disagreement….
It’s not just where you are, it’s who you are. Google’s “suggestions” are based on a person’s search history.
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/12/google-shows-suggestions-from-your.html
If a list appears containing such phrases, it’s because you’ve entered similar terms in the past, or pages you viewed through google contained them. Those who oppose hate are looking for it to criticize it, and those who promote hate look for and want to see it.
My search history is different from others’ history, so I got different results when I tried it:
http://postimg.org/image/z2xbxvh7r/
Just because it’s fun (so the wrong word)…
Women can’t….
– have it all
– drive
– take a compliment
– be trusted
– live with them
– preach
– do pull-ups
women should not….
– be in combat
– preach
– speak in church
– work
– vote
Oh, and women need to…
– shut up
– grow up
– know about men
– stop complaining
– support each other
This is what I got (Google Canada):
Women shouldn’t… work, vote, run, wear pants.
Women cannot… be trusted, drive, have it all, live with them
Women should… serve men, be property, not wear pants, be seen and not heard
Women need to… know their place, be put in their place, shut up, grow up
For curiosity’s sake,
Men shouldn’t… eat soy, get married, cry, marry
Men cannot… be feminists, be feminists [again], be friends with women, go backwards sexually
Men should… be what they seem, weep, own women, all die
Men need to… feel needed, ejaculate, man up, be needed
Girls shouldn’t… go to college, have abs, run, lift weights
Girls cannot… be trusted, be colorblind, be trusted quotes, be colour blind
Girls should… know about guys, not be educated, be healers, act like girls
Girls need to… realize, know about boys, grow up quotes, learn to flush the toilet
Boys shouldn’t… make you cry, cry, hit girls, play with dolls
Boys cannot… hit girls, be friends with girls, [don’t] play with dolls, be trusted
Boys should… be boys, know, be boys book review, learn to cook
Boys need to… realize quotes, know about girls, grow up quotes, respect girls quotes
Not necessarily. I’ve never done a search like this before. The closest I’ve come is an image search for “women/men/boy/girl reading”. I don’t search out sites with hate to criticise. I get enough of that from what comes to me naturally. And, as you can see from searches done by different people in different countries, there’s an overlap of terms that are obviously being generated for autocomplete because they are common searches made by the general internet public. I do a lot of reading on blogs that talk about the intersection between religion and feminism, yet no religious statements appear in my results (e.g. women should not preach; women should cover their heads) but they do appear in results reported from the US and South Africa.
I recently got dumped, so decided to avoid negativity and use positive-only terms:
Women should:
Women shoulder bags
Women should be seen and not heard
Women should stay at home
Women can:
Women cancer
Women canvas shoes
Women can’t drive
Women are:
Women are from venus men are from mars
Women aren’t funny
Women are shallow
Women may:
Women may swenson
Women mayors
Women may not drive in a housecoat
Women do:
Women down jacket
Women don’t like me
Women don’t need men
Women will:
Women will rule tumblr
Women will be women
Women will rule the world
What I find most interesting here is that Google doesn’t think I’m a misogynist so much as it thinks I want to buy things from them. The “Women Will” set is unexpectedly inspiring and has put me in a good mood, although I have the sneaking suspicion that whomever wrote “women will rule the world” didn’t mean it as a good thing.
And to get the view of my own gender:
Men should:
Men should weep
Men shoulder bag
Men should talk
Men can:
Men cancer
Men can’t fly
Men canvas shoes
Men are:
Men arena
Men arena postcode
Men arena tickets
Men may:
Men Maya Angelou
Men Maya Angelou analysis
Men may tinh la gi
Men do:
Men don’t tell
Men don’t leave
Men down under lyrics
Men will:
Men willingly believe what they wish
Men willies
Men will be men
…this is outrageous. I will not stand for anyone telling me that, just because of my gender, I am unable to fly.
“Men who” is kind of funny.
Men who stare at goats
Got same/very similar results as the rest of you otherwise.
I am somewhat of a pepper geek, and I order a lot of seeds and plants on-line in order to get difficult to find or new-to-me varieties. One of the best sources of new or off beat varieties of peppers is The Chilewoman. For several years, if I googled for The Chilewoman, Google helpfully asked me if I meant “The Chileman” , which is a lovely and informative UK website. It would consistently list it above The Chilewoman’s web site every time I searched for it.
Now, when it is catalog fondling season, I obsessively go over and over what peppers are available to whittle down a list that starts in the hundreds to something that will actually fit in my garden. So, I visit The Chilewoman’s web site daily at minimum during the dark months.
And Google would still suggest that perhaps I meant Chileman, not Chilewoman.
left0ver1under:
You didn’t quite replicate the experiment. None of the examples are just the word “women”. Instead, it’s “women + linking verb (+ not)”.
If I just type “women”, I get results similar to yours. If I type “Women need” or “Women should”, however, I get the stew of misogyny. Try it again with those criteria and see what you get.
It works for other groups.
“Blacks aren’t”
… people
… humans
“Jews have” is pretty bad too.
How very odd, I ran into something like this last night. Was it to do with “women” in the search term? I can’t recall, but Ima try to find out…. nope. Damn.
But I notice this crap all the time, irrespective of the seriousness of the subject matter. Actual search results can also be crap, but I’m amazed at what popular search term completion suggestions are offered. Spluh.
“Women should not put up with this crap.”
Nor should men. Everyone needs to challenge misogyny, and we’ll be a much better society when the oppression of women is no more.
I tried a few Asperger searches and ‘Aspies can’ automatically appends can with ‘t, i.e. ‘can’t love’, ‘can’t get a girlfriend’, ‘can’t get a job’, etc.
‘Aspies do’ gives ‘don’t have emotions’ and ‘don’t have friends’.
‘Aspies should’ gives ‘Aspies should not marry’ or raises the question ‘Should Aspies have kids?’
‘Aspergers do’ gives ‘Aspergers doesn’t exist’.
It’s all pretty eugenic.
women are go:
women are gold diggers
women are goddesses
women are god’s gift to men
women are good for three things
women are good:
women are good for three things
women are good for six
women are good for nothing
women are good for one thing
women:
women of faith
women of worth
women of faith Anaheim
women quotes
Women will:
rule the world
rule tumblr
save the world
always cheat
google: “don’t be evil”
How’s that for meta?